The Feast Day of the Visitation and the Reminder that So Much More Is Possible

Today is the Feast Day of the Visitation, the feast day that celebrates Mary, pregnant with Jesus, going to be with Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  We could celebrate this feast day in any number of ways:  we could celebrate intergenerational support for each other, the ways that God doesn't abandon women who are on the margins of society, the ways that improbable situations can be harnessed for hope, and the hospitality that is evident on so many levels (the wombs of the women, Elizabeth welcoming Elizabeth).

The story in Luke leaves questions, of course.  Did Mary travel alone?  How did she stay safe?  What did Mary and Elizabeth talk about in the month (months?) that she was there?  Why did she leave before Elizabeth gave birth?  What did Joseph think about all of this?  Was Joseph even part of this narrative?

We get more of Joseph's perspective in the gospel of Matthew.  What I love about this feast day, however, is that it's focused on the women.  We don't have much celebration of women in the Christian tradition.  We should hold on to what's here, in addition to looking for ways to add more women to our celebrations.

I love this story because it reminds us that God doesn't choose those who are already ready and waiting for the call.  Imagine how many lives could have been changed if the earliest Church had emphasized this aspect of a call, this being worthy in God’s eyes even if one is not worthy in the world’s eyes. Imagine if we had centuries of the message that God loves us before we’ve done anything special at all, and even if we never live into our full potential in the eye’s of our society, God will see our value. 

Imagine if the church had given emphasis to Elizabeth, along with Mary.  I love the message that we're not too old, that our hopes and dreams might be answered after all.  We're not cast away if we're not a young woman, like Mary, with years ahead of her to be of service to God.  The definition of fertility enlarges.  

On Sunday, we heard that God doesn't call the equipped, but God equips those that God calls.  There's a bit of troubling theology here.  I believe we're all called, over and over again, a wide variety of calls.  God offers us invitations, and even if we say no, God will return with more invitations.  And when we say yes, God has resources, even if we don't.  We might even discover that we have all that we need.  God may not need to equip us at all.  Our weaknesses might turn out to be strengths.

It's a great day to celebrate those possibilities.  And even if we've been feeling like our time is passed, that it's too late for us, it's great to remember that God doesn't see us that way.  If we feel like we're too inexperienced, that we don't know what we're doing, it's great to remember that God doesn't see us that way.

It's great to remember Elizabeth's blessing:  "Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill the Lord's promises to her!” (Luke 1:  45, NIV, gendered language corrected).  Elizabeth gave Mary this blessing, but I believe it extends to us all, if we're open to the idea that with God and community, so much more can be possible than if we rely on our solitary selves.

Camp Counselors, the Young and the Old

On this past Sunday of interesting juxtapositions, our regular church service was a celebration of Pentecost and a blessing of/introduction to counselors from the nearby camp, Lutheridge, where I have a house in the residential section.  

The church sanctuary was full, even fuller than it had been the week before, when we celebrated 60 years of the church's existence.  Part of that was the presence of all of the counselors, about 60 in all.  Some of the people at church seemed to be visiting--it is a holiday week-end, after all, the 3 day week-end kind of holiday.

Some of us in the congregation had worked at Lutheridge, and many of us have supported Lutheridge in a number of ways.  Given that, I was surprised by how many people in attendance on Sunday hadn't been involved with Lutheridge, even though the entrance to the camp is less than a mile than the entrance to the church.  Not for the first time have I thought about how all the various types of church work live in siloes that never interact and how sad that is, how those siloes never communicate except for asking for money.  Sigh.

But today, let me not unpack that idea further.  No, today, let me celebrate these camp counselors.  I am awed that there are still people who make the decision to spend a summer at camp, living in such very different circumstances than their peers (eating camp food, sleeping in tents, hiking all day, going up and down and up and down the hill, working/living with children).  When I was young, my dream was to work at Lutheridge--back then, there weren't enough counselor spots for all the people who had those dreams.  Now the situation is different.

I found a counselor job at a Girl Scout camp, Camp Congaree, which gave me similar but different opportunities.  I got to be a backpacking counselor.  I spent the summer with mostly women and girls, which is a kind of community that works for me, although I didn't realize it then in the way that I do now--and to be fair, we weren't living in that community in the best ways that we could, not living it in the ways I idealize now.  

Maybe no community is living its best self--that's probably the lesson I should remember from all of my years of studying and creating intentional community.

But camp counselors have a head start, in that they're a self-selected group.  And the group that we blessed on Sunday has an additional motive--they're here at Lutheridge to help with the spiritual formation of children, in addition to all the other kinds of formation that they will do.

They look so young to me, and yet, at the same time, in my head, I'm closer to their age than my own.  In real life, I am the same age as their parents, many of whom were also camp counselors.  Those camp counselors are just starting life as adult selves (adult-ish?).  I am having a hard time believing I am as old as I am, but I am much closer to my senior years than my childhood years.  Time in my head wrinkles and crunches and has a few rips here and there.

This summer, I will do more at summer camp than attend a week as an adult or a camper.  I'll deliver mail, lead middle schoolers in a week of Bible study, and perhaps assist in the camp store.  It's going to be an interesting summer, a mix of a seminary class that I'm taking, online classes that I'm teaching, and camp life.  It will be the first summer where I won't be suffocating in the intense heat.  Hopefully, it will be the first of many magnificent mountain summers.

Sacrifice and Memorial Day

Today I am thinking about Memorial Day, about sacrifices, about what is worth the sacrifice and what is not.  I am thinking of U.S. soldiers, of course, as this day is designed to have us do.  I am thinking of people fighting in Ukraine, where the stakes must feel higher if one is Ukrainian.  Why would Ukrainians settle with Putin?  They must know that they would only have to fight again.

This morning I was thinking about Christianity, about a God who makes the sacrifice of taking on human flesh, who comes to be with us to show us how to live a God soaked human life.  I'm thinking of crucifixion, not as a required sacrifice, not in the substitutionary atonement theology kind of sacrifice, but as the price of taking on the Roman empire and the power structures they sanctioned.

I am thinking about sacrifices, the kind we make for each other, the kind we make for our larger communities, the kind of sacrifices we might feel compelled to make for a country.  I'm thinking about Christian martyrs, from Christ onward, and I'm wondering what martyrdom looks like in the 21st century (Christian martyrdom or other types).

I'm also thinking of our current year in the U.S., how so few seem willing to sacrifice anything.  I'm also thinking about the fact that the U.S. is such a death denying culture.  We don't want to think about death, we don't want to think about what might be required of us, unless we could be super heroic somehow and still live to tell the tale.

It's a good day for gratitude, for people who have been willing to do what must be done, for those who have done their part in preserving freedoms that we currently enjoy, and for those who thought they were honoring their country, even when their sacrifice seems futile or worse (idiotic or delusional) to future generations.

Here's a prayer I wrote for Memorial Day:

God of comfort, on this Memorial Day, we remember those souls whom we have lost to war. We pray for those who mourn. We pray for military members who have died and been forgotten. We pray for all those sites where human blood has soaked the soil. God of Peace, on this Memorial Day, please renew in us the determination to be peacemakers. On this Memorial Day, we offer a prayer of hope that military people across the world will find themselves with no warmaking jobs to do. We offer our pleading prayers that you would plant in our leaders the seeds that will sprout into saplings of peace.

Pentecost Promises

The third great church holiday is upon us, although many of us don't think about Pentecost that way.  We don't give Pentecost gifts.  We don't go out to buy our special, new Pentecost outfits--although we may pull out our red clothes.  We don't have food that we only eat on Pentecost.

Perhaps, though, we'll have a birthday cake for the church at coffee hour.  Perhaps there will be confirmands.  Maybe we've decorated the church in special ways.  Will there be streamer sticks or fans or something else to remind us of the great rush of wind?

Lately, I've wondered if we're taking some of the power out of Pentecost.  Are we cheapening the festival by these efforts?

I worry that we get lost in our decorating and art projects, as fun as they are.  I worry that we forget about the message of Pentecost.  It's not about transforming the surfaces of our worship spaces, much as they might need that.  It's about getting us out of our worship spaces to go out to transform the world.  No wonder we throw ourselves into our decorating projects.  The true mission of Pentecost makes us too uncomfortable to bear.

Pentecost is the holiday designed for discomfort, a celebration that should stir us to get up off the couch to go out and do great things. We learn about Pentecost in the book of Acts, after all, not the book of Sleeping Late. Perhaps that’s why so many of us approach Pentecost with a bit of apprehension. Throughout church history, we’ve seen what the presence of the Holy Spirit can do, even in the most improbable settings.

If we let the Holy Spirit loose in our home churches, what might happen? If we trusted in the transforming power of God, what changes might we see, both in our individual lives and in the lives of our church bodies? How might our local society and the larger world be different? The answers to those questions might scare us.

Maybe the answers don't scare us, so much as the thought of the effort involved makes us tired before we've even started.  But Pentecost assures us that it's OK.  God comes to us where we are.  We don't already need to be perfect believers.  In fact, the Bible is full of the wonders that God creates with the most imperfect people.  You likely wouldn't choose the 12 disciples if you were choosing a team to transform your church or business.  But Jesus showed us what was possible from a ragtag group of unlikely leaders.

Pentecost reassures us with the mystical promise of the Spirit. We do not have to know what we are doing; we just need to be open to the movement of the Spirit. Pentecost promises daring visions; we don’t have to know how we’re going to accomplish them. God will take care of that.

God became incarnate to prepare humans to carry on the work of Kingdom creation. And Pentecost reminds us of our job description, to let the Holy Spirit blow into our hollowed out spaces and to fill us with the fire to dream and the resources to bring our visions to life.

Pentecost Eve

Tomorrow is Pentecost, which means today is Pentecost Eve.  My holiday combining side wants to ask what treats we'll leave out for the Holy Spirit.  My cynical side says that most of us don't want to invite the Holy Spirit into our lives for fear of all that will need to change.

I've often thought that the imagery we use for Pentecost makes it hard for us--wind and fire are change agents to be sure, but few of us welcome their intrusion into our lives.  I'll spend this Pentecost Eve thinking of a different set of metaphors.  A few years ago, I wrote an article for Gather magazine that imagined God as quilt group, Holy Trinity as quilt group, and I said this about the Holy Spirit:  "The Holy Spirit is a quilt group member, too. The Spirit is the one who comes to us with support and information about the quilt shows that the Spirit calls us to enter. The Holy Spirit, an encourager, believes in our creative powers, even when we’re less sure ourselves."

Next Sunday I'll be preaching for the first time at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Trinity Sunday.  Let me remember to return to that article as I prepare my sermon.

But before next Sunday comes tomorrow, Pentecost.  And today is a good day to return to the Pentecost narrative, the end of Luke, the beginning of Acts.  On the eve of Pentecost, those believers didn't know what was about to happen. I imagine that they felt at loose ends. Christ was with them, then crucified, then with them again, then gone. What now?

Many of us may feel like those disciples--we've experienced a time of exhausting change, from the pandemic, from political shifts, from a war in Europe, from collapses of various sorts.  It's no wonder that we have no patience for this story about wind and fire and upheaval.  We've had quite enough of that.  

Maybe we have been feeling that we're in a post-Ascension, pre-Pentecost time. Maybe one mission has come to an end, and we're not sure what to do next. Maybe we're still recovering from a time of grief and loss. Maybe our favorite leader has left. Maybe we're casting about for a project that could set our hearts on fire.

Pentecost promises us that we won't be adrift forever. At some point the Holy Spirit will come, brimming with suggestions and opportunities, and we'll be able to do more than we ever dreamed possible.

The American Popular Song

Last night, my mom and dad took me to the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra--what a treat!  They have season tickets, and I happened to be visiting during the time of the last concert of the season, so they got me a ticket, even though it meant they had to shift seats.  Luckily, it wasn't a huge shift, since it was from one side of the balcony to the other.  I'd have felt bad if they had to give up front row seats for me.

Michael Butterman, the conductor/music director, put together works that went together exceptionally well from composers Alberto Ginastera, Maurice Ravel, Aaron Copland, and George Gershwin.  The Ginastera and Copland pieces were from dances, with four pieces each.  The Gershwin piece was "Rhapsody in Blue," which I'm guessing is a popular choice this year, as the piece approaches its 100th birthday.  It's a piece that is so popular that some have called it the most famous piece of classical music ever (see this episode of the 1A show for more information on the piece and the composer).

Much of it is familiar, in part because it's used in advertising, from airlines to beef (one of the Copland pieces was "Hoe-Down" which made me think of the "It's what's for dinner" campaign, which always made my mouth water, even when I was a vegetarian).  I also realize that this kind of program is aimed at people like me, people who grew up hearing classical music from a variety of sources, from my parents' collection, in church, and the background music of TV shows (cheaper than hiring a team to write original music).  The house was packed in part because it was the last offering of the season, but in part because people like me have heard of these composers (except for Ginastera perhaps) and knew that we'd have an enjoyable evening.

As if to prove my point, when the guest pianist Jon Nakamatsu came out to play an encore, he played "The Entertainer" from the 1970's movie The Sting.  Almost everyone in the audience was old enough to recognize it, and there was a laugh as he began.  As he played, I remembered learning the piece in elementary school, where we would have contests to see who could play it faster.  When we did that at church, we got some strange looks for playing such secular music on church pianos or perhaps it's because we played it at such breakneck speed to show off.

It was a marvelous evening, full of great music and interesting instruments, in a space small enough to see what was happening on the stage, but modern enough to have great acoustics.  It was also the day after Tina Turner died, and it was interesting to read retrospectives and tributes on the same day that we went to the symphony, interesting to think about the American popular song, how we've expanded the idea of American and song and popular, interesting to think about what makes good music accessible to a wide variety of people.

A Walk on the Virginia Capital Trail

 Yesterday, my dad and I went out for a walk.  On the face of it, it's not a remarkable statement:  my dad and I have exercised together through the years, usually with a walk or a run, and we're both able to move right now, to walk but not run (I have arthritic feet, and he has an Achilles heel injury that persists and persists).  The weather was beautiful, somewhat rare for late May in Virginia in a time of global climate change:  warm but not too hot, not humid at all, a slight breeze. 

We went to the Virginia Capital Trail that runs right outside of their house.  We could have walked all the way from to Richmond, if we had energy enough and time.  Instead, we walked a few miles towards Jamestown and then back.  We shared the road with bicycles and a few other walkers.  The paved trail was wide enough for us all.

I can imagine that if a Saturday had gorgeous weather, the trail might get crowded, but it's a trail for everyone, regardless of the speed they're going, the people and pets with them, the types of vehicles they might use (bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades, etc.).

It covers 55 miles, so it goes through various municipalities.  I asked my dad if all the various governments support the trail, and he said yes.  As we walked, debt ceiling negotiations raged (or were they stalled) in D.C., not very far to our north.  We seem to be in an age where many people go into government not to make the world better, not to make government more efficient, but to make government come to a crashing halt.

There's also a lot of citizen support for the trail, people who volunteer to keep an eye on parts of the trail, people who show up to clean up parts of the trail.  It runs along a state road, 5, and I was surprised by the lack of litter.  Some of that is the volunteer force, but some of it might be because State Route 5 doesn't have much development beside it--no fast food places to give people food wrapped in future trash.

I know this, because I traveled on State Route 5 on Tuesday, and I saw the trail that ran beside it, back before I knew that the trail had a name and an infrastructure.  That afternoon, too, was beautiful, and I was not surprised to see lots of bicycles.

We stopped along the way to look at fallen trees, to look at a creek where a turtle sunned, to look at my dad's health statistics on his smart watch.  We walked at a decent pace but not enough to leave us breathless or aching.

 Part of the joy of yesterday's walk was knowing that we won't always have these near-perfect conditions, both in our bodies and in our surroundings.  Part of the joy was in the visible reminder that people can come together to create and protect a beautiful thing like a trail or a bridge.  Part of the joy was realizing that although the world is changing, and will always change, we might be able to muddle through.

A Different Destination from a Different Direction

 In some ways, it was a typical week, although this kind of week won't be typical much longer; yesterday I had a long car trip (by long, I mean over 4 hours).  It was a long car trip, but it was to a different destination from a different direction.

Yesterday I left our Lutheridge house to drive to Williamsburg, Virginia to spend some time with my parents before my summer schedule intensifies.  I wrote out the directions on a sticky note, which I stuck to my phone.  I am not one of those people who trusts that I will always be able to access GPS, and I've gotten lost enough times by relying on my memory of the directions I had read a few days ago to know that I must write out the directions in full enough sentences that they won't be confused for a grocery list/beginning of a poem.

I drove the parts of I 40 going east, the parts that I've only traveled twice before, once as a high school student going from Knoxville to do a college visit at Lenoir-Rhyne and once traveling with one of my best high school friends, going from Raleigh back to Knoxville for our 20 year high school reunion).  Then I got on I 85, an interstate I traveled back in college when I went from Newberry, South Carolina to my parents' house in northern Virginia.

I was surprised by the lack of development in this area which seems like it should be a major travel corridor as we go from North Carolina to Virginia.  Instead, I traveled through dappled forests, half expecting to see a soldier from a past century emerge from the shadows.

I took back roads to Williamsburg, a route which seemed so underdeveloped that I pulled over and plugged the address into my phone and let Google Maps direct me through the exact same directions in handwriting on the note stuck to my phone.  As I approached the James River, I thought, am I taking the route that will have me take a ferry?  Happily, there was a drawbridge, small by modern measurements, but sturdy.

On the way back, I'll enjoy the ride more--yesterday I felt a bit impatient to get there, and a bit anxious that I would end up in some strange part of Virginia, lost in a swampy coastline.  But happily, my directions yesterday got me to my parents' house.  

I went with them to be part of the group that goes to the memory care unit once a month to sing to the residents.  We start in front of a group that has no clue who we are or why we are there, but their faces are friendly.  We sing songs from the early part of the twentieth century, songs like "Bicycle Built for Two" and "Ain't She Sweet," and songs that celebrate the U.S., like "God Bless America," and we end with a service song from each branch of the military.  By the end, everyone is singing, mouthing words, and/or tapping their fingers.

I knew all of the songs--years of elementary school choir classes taught me all sorts of songs.  The experience did make me think about today's children who will likely grow up with a base of fewer communal songs to sing.  What will make them tap their fingers when they're in the memory care unit?  And the younger generation who comes to sing for/with them--how will they learn the songs?

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel (Pentecost)

 The readings for Sunday, May 28, 2023:

First Reading: Acts 2:1-21

First Reading (Alt.): Numbers 11:24-30

Psalm: Psalm 104:25-35, 37 (Psalm 104:24-34, 35b NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

Second Reading (Alt.): Acts 2:1-21

Gospel: John 20:19-23

Gospel (Alt.): John 7:37-39



Ah, Pentecost, day of fire and wind and foreign languages.

Contemplate how much of Scripture circles around the breath of God. Reread Genesis--creation comes into being because God breathes it into life. Something similar happens in the Gospel of John. Jesus breathes on his disciples and transforms them. Likewise in Acts--that great rushing wind. For those of you in love with words and older translations, we often find the same word in these passages: Pneuma (yes, that root that creates our modern word of pneumonia).

The twenty-first century church, at least some branches of it, is in serious need of the breath of God. Perhaps you are too.

I often think of those first followers, who went out with the breath of God in them, and transformed the world. In the history of social movements, few have been as broadly successful as Christianity. My atheist friends would chime in that few have been as destructive--we both may be right. What an unlikely story: a small band of weirdly talented or distinctly ungifted men and women head out in pairs, carrying very little with them, and they survive enormous obstacles. In the process, they change the culture--and often, then, they move on. Think of the distances that they travelled--often on foot. Think of how hostile the culture was. You wouldn't be able to suspend your disbelief if you read it in a book.

The breath of God can transform us in the same way. Jesus transfers his powers to his disciples; we're given the power to do what he does. Now, if only we could believe it.

Maybe the key is to act as if you do believe it. You can do remarkable things, even if you don't feel like you can.

We're at a point in history that may prove to be a pivot.  Plagues and pandemics have often transformed societies in ways that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.  We're in a time of political upheaval--it's possible that we dream of a society transformed for better and achieve it, precisely because of the upheaval.  Many people are already considering how to use this moment in history for their own purposes.  How can we use this moment to create a society that's more in line with the vision that God has for us?

Maybe the thought of transformation exhausts you in the best of times.  Maybe the question of transformation threatens to overwhelm you.  Maybe you are already drowning.

So let's begin from a much simpler place.  In a time of a new disease that attacks the lungs, let's focus on our breathing.  In his new book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, researcher James Nestor points us to a study showing that breathing in for 5-6 seconds and breathing out for 5-6 seconds can help restore our sense of calm and well being.  Breathing more deeply can heal us in all sorts of ways, especially if we remember to focus on our breath more often.

As we focus on our breathing, let's add a powerful meditative element.  As you inhale, envision God breathing into you. Breathe deeply.  Receive the breath of God.  As you exhale, imagine God's grace and goodness flowing into the world. .

The world needs to receive the breath of God.  The planet cries out for healing.  The stories of Pentecost show us ways to begin.

Celebrating Sixty Years on a Busy Road

It has been awhile since we had a long day at church, a long time since we had a meal at church.  Yesterday was that day.  It was both a celebration of the church's 60 year anniversary and an installation of the new pastor.  

We went to Lutheran Church of the Nativity in Arden, NC, one of several Lutheran churches across the U.S. southeast that feel like home to me.  We went there last summer when they had a bluegrass worship service outdoors for their early service.  The church was minutes away, and we wanted to see the bluegrass worship service in action.  We discovered that the music director was one that my spouse met at Lutheridge's Music Week, and in the fall, my spouse joined the choir.

Yesterday morning, we celebrated 60 years of the church's existence.  We heard from one of the founding members, although her parents were the heavy lifters in convincing the bishop that there should be a Lutheran church between Asheville and Hendersonville.  She talked about the search for land; they wanted a plot that would be visible from the road.  They could have had little idea how successful they would be, as the church is now at the intersection of the road that goes to the airport and the road that runs between Hendersonville and Asheville--the two most travelled roads in this end of the county.

After church, there was an old-fashioned church dinner, outside under tents on the lawn.  We were lucky with the weather, which was perfect--it had not been perfect in the days running up to Sunday (too rainy and/or too windy and/or very chilly).  In the past, we might have had a potluck dinner, but yesterday's was catered by Smoky and the Pig located in Fairview, NC.  It was delicious.

At 3:00, we had another service, the installation of the pastor who had come to be the interim pastor and both the pastor and the church realized a good fit when they saw it.  I know that often the interim pastor is not allowed to be the one chosen for the permanent position, and I have no knowledge of what happened at the Synod level, but both the pastor and the church seem happy.  I have attended the church for almost a year now, both in person when I'm back in the area, and by way of streaming when I've been at seminary, and I understand the happiness.

I will be interested to see how the church moves into their next 60 years.  Some of that observation will take place from a distance, as I take a position as Synod Authorized Minister at Faith Lutheran down in Bristol.  But I will also be able to do some of the week day activities, like working with the quilting group or Tuesday night pub theology, if they continue that program in the fall.

I have been going to this church off and on for years, when I was in town.  It was interesting to look around the room and realize how many of the members I knew, even before I attended more regularly:  Lutheridge retreat friends, family friends, a variety of retired pastors, people who were camp counselors at Lutheridge when my mom was there.  Being there does feel like falling through a hole in time, in a good way.  Maybe it would be more accurate to say that being there feels like seeing all the folds of time as they rumple together in one place.

Connections and Blooms

 Another week has zoomed by.  A week ago, I would have been on the road for a few hours.  And although I have had 2 naps this week, I hit the ground running when I got here.  Let me record a few snippets:

--I thought that most of the blooming season in the mountains was over, but the mountain laurel is in full bloom in a way that it wasn't two weeks ago.  There are still some dogwoods emerging.  And although it's not flowers, if I look at the tips of branches and plants, I see new growth emerging.

--I snapped this picture and called it "Flare Corona with Hydrangea and Mountain Laurel."  These poems are wonderful!

--My spouse knows I love hydrangeas, even though some people have told us that they're "old lady flowers."  Perhaps I've joined the old lady club?  But I have loved them from my youth.

--I've seen drought charts which include western North Carolina, but it's hard to believe them.  We've had rain two nights this week.  It's been lovely to sleep with the window open, hearing the patter of rain through the night.

--It's been a week of many Zoom calls:  the HR person at Spartanburg Methodist College, the person in the Southeast Synod of the ELCA who will be my mentor for my internship, the meeting with the church in Bristol where I will be the Synod Appointed Minister for the next 9 months, and a Bible study group from my Florida church.  I am glad I don't have to do these kinds of meetings all day, day after day.  But I'm grateful that I live in a time where I can meet with people without traveling vast distances.

--My spouse said, "You're going to a seminary in D.C., you're a candidate through the Florida-Bahamas Synod, you're part of a church in North Carolina, you're affiliated with the Lutheran seminary in South Carolina, and you'll be preaching at a church in Tennessee, while also having an internship with the Southeast Synod of the ELCA"--I interrupted to say, "And my parents' church in Virginia gave me a scholarship."

--I thought of his comment, and I thought of my experience last week at the seminary graduation activities.  I saw so many people that I knew from so many Lutheran contexts, and I often greeted people warmly as my brain raced to remember how I knew them:  retreats?  the spiritual direction certificate program?  my Lutheran undergraduate school?  On and on I could go.

--Today we will go to the church that is minutes away from our Lutheridge house, and we'll be part of the celebration of 60 years, which includes a barbecue lunch.  Yummm.  I will need to start telling people why we're about to disappear on Sundays--but I could still be part of the women's quilt group that meets every Wednesday (another old lady club signifier?  But I have loved quilting since my youth).

Catapulting into a Different Future

Yesterday, I was part of a Zoom meeting where I met some members/leaders of the church in Bristol, Tennessee where I will serve as a Synod Authorized Minister (SAM) for the next 9 months.  They were in the middle of preparing for a Friday night fish fry.  They seemed like a delightful group of people, and I'm interested to see how our time together unfolds.

I was happy to learn that they have some solid processes in place that don't rely on a pastor:  office support and an organist/musician.  They have enough children for a children's sermon, and they have one confirmand this year.  They have a team that meets periodically to do worship planning, and they asked me to participate by way of Zoom.  They asked about the possibility of resuming the 9 a.m. Sunday School in the Fall.  Through yesterday's meeting, the assistant to the Synod bishop who will be "walking" beside us was part of the Zoom so that it seemed more like a getting to know you session, rather than a job interview.

Over dinner, my spouse and I returned to the topic which has fascinated us--how we thought we were headed into one future, and now we've been catapulted, again, into a different future.  I feel fortunate, because the catapulting mechanism could have been worse.  For example, there could have been a hurricane that wiped out everything we'd worked for; we did have several hurricanes, but they wiped out just a chunk of what we'd worked for, and we were able to make insurance and tax claims that restored us economically, even if we lost time in restoring the house, time we will never get back.

A year ago, I thought I would be living in seminary housing for 2-3 years.  Then in November came news of potential bulldozing of the building in which I lived, and then in January, the news that it might happen as early as August 2023.  I decided that I needed to create a few alternate plans, just in case.  I knew that the bulldozing and construction might not happen (I've seen city government and developers in action, and I know that there are vast stretches of delay with most projects), but it sounded like it was on track.

I needed an internship site where I could work 8 hours a week for the academic year--but not knowing where I would be living made me think about different possibilities.  Could I think about a site which might be able to have me working virtually?  I thought about the Southeast Synod, which has offered a variety of interesting online opportunities (I participated in one of them and wrote this blog post about it).  I reached out to the bishop, who I knew before he was a bishop, long ago when we did planning for the Create in Me retreat.  Because I did that, I not only have an internship site, but also this SAM possibility. 

In the earlier part of this year, when I expected seminary housing to be bulldozed, I started taking a closer look at English faculty job openings.  I applied for several full-time community college jobs within an easy drive of DC, but I also applied for some around North Carolina, close to our Lutheridge house.

I didn't get a full-time job, which is good.  A full-time job would give me more money, but less flexibility.  Instead, I have been offered and have accepted a new part-time job at Spartanburg Methodist College, a small, liberal arts college an hour south.  In the fall, I will be teaching two classes back to back, in person on Tuesdays and Thursdays, first year English classes.  I will create the curriculum that adheres to broad guidelines, and I could choose any texts I wanted.  I don't remember the last time I was in control of the textbook question.  Since so much is available online, I decided not to have a required text.

I am looking forward to being back in the classroom with no college administrator duties taking my attention away from teaching.  I am looking forward to the experience of being a minister.  I am looking forward to my seminary classes too.  And I am looking forward to being in this house that I didn't own this time last year.  I will have the best of so many worlds, and I know how lucky I am.

Seeing "The Way" on the Big Screen

On Sunday May 7, I drove from seminary housing to our Lutheridge house, and I listened to Rick Steves' radio program that airs on NPR.  When I first heard the episode, I thought it was an old one--why else would they be talking about the movie, The Way?  I was delighted to learn that the movie was being re-released.

It was only for one day, May 16, one show at my local movie theatre, only being shown at about 1,000 movie theatres across the country.  I made myself a note, but I didn't buy a ticket, because much can happen.  Happily, I was able to get to the theatre and see the movie:  I showed up at 6:20 p.m. and bought one of the last 5 remaining tickets.  I also treated myself to a large popcorn and a large soda, because I so rarely go to see a movie in a theatre, and I wanted the full treatment.

I hadn't seen the movie before, but I had meant to.  And these days, it seems unlikely I will get to Spain and hike the Camino de Santiago, so experiencing it this way had enormous appeal.  It was just what I hoped, and also not exactly what I expected.

There were lovely views of villages and landscapes.  It gave me a sense of how it feels to walk the Camino, although I did notice that no one sweated much and no one had bloody feet.  While the pilgrims didn't always get along, I didn't have the kind of worry I might have had with a more traditional Hollywood treatment of people on a hike, fears of violence and rape.

I was waiting for epiphanies, for wailing and weeping, and happily, this movie also avoided those kinds of typical Hollywood elements.  While there was character growth, the main character (played by Martin Sheen) was never going to transform into someone who spews emotions and tears in a typical way.  There was not deep conversation, but the pilgrims grow closer, simply through walking.

There wasn't as much in spiritual terms as I was expecting.  Not one of the main characters walks the Camino for the spiritual reasons one might expect.  But that was fine with me.  There was a bit of spirituality here and there.  I do wonder if a viewer had no understanding of the Camino or of pilgrimage or of Christianity if the spiritual/religious/Christian bits would make sense.

One of the characters was a writer, walking because of writer's block, and he becomes unblocked.  The movie had a bit more about creative/journaling process than I was expecting, not much, but a bit.

As I watched them walk, I thought about my own backpacking days.  I thought about this Facebook post that I made on Saturday:  " The air this morning (rain coming, heat coming) takes me back to Girl Scout camp, that summer when I was a backpacking counselor, back before cell phones, where we were dropped off at one point of the Appalachian Trail, and 22 rugged miles later, we'd be picked up at a different point later in the week. Three young women, including me, in charge of a group of younger women, carrying everything we needed on our backs. Why have I ever been scared of anything since then? I should feel more invincible."  That summer was 1984--wow.  

After the movie, there was a 30 minute conversation between Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, and Rick Steves.  It repeated some of the material from their interview on the NPR program, but it was also different enough to keep me there.  I so appreciate the themes that these 3 men embraced and discussed, themes of family, religion/spirituality/Christianity, what it means to be a man, travel, and community.

I feel lucky to have had a chance to have this experience and lucky that I didn't have to travel far to do it.  If the movie had been showing at a theatre at the far side of Asheville, I would have probably wimped out.  And even though it was near to me, in a new commercial development designed to make us all feel like we're in some village, I did have trouble finding my way back to the main road.  This development has been there at least 10 years--why is there not more signage?  How did I get turned around?  It was dark and rainy.

But happily, I saw the very small sign marked "private road," turned around and followed a car which got me back to the main road.  I did have my cell phone, which could have gotten me back to the main road, maybe.  I didn't feel scared or aggravated, so much as bemused.

Perhaps it was knowing that I wasn't too far away from regular civilization--the roads were paved, after all, if not well marked, and there were streetlights, which led me to think that I would eventually find a main road.

Or perhaps it was a left over bit of movie magic.  Perhaps I kept a sense of perspective because I had just spent 2.5 hours thinking about pilgrimage.

Feast Day of the Ascension

Today is the Feast Day of the Ascension,  40 days after Easter, 10 days before Pentecost.  This feast day commemorates Jesus being taken up into Heaven.

Imagine it from the eyes of those who have followed Christ from traipsing around Galilee, Crucifixion, and then Resurrection.  You have just gotten your beloved Messiah returned to you, and then, poof, he's gone again.  What a whipsawed feeling they must have had.

How do we celebrate this day, so many thousands of years later?  Many churches have chosen to simply ignore it.  We march on to Pentecost.

But let us take a minute to acknowledge the wonder of the Ascension.  It's a fate reserved for very few in the Bible.  And let us take a minute to think about Jesus, who has already suffered death, the fate which an ascension spared for the few others who experienced it.

Just like the first followers, just like Jesus, we don't get to stand around waiting for our chance to go to Heaven.  There's work to be done on Earth.  The coming Sundays of the Pentecost season remind us that we’re not put on Earth to wait to die. We are here to help God in the ultimate redemption of creation. Jesus began that work of that redemption. We are here to further it along, at least as much as we can during our very short time here.

And how do we do that? The possible answers to that question are as varied as humanity. Some of us will pray without ceasing. Some of us will fight for social justice. Some of us will create works that point others to God. Some of us will visit the lonely and the sick. Some of us will give away our money so that others have the resources to do the creation redeeming work that needs to be done.

Whatever we choose, it’s important that we get to work. We don’t want to get to the end of our time here, only to be asked, “Why did you stand there gaping, when there was so much work to do?”

For those of us who feel like we can't do much, consider this language from today's Gospel,  the latter part of Luke 24:9: "so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

I love that language:  clothed with power from on high--how would we behave if we truly believed we had been clothed with power from on high?

Pentecost will be here soon, the holiday that commemorates the first clothing with fire.  But we've all been clothed in that way.  We have all been clothed with power.  Believe in that force--and then get to work in the claiming of creation.

Prayer for the Feast of the Ascension:

Ascending God, you understand our desire to escape our earthly bonds, to hover above it all, to head to Heaven now instead of later.  Remind us of our earthly purpose.  Reassure us that we have gifts and talents that are equal to the tasks that you need us to do.  Help us close our gaping mouths and get to work.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The lessons for May 14, 2023:

First Reading: Acts 1:6-14

Psalm: Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36 (Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Gospel: John 17:1-11

In today's Gospel, we see Jesus at the end of his mission. We see Jesus praying, telling God all the things he (Jesus) has done. We also see Jesus handing over his ministry to his disciples.

Notice that all of Jesus' followers were given responsibilities. They didn't just show up at church and wait to be entertained. They didn't march off in a huff when Jesus didn't do things the way the last savior did. I'm sure that Jesus lost some people along the way--after all, he made some stringent demands. But he also gave people ownership and expectations.

Jesus taught his followers to live in the moment, to not worry so much about 5 year projections or the future of the faith. He taught people to focus on the needs of the community and not on power structures that they hoped to maintain.  He taught people how to live in community and how to resist the very powerful structures of empire.

Jesus commanded his followers to be dependent on each other and to trust that God would provide for them.  When they're sent out, they're sent out two by two, with only what they can carry (and it's a light load). This ensures that they'll make connections in the new community, not just trust in each other and the people that they already know.

I'll admit that it's simplistic to look at Jesus' ministry in this way. We might also feel defensive.  We might say that these early followers had the advantage of doing something new.  In our century, we have all sorts of burdens:  tradition, responsibilities, buildings.  We can't decide to start over in thinking about the way we do ministry.

Or can we?  These last several years have showed us that we can do things differently.  And our time of innovation is not yet done.

God calls us to resurrection not just once, but daily.  God calls us out of all that has left us abandoned in our tombs.  Let us fold our gravecloths and emerge.

One Last Trip Back from Seminary Housing

And so it ended in much the same way as it began:  a car load of belongings, an evening spent at my sister's house, snuggles with her dog.  

Back in August, I brought the first car load of stuff to the DC area.  Yesterday, I brought the last car load back to our North Carolina house.

Back when I applied for seminary housing, in March of 2022, I thought I would be in my seminary apartment for 2 years or more.  Back when I applied for seminary housing, I didn't have a house at Lutheridge, and I didn't know that there were plans for the bulldozing of seminary housing.

As I drove yesterday, I thought back and wondered if I would make different plans then, if I knew then what I know now.  In a way, it's a ridiculous question.  If I had a time machine, I hope I would go back to the days when Apple teetered on the brink of bankruptcy; I hope I would buy the ridiculously cheap stock, which I could then sell later.  I'd buy a few shares of Starbucks, a tiny coffee company that nobody except for a few people, like my mom, knew about when she bought her shares for $12 a share.

In short, yes, I might rethink every decision I've ever made, if I had the advantage of knowledge gained in hindsight.  But then again, I might not.  Those alternate decisions would also come with good and bad consequences.

For part of yesterday's drive, I did not have the mental space for these kinds of musings.  Part of the drive took me on a detour that might have been scenic, if it hadn't been so foggy.  As I drove towards Harper's Ferry, I saw a sign that said "All lanes closed in Virginia" with a street name.  I was approaching the branch that went towards Leesburg, Virginia, so I hoped the sign was talking about that road.  I thought that I had miles and miles to go before I was in Virginia, so I'd get through the Harper's Ferry bridges, which always make me a touch nervous, and then see what was on the other side.

But it was the road between the two bridges that was closed.  I followed the detour signs, up the steep and winding road, and then down into fog.  Happily, there weren't many cars on the road with me, and it was just before dawn, so it wasn't as pitch dark as it would have been at other times of the year.

Still, the fog made the descent towards the Shenandoah River an intense experience.  It felt like I was driving into the void, which sometimes seems like a metaphor for life:  it feels like driving into the void, but the road is there, and if one proceeds with some amount of caution, one isn't likely to go over the bridge into the river below.

Do I want to stretch this metaphor into the wisdom of leaving early?  Do I want this metaphor to consider the other drivers on the road or the chance that the bridge may have fallen into the river?

The fog continued for the first several hours of the journey, and I was happy that I was travelling on a Sunday morning with fewer drivers than some of my trips.  I was astonished by how many cars on the road didn't have lit headlights.  Why wouldn't you help other drivers see you?  Here, too, the potential for life metaphor abounds.

As the fog cleared, I tried to take some pictures through the car window.  It was strange to see the Appalachians looking so Hawaiian in their deep greens and clouds drifting by.  But I didn't really capture any of it.  I loved watching the mountains shift from emerald greens to dark blues and grays as the light shifted through the morning.

Happily, my trip was fairly uneventful, and I pulled into my driveway to discover much construction work had been done in my 2 day absence--how wonderful to have an electrician in the family, family who was willing to extend the trip to see the youngest brother graduate.

We headed over to Hendersonville, where many of the cute shops were closed, but we had fun looking in the windows.  We ate at a Thai-Sushi place that wasn't too busy for Mother's Day.  It was a good end to a great week.

We have hugged the last group of family and sent them on their way, with hopes we might see them sooner rather than later.  Now it is time to focus on this week's tasks:  kitchen cabinets arrive tomorrow, and online classes start.  Let the work begin.

Last Morning in the Seminary Apartment

 It is my last morning in this seminary apartment.  Later this afternoon, at 4 or 4:30, I'll head over to my sister's house for dinner where I'm spending the night.  At one point, I thought it would take me the whole week-end to get my stuff out of this seminary apartment and get it cleaned, but I no longer think it will take me that long.  I usually leave town by going up I 270, cutting cross country to Harper's Ferry and Winchester, getting to I 81 that way.  Leaving from her house cuts a smidge of time off my trip.

When I first made my plans, I knew that I didn't have to be out until May 15, and I thought I'd want to enjoy one last week-end in this apartment.  But once it's packed up, it's not nearly as cozy as before.  It's a bit of a feeling akin to sadness, knowing that this time has come to an end, that it's time to go.

Part of my decision also comes from the last trip to North Carolina.  I left on Sunday, and there was less traffic.  I started thinking, maybe I could leave on Sunday again.  My spouse's sister and her fiancé are spending 2 days with us on their way back from the seminary graduation--another reason for leaving earlier rather than later.

Last night, I was closing drapes for the last night here, and I looked out across the parking lot at the library building, with the few lights left on for the night.  I will miss this view.  Earlier I had watched the small children of my upstairs neighbor play just outside the building, and I reminded myself that I was never going to stay here long enough to watch small children grow up--that community is the one I'm headed to when I leave tomorrow.

At some point, I'll write a blog post about what I've learned from a year in this seminary apartment--for the most part, it's all been good.  But this morning, I'm too distracted by tasks left to do, and I'd like to take one last morning walk around the beautiful seminary neighborhood.

Rites of Passage, Resisting Empire

Yesterday we went to the graduation of my spouse's youngest brother.  We spent time with extended family, some of whom had come all the way from Indiana.  We reflected that it was great that we gathered for a graduation rather than a funeral.

Once, I went to graduations once a quarter, as a faculty member and then as an administration member.  At times, I found it tiring, but at the end of the event, I was always glad to have been a part.  There's something so thrilling about seeing people at this happy event that celebrates a major accomplishment.

Because I need to head back to seminary today to close up the seminary apartment, we drove back to our Lutheridge house last night.  It was an easy drive; it could have been otherwise, as we are in road construction season.

We had a great conversation on the way back.  We started with a topic that we often circle back to:  what is the purpose of church, of the Christian church?  We mean that both in terms of worship service, the church of Sunday mornings.  We also mean that in terms of big C church--what is the purpose of Christianity?  Can we get what Christianity gives us from some other source?  When Jesus says "I am the way" does Jesus mean he is the only way?

I believe the church fills a need that many of us have, a need to know the Divine or perhaps it's a need for transcendence, to know something bigger than oneself.  Can we get that from somewhere else?  Sure.  Can we get that consistently--from Church or somewhere else?  Maybe.

I gave some of my standard possible answers:  Church is good for those rites of passage, death and joining lives together kinds of things.  Church is also good for helping us deal with the random chaotic nature of life.  Then I gave the answer that comes closest:  we live in a soul crushing empire, one that wants to stamp out most of what is good and life giving.  Being part of Church helps us resist that empire.  Does it guarantee success?  No, of course not.  But it gives us the tiniest fighting chance, and Church molds us into people who can resist empire.

Are there other ways to resist?  Sure--and those ways also give the tiniest fighting chance.

By empire, I mean all kinds of things:  governments, systems of economics like Capitalism, all the ways that socialization warps us, all sorts of domination systems.  By Church, I mean both the community and the worship, but I find what I need to resist the domination systems more often in the community than in the worship service.  I don't see God needing our worship in the ways that so many people conceptualize it--but we need elements of it.  And there are elements of worship that are less important to me, but we keep them in because others might need them to be formed into people who can resist empire.

We got home, sat on the deck, drank in the evening light, and then went inside to watch my spouse who was part of his brother's last seminary project on Frankie San, who did important prison ministry in Columbia, SC in the last part of last century.  I said to my spouse, "What are the odds that this man, Frankie San, born in Japan, affected by the nuclear bombings, would come across the world and end up at Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC?  He would do prison ministry, where you would meet him while you were teaching Philosophy to inmates at CCI, after having written a thesis on just war and nuclear deterrence.  Thirty years later, you would be able to help your brother who was preparing for prison ministry.  What are the odds of this???!!!"

Sometimes, you just have to say, "Well done, God!  Well done!"  And I imagine God saying, "Well done, dear ones.  Keep up the good work of resisting empire and domination systems of all sorts!"

Living Stones

 When we moved to our Lutheridge house near Asheville, I had hopes that we would see family and friends more often, for both big events and casual ones.  We are in the middle of a big event:  my spouse's youngest brother graduates from Southern Seminary (LTSS, the ELCA seminary in Columbia, SC) today.

We came down yesterday for the evening Baccalaureate service, the worship service before the graduation ceremony which happens today.  The Baccalaureate service was held at Ebeneezer Lutheran church, a historic downtown church which was filled to capacity.  

We sang hymns, we had communion, and Dr. Brian Peterson delivered a powerful sermon.  Here's a picture of him delivering that sermon, a picture taken by Bishop Kevin Strickland:

The sermon was based on 1 Peter 2:  2-10, which I thought was an odd choice, but it's from the Revised Common Lectionary.  That Dr. Peterson chose to preach on it was strange, but he talked about the stones that hold up a church like the one we're in.

He talked about 3 stones that are in the chapel at the seminary:  one comes from Jerusalem where Christ had a disastrous clash with empire leading to crucifixion and resurrection, one from a place where Paul had a disastrous encounter (Athens?), and one from Worms, where Luther had a disastrous encounter leading to his going into hiding and translating the Bible into German.  The message was that even encounters that look disastrous can turn out not to be.

Unspoken, but with imagery threaded through the sermon, he made it clear that our society is in a disastrous encounter moment.  I think of it as a hinge moment, where much is being decided that will impact the next 100-500 years in ways we can scarcely comprehend.  Dr. Peterson made me feel like it might all work out.

There were also the messages that you might expect in this kind of sermon that was in a space to celebrate graduates:  the idea that we can be living stones, that we are not living stones all alone, but living stones brought together to create a larger building.  It was a very effective sermon, and I'm very grateful to have heard it.

Now to get ready for today's events.

Flooring Install in Snippets and Metaphors

 I'm not sure I have a blog post about one single unified and coherent topic today.  So let me write a collection of short observations, just so I capture them.

--We finished the flooring install in the main living area of the house yesterday.

--When we first saw the house, around 2011, there was shag green carpeting throughout.  The owners before us ripped up the carpet, but didn't install new flooring.

--My spouse was really interested in bamboo flooring, so one day last summer, we bought a piece of it from LL Flooring.  We spent a fun afternoon seeing if it was as indestructible as it claimed to be.  We put a lit cigar right against it--no burn marks.  We tried to simulate dragging furniture across it.  No damage.  We took every sharp item in the house and tried to carve words into the floor sample.

--I loved our hardwood floors in our historic house in South Florida, but they were not indestructible.  They would scuff and scratch and gouge--sometimes from something that made sense, like when we moved the refrigerator.  But more often, I'd see a dent in the floor and have no memory of anything that would have left a mark.

--Our bamboo floors are engineered flooring, meaning they come in planks with waterproofing on one side.  They are supposed to slide and lock in place easily.  Some of them did.

--Is this kind of flooring more ecologically sustainable?  We pondered that question last night, as we looked up at the oak trees that grow around us.  How many planks would come from one tree?  How long would it take to grow enough trees to provide floors for our very small house?  If you've ever tried to root bamboo out of your garden, you know that it grows quickly.  So on one level, yes sustainable.

--But there's also a lot of plastic and other petroleum products that go into making this flooring.  So, on another level, not sustainable.

--Why did it take us so long to get this flooring installed?  We bought it back in early autumn, when it went on sale.  But there wasn't a great time to install it, since we didn't have an HVAC plan and we knew that new registers and vents and parts of the system would impact the floor.  We knew the kitchen remodel would come later.  We didn't want to rip out the kitchen too early.

--I'm thinking of all the types of flooring we've installed ourselves through the decades:  peel and stick linoleum squares, parquet squares that needed to be glued with industrial adhesive to the subfloor (least favorite install so far), carpet, ceramic tile, and various types of engineered wood/laminate.  We've paid someone else to install hardwood, and we've redone hardwood floors several times now, both ourselves and paying someone else.

--I've said it before, but it's worth repeating:  the home repair/restoration shows on TV make it look so easy, with no clean up required at all.  Grr.

--Years from now, will I remember that yesterday was also a day when a former president was found guilty of sexual abuse and ordered to pay $5 million dollars?  Will that guilty verdict in a U.S. court of law make a difference?  Years from now, will our floors still be in place?  Will the nation?

--I often think of my presence in home repair projects as unnecessary and sometimes even not helpful.  But handing each plank to my spouse so he didn't have to get up and down did save time.  Getting the box of planks and unwrapping it from the plastic wrap that covered the cardboard box did save time.  There was vacuuming to do.

--Smaller efforts can be essential too.  Let us see if that is true on the national scene in years to come.  Political scientists have told us that local actions can have a huge impact, even more so than national ones.  The home repair metaphors seem to hold up for the larger home repair that the nation requires.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, May 14, 2022:

First Reading: Acts 17:22-31

Psalm: Psalm 66:7-18 (Psalm 66:8-20 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Peter 3:13-22

Gospel: John 14:15-21


In today's Gospel, we get a hint of Pentecost. Jesus tells his followers that he will never leave them orphaned or desolate, to use words from several different translations.

Every year as Ascension Day approaches, I think of those poor disciples. They have such a short time with their resurrected Lord, before he goes away again. How on earth do they cope with this?

I also see this situation as a metaphor for our own modern one. You may be feeling a bit whipsawed by grief and loss yourself. You may recover from one crisis, only to find yourself staring down the maw of the next. As I've gotten older, I've noticed that these crises seem to be increasing in frequency and severity. I look back to the dramas of my high school and college years, and I understand why so many elders chuckle dismissively at the troubles of youth. We forget, however, that trouble feels like crisis, no matter what our age.

But Jesus offers this comfort: we will never be alone.

Notice what Jesus does NOT offer: our God is not Santa Claus. Our God is not a fix everything quickly God (at least not all the time).

I have some acquaintances who claim to have lost their faith on September 11, 2001. They had been faithful in their church attendance, but once that disaster happened, they declared they couldn't believe in a God that would let such terrible things happen. No talk of free will would deter them in their determination to let go of their faith.

Earlier generations had a similar difficulty with Auschwitz (perhaps you do too). How can God let such awful things happen?

Evil has real power in the world, and we forget that at our peril. As Christians, we are called to take a longer view, and we are called to believe that God will eventually emerge victorious--but that doesn't mean that this victory will happen in our lifetimes. We are part of a larger story, and we all have our part to play. But we must be aware that we might be like Moses or the early apostles: we may not see the fruits of our labors; we may not get to the promised land (at least not in this life). The Good News that Jesus delivers should give us comfort: all of creation will be redeemed eventually, and that redemption has begun.

Return to that promise of Jesus: we are not orphaned. We are not abandoned. Even in our darkest days, when we feel at our most unlovable, God sees our value. God remembers our better selves. God knows what we could accomplish. If God can use deeply flawed people like Saul who becomes Paul, God will also weave us into the great fabric of Kingdom life.

Blue Green Day in the Mountains

 Yesterday was a travel day, another carload of stuff driven back to the North Carolina house.  Today, at Wesley, people will go to the National Cathedral for graduation.  I have some friends who are graduating, but it is a ticketed event, so I shall cheer them on from a distance.

Yesterday was a lovely drive, a blue-green day in the mountains of Interstate 81:  blues and greens on the mountains in all directions, no bare patches, no browns.  I am happy to have seen these mountains change across seasons.  I am happy that my days of driving that particular stretch of mountains so regularly is coming to an end.  

Last week this time, I was about to set out from this house to my seminary apartment, about to wrap up the semester--but I still had a lot to do.  And now, here I am, having finished it:  my Luke paper on call stories and hospitality, my Church History final exam that had two parts, and so much grading for the online classes that I was teaching.

I drove the whole way yesterday wanting an orange scone from Panera's, and finally, there was a Panera at one of the exits.  I stopped, and it was such a disappointing scone.  The inside was fluffy, the outside soft.  I won't be doing that again.

I left early because the Lutheridge residential community group was meeting at a brewery nearby.  That hardly narrows it down; we live in a land of many breweries.  Last night was Blue Ghost Brewery, which was just a few miles away.  After some beer flights which let us sample all sorts of beers, I had a ginger beer, which helped settle my stomach which was achy from travel (or maybe from the horrible scone).  There was barbecue from a food truck.  

But best of all, there was getting to know our new neighbors.  I already knew some of them from Lutheridge retreats and other sorts of Lutheran connections.  They're a great group, and when we thought about moving here, a ready-made community was one of the benefits.

Now I have a week off, of sorts.  I have more online classes to teach this summer, but those don't start until next week.  I have the final move of stuff out of the seminary apartment and cleaning it, but that happens this coming week-end.  My spouse's youngest brother graduates from Southern Seminary in Columbia this Thursday, so we'll go to that.  Our last window gets installed today.

Still, it feels like a week off.  It's good not to have papers and projects hanging over my head, for one week at least.

Live Blogging the Coronation

As I write, I am flipping back and forth to the coronation coverage.  Right now, it's the slow process of a very lovely carriage pulled along by horses.  And now they've arrived at Westminster Cathedral--back in a minute!

Ah the church bells!  Ah, the elderly king and queen, gingerly exiting the carriage, with their long trains that must be carried by children.  What do those children make of it?  Ah, the next generation, looking so young by comparison, the son and wife, and their little children.  How long before we watch his coronation?

It's hard not to think back to the wedding of Diana and Charles, which I might have watched in real time.  We were on vacation at Myrtle Beach with extended family, and we had a very small black and white TV, which we would have only used to watch the wedding.  I remember being mildly interested; it was a real life fairy tale, after all.  But I do remember thinking about the difference in their ages, the fact that Diana was not much older than me, and shuddering a bit.  Could they really love each other?

No, as it turns out, they did not.

I am watching this coverage on npr.com, which doesn't have commentary.  In fact, I can hear what some of the ordinary people are saying.  I'm not sure who is saying these things about Harry and whether or not he'll be here.  Hmm.  These official looking people?  Someone standing near the person with the video camera?  At this point, 6:04 a.m., we're still seeing shots of the outside of Westminster.

At 6:08, I have switched to a different site.  It was clear that something was going on inside.  I am thinking of the first King Charles, beheaded in a time of civil war.  May this King Charles have a more peaceful reign.

It is interesting to watch this coronation, these oaths that Charles III is taking, just a day after finishing my Church History II class.  We are seeing not only a king being sworn in, but the head of the Church of England.

I think of Charles, now so much older than he might have imagined he would be when he thought of what it would be like to take this throne, to rule in the ways that his ancestors did.  In some ways, these days, his age might not matter.  It's not like he's going to need to ride a horse to lead troops to battle.  It's not like he gets to make the kinds of decisions upon which economies and empires turn.

I will not comment on the fact that the Gospel reading is from Luke, where Jesus returns to Nazareth and preaches out of the book of Isaiah (Luke 4).  We end at the part where Jesus says the Gospel is fulfilled.  I didn't think we would cover the part where the hometown crowd wants to throw Jesus over a cliff--and we did not. 

I do like this sermon, about service, about the "regalia" that Jesus wore--well done, Archbishop.

I am now watching the various regalia being presented, spurs and a sword, along with words about what the king must do, protecting the kingdom, and the poor.  Very interesting to hear these words surrounded by all these treasures, with so much expense going to this coronation, this upkeep of the royal family.

I am now watching the oldest son assisting with the re-robing process.  Is it strange to be any of the other family members?  It's weird to think about how little in our society depends on birth order anymore.  But line of succession does.

This is a very long ceremony.  I'm a bit bored.  I have packing to do.  And yet, at the same time, I'm impressed by the symbolism of it all.  I'm trying to avoid the voice of my inner 19 year old who is screaming about hypocrisy--yes, yes, we know.

Finally a crown for the man's head!

I do like these closing benedictions from a variety of religious traditions, all Christian.  They even let a woman deliver one of them.  It would have been cool to have benedictions from other faiths, but I am not in charge of this service.

I don't like the Archbishop of Canterbury swearing allegiance.  My hope, of course, is that if the demands of empire conflict with the demands of God, the Archbishop would choose wisely.  I will not be swearing homage.  I am a member of the break away colonies, after all.  

And now the queen has a crown.  She has smoothed hair out of her eyes, a refreshingly human touch.  As she moves to the throne and sits, she's got a shocked look, and every so often she smiles.  As far as I can tell, King Charles has yet to smile.  It's hard not to think of hostage videos.  It's hard not to think of Shakespeare quotes about heads and crowns.

The music has been glorious, as I expected.  There is congregational singing, and as the camera scans the assembly, I'm interested to see who is singing and who is not.  As with most congregations, the choir carries the day.

The king and queen come back out, with no crowns.  I imagine those crowns have been whisked back to wherever they are kept safe.  Poor crowns, which so rarely see the light of day.

They aren't going to try to commune everyone, are they?  Or maybe this service has no eucharist?  I've lost track of what I'm seeing.  Boy, I change internet tabs for one minute . . . 

And we're singing, and singing, and singing.  It really is beautiful music, though.  Just not sure where we are in terms of this ceremony.  Almost done?  The concert portion?  Is this the gift that the choristers bring?  The way they pledge allegiance to their newly crowned king?

It looks like we may finally be at the point of a recessional.  People are lined up, robes resplendent.  I must look for ways to use the word "resplendent" more often.  And they're singing "God Save the King," and heading down an aisle.  The crown (a newscaster tells us it is a different crown, an imperial state crown) is on his head; women are curtsying, some of them but not all.  King Charles looks tired, unimpressed, still no smiles.

I, too, am tired.  So much pomp and spectacle.  I have been thinking it was my only chance to see a coronation of an English monarch, but Charles III is in his mid-70's.  It's possible I might have another chance. 

I wonder what will be happening at that point in history?

God, Queer Theology, and Quilt Squares

Yesterday, I created a blog post about the creation of my final project for my Queer Theology seminary class.  Today I want to post another part of the project, the part of the curriculum that prompts us to think about how God feels about the changes we might make to our bodies, gender changes in particular.

I was inspired to do this when I was writing an earlier paper for the class.  In February, I was writing, and I looked up, and I saw quilt squares that I had been creating stretched out across my bookcases:

I wrote a few paragraphs:

In class on February 21, Dr. E__ said that God gives us agency to be co-creators of our physical selves. But I worry that our culture’s wide ranging dissatisfaction with our physical selves grieves God. As I’m writing, I’m looking at a variety of quilt squares that I’ve made over the last several months; each square is composed of a minimum of eleven smaller pieces. As its creator, how would I feel if one of those squares rearranged everything I had so carefully sewn together? If I’m being honest, if the quilt square put itself together in a way that was better than I had executed, I would be happy. But if the quilt square was bowing to societal pressure and continued rearranging itself through the years, as it would have to do to satisfy the demands of a capitalistic system that needs it unsatisfied and buying stuff, I would be sad as its creator.

Would I abandon the quilt square or the larger quilt I had envisioned? No. I am a skilled fiber artist, and I’ve been making a wide variety of fabric creations for decades. If a quilt square decided to rearrange to become more orange than green, I would find a way to work with that. If a quilt square suddenly wanted to include fabrics dyed in an infusion of tea and onion skins, I would be intrigued because I haven’t experimented with fabrics that I dyed myself. I might even contribute some materials, and I might visit the quilt square in dreams to offer encouragement.

-----

But then realized I was heading in a completely different direction, and the paper was only allowed to be 700 words.  So I excised the paragraphs, but I saved them for later.  And I transformed them into this part of the curriculum, the part that gives groups three areas in which to dive more deeply into various issues:

Larger Context 1: Our View of God as Creator


Imagine that you are the one who put the quilt square together. If the quilt square wants to trade out one strip of fabric for a different one, would you, the creator, be offended? How would you feel if one of those squares rearranged everything you had so carefully sewn together?

If the quilt square put itself together in a way that was better than you, the creator, had executed, would you be happy? Or would you feel wrathful because the square could envision something that you couldn’t? Would you feel sad, because you had something else in mind?

Would you abandon the quilt square or the larger quilt of society you had envisioned? If a quilt square decided to rearrange to become more orange than green, would you find a way to work with that? If a quilt square suddenly wanted to include fabrics dyed in an infusion of tea and onion skins, how would you respond if you hadn’t ever done any fabric dyes yourself? Would you contribute some materials? Would you visit the quilt square in dreams to offer encouragement?

If the quilt square was bowing to societal pressure and continued rearranging itself through the years, would you be sad as its creator?

Some further questions to help us think about what kind of God we believe in:

1. Do you feel that God has given us one body, one society, with an idea that we will live into that body, that society, not making radical changes?

2. As you look at the history of God, do you see God as a constant being/force or do you see a shapeshifter God? Does this view of God impact your view of how much change is permissible in one’s body or one’s society?

3. Do you believe in a God who creates? If so, is the process of creation done or is God still creating?

4. Do you believe that God wants a co-creator? How do the parts of the Trinity interact and create?

5. Do you believe that God invites humans to be co-creators with God? If so, is that an equal status or are we invited to be God’s support staff in the process of creating?

Queer Theology and Quilt Squares

 Now that I've turned in my final project for Queer Theology class, and now that it's been graded, let me write about it here.  One of our options was to write a curriculum of some sort, and then an accompanying paper to talk about how the class influenced our creation/creative process.

I wanted to create a curriculum for people who are open minded, but perhaps confused by the topic of queerness, especially the issue of people changing genders.  My theory is that it's hard to have these conversations when they revolve around people's sexual desire and people's genitals.  Many of us are queasy about these things.

So I came up with the idea of using quilt squares to discuss these things.

Above you see a variety of squares, all of them created with roughly the same pattern, and a lot of the same fabrics, but in different patterns.  If one of those quilt squares wanted to change one strip of fabric for another strip of fabric, would it make that big a difference to how we see the quilt?

The quilt square could represent a human.  The strip of starry fabric on the outside that gets exchanged for a teal one could be a secondary sex characteristic or it could be hair color or it could be weight loss/gain or it could be implants (breast implants or a pacemaker or a new kidney).  Which of these changes would be impossible for us to accept?

I also thought about this in terms of relationships.  Here's an arrangement of quilt squares--we could determine which square is which gender, if we wanted:

If we make changes, here's a different look:

And again:

At some point, we'd talk about what this means for humans.  Does it really matter to the larger quilt if one square is with another, instead of a different square?  If it's true of a quilt, does the same hold true for humans?  If quilt squares could have children and families, would our answers change?

What I've included here is just a short overview of the curriculum that I created--the curriculum document is over 15 pages, but I'd be happy to share the whole thing with anyone who is interested.  It does not include Bible passages primarily because I believe that if we take passages out of context from a book that is thousands of years old, then those passages don't really have much to say about a complicated subject.  Doing a deep dive into a Bible study wasn't what I wanted to do for my final project--I wanted to explore a possible way to talk about these issues using quilt squares instead of real lives.

In the near future, I'll write a blog post about the theological issues raised in this curriculum.  I think that in addition to finding an interesting way to talk about issues of sexuality, gender, and society, I've created an interesting way to talk about God.