Baptismo Sum

 When we were experimenting with glass etching cream on Thursday, my spouse wanted me to look up the Latin phrase "Baptismo Sum."  We've both been taught that Martin Luther used it as he washed each morning, saying "I am baptized" in Latin so that he remembered this essential truth each day.

So I Googled it and said, "Look, there's my poem."  It was published in Sojourners in 2005, and I am so delighted that it comes up first or second in a search for the Latin word.  True to Google form lately, I couldn't find out what I wanted to know.  But instead of my usual frustration at how bad search engines have become, I had the happiness of being bounced to a poem of mine--a poem that holds up.

I'll paste the poem below, since Sojourners does limit how many articles one can view.  But if you want to see it at the Sojourners site, go here.  Sadly, the artwork that originally appeared with it is not there, but the poem is preserved.

Baptismo Sum

In this month of dehydration,
we keep our eyes skyward, both to watch
for rain and to avoid the scorn
of the scorched succulents who reproach
us silently, saying, "You promised to care."

And so, although we thought we could stick
these seedlings in the ground and leave
them to their own devices, we haul
hoses and buckets of water to the outer edges
of the yard where the hose will not reach.

The idea of a desert seduces,
as it did the Desert Fathers, who fled
the corruption of the cities to contemplate
theology surrounded by sand
and stinging winds. My thoughts travel
to the Sanctuary Movement, contemporary Christians
who risked all to rescue illegal aliens.
I admire their faith, tested in that desert crucible.
I could create my own patch of desert in tribute.

Yet deserts do not always sanctify.
I think of the Atomic Fathers
who hauled equipment into the New Mexico
desert and littered the landscape with fallout
which litters our lives, a new religion,
generations transformed in the light of the Trinity test site.

I back away from my Darwinian, desert dreams.
The three most popular religions
in the world emerged from their dry desert
roots, preaching the literal and symbolic primacy
of water, leaving the arid ranges behind
as they flowed toward temperance.

I cannot reject the religion of my ancestors,
who spent every day of their lives
remembering their baptism before heading to the fields
to make the dirt dream in colors.

Leading My First Funeral

This week-end I will help lead a funeral for my mom's cousin, Bob Hughes.  I've been part of the planning of it, and soon I need to type some final edits into the document.

I could have led this funeral even if I didn't have the SAM position, but I did check in with my Synod supervisor, just to make sure I was on solid ground.  My cousin was a beloved part of the community of Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN; several of the members were children in the church with him, and his mom and dad, Martha and Haskell, were deeply involved members until their deaths.

It's been interesting to plan this funeral, which won't be a traditional Lutheran one, while also taking a Foundations of Worship class.  One of the assignments for that class was to plan my own funeral.  The verses that I chose for my funeral are the ones we'll be using for Bob's funeral.  The music will be different; my mom is supplying the music for Bob's funeral, which is another interesting element.

I have prayed a lot, and I have rehearsed it all in my mind.  I really want it to go well, and I think that it will.  It will have elements of a Quaker funeral, where everyone has ample chances to speak and remember Bob.  We will also have a Moravian Love Feast, which is like a Eucharist, but a little more inclusive than some Christian Eucharist celebrations would be.

It will be my first funeral that I'm leading.  I am honored to have been chosen.

The Feast Day of Saint Mark

Today is the feast day of Saint Mark. Looking back through my blog posts, I'm surprised to find out that I haven't written much about this feast day.  It does often fall in a part of the month where I'm more likely to be at the Create in Me retreat.  But it's also because it's hard to know who the real Saint Mark was.  So many Marks, so hard to know for sure who did what.

Was he the author of the Gospel of Mark? The one who brought water to the house where the last supper took place? That strange naked man in the Crucifixion narrative? It's hard to say.

We do give him credit for founding the church in Egypt, and that fact alone seems important enough for him to have a feast day. I think of all the church traditions that can be traced back to northern Africa, particularly the work of the desert fathers and mothers, which led to so many variations of monastic traditions.

I also think of Augustine, the important thinker, one of the earliest Christian philosophers, who lived in Hippo. Would we have had Augustine if Mark hadn't been an evangelist to Egypt? It's hard to know. If Mark hadn't gone to Egypt, would someone else? Probably--but the outcome might have been completely different.

Today is also a good day to turn our thoughts back to those early evangelists, those early disciples. I often say that if you were putting together a team, you would not have chosen those men. But God's ways are not our ways when visualizing success.

So for those of us who are feeling inadequate, take heart. God's plans are greater than our own.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, April 28, 2024:

First Reading: Acts 8:26-40

Psalm: Psalm 22:24-30 (Psalm 22:25-31 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 John 4:7-21

Gospel: John 15:1-8

The Gospel of John includes several "I am" stories, like the one we find in the Gospel for this week. Unlike the idea of Jesus as shepherd, which might be unfamiliar to those of us who live so far away from farms, the idea of Jesus as the vine, and believers as the branches isn't that hard for most of us to grasp. Most of us have watched plants grow, and we understand that one branch of the plant won't do well if we separate it from the main stalk.

We know what happens when we forget to water plants regularly or when the rains stop, and the yards grow crispy.

Jesus is the one who delivers water and nutrients. We won't do well when we're disconnected from the life source. In fact, Jesus makes clear what happens to those of us who separate from Christ: we wither.

What if we're feeling withered? We might assume that Christ has left us to parch, but maybe we need to meet Jesus in a new place. Maybe it's time to return to our gratitude journals. Maybe we need to plan a retreat. Maybe we need to try an artistic practice. Maybe we need a physical discipline to shape our spiritual discipline: yoga or fasting or walking a labyrinth.

And then it's time to bear fruit. It's in this area that I find this week's Gospel unsettling.

Notice how in just 8 verses, Jesus repeats several things. More than once, we're reminded that branches that don't bear fruit are cut away from the true vine. Look at the verbs that Jesus uses for these non-bearing branches: wither, gathered, thrown, burned.

My brain wants to know what kind of timeline we're working with here. How long do I have to prove I can bear fruit? Is it too late? Have I been cast into the fire already, and I just don't know it yet?

I suspect I'm missing the point. God, the true vine and vinedresser, seems to give humanity chance after chance after chance. In these verses, though, Jesus reminds us that much is expected from us. Where are we bearing good fruit?

Every action that we take helps to create a world that is either more good or more evil. We want to make sure we're creating the Kingdom that God has called us to help create. We're to be creating it here, now--not in some distant time and place when we're dead.

We're in a world where the Good News of the Gospel is that the Kingdom of God is both here now (thus a cause for joy) and not yet (as evidenced by evil in the world). How can we be the vine bearing good fruit?

We don't have time to waste withering on the vine. God has many joyous tasks for us, and the world urgently needs for us to do them.

Systematic Theology Rough Draft Process

 As is usual on a Tuesday or a Thursday, I have less time to write.  Soon I need to get ready to head down the mountain to Spartanburg Methodist College--but today is the last day of face to face classes for me this semester.

Yesterday, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I knew that the tile crew would return.  I knew that I had plenty of tasks to do at my desk, and my spouse has a wide variety of home repair tasks to choose from each day.  I sat at my desk and got to work.

I got grading done and e-mails done and a bit of writing revision, the tinkering just before a paper gets turned in kind of revision.  I went for a walk in the chilly Spring air--chilly, but in a crisp way, not in a kill the plants way.  The sky was so blue, and the landscape is filling in; soon we won't be able to see much beyond the roadside but green, green, green.

As I came to the end of the road by the lake, I had a vision for how to write my final paper for Systematic Theology.  I've had lots of ideas for what I want to say, but no idea for how to organize it.  I came home knowing what to do, and I sat down to do it.  I organized it by doctrines of the Church that have worked together in a less good way than they could have:  Soteriology (salvation), Ecclesiology (the Church), Eschatology (end times), and Creation.  To sum up:  our focus on salvation for individual sin coupled with our belief that we're just here as a holding place before heaven has left societal "sin" running rampant, putting all of creation at risk.  

I have a complete rough draft!  I just need to go back to add some quotes, and do some polishing.  I didn't think it would come together that easily.  I expected to have a skeleton at the end of the day, 4 pages that could be expanded later.  But I have nine full pages, so getting to the 15-20 page requirement will not be a problem.  

It's a relief.  In some ways, this should be an easy paper to write; we have a lot more latitude since it's our final paper for the two semester Systematic Theology paper.  But that latitude made me cautious.  I also have a paper to write for my Environmental History of Christianity (EHC) class, so I don't want to use similar ideas and get flagged for plagiarism--that, too, made me cautious.  

The paper I just wrote is not likely to overlap with the paper I will be writing for my EHC class, which is due May 11.  I'll be using different outside sources for each.

It feels good to have a rough draft.  I still have much work to do;  with all the classes that I'm teaching and taking, I have at least 5 deadlines to keep in mind, with smaller deadlines along the way.  But in some ways, that's easier than if they all came crashing to an end during the same week.  Steady, steady, and it will get done.

Hearing Voices--Or Not--A Children's Sermon Success Story

 My day is quickly filling up as the various ends of semesters all come into sight.  But let me record a moment from yesterday's worship service at Faith Lutheran that went really well.

Yesterday's Gospel was John 10:  11-18, which talks about the sheep hearing the shepherd's voice.  For the youth sermon, I wanted to demonstrate how hard it can be to hear individual voices when there's so much noise, and how hard it can be to hear God's voice in the midst of all the noise.

Before the service started, I wrote statements on paper slips, like "Hey, sheep, come here and I'll make you a star."  "Hey, sheep, I can make you rich."  At a moment in the sermon, I orchestrated the adults in the background to say all their lines at once, and if they didn't have a line, they could say, "Hey, sheep, over here."  The youth would listen and try to decide which voice to follow.

I was surprised by what a cacophony happened when everyone spoke/shouted at once.  When I had the congregation stop, I asked the youth which voice they would follow, and then I asked if they could hear any individual voice.  They could not.

It worked beautifully to demonstrate my message.  And then, we were able to talk about how we hear God's voice:  in silence, in church, in songs, in reading, in being in community with people who want the best for you, in prayer.

I felt like my adult sermon went well too, and what makes me happier is that I was feeling very stymied on Saturday morning.  By evening, after much prayer and thought and writing and discussing with my spouse, I had two sermons that worked.

It won't always be that way, I know.  But I'm always grateful when inspiration comes, even if it's at the eleventh hour.

Today's Sermon: Listen for the Voice of the One Who Really Loves You

I'm really pleased with how I ended my sermon that I will preach in a few hours.  The text is John 10:  11-18, a text which meditates on shepherds, sheep, and what the shepherd does that the hired hand doesn't.  Here's the ending:

Let’s use the language of the 23rd Psalm as we analyze whether or not we’re hearing the Shepherd’s voice. Are we being called to green pastures and calm water? Does our cup run over? Are our souls restored?

Once we determine that we’re hearing God’s voice, hopefully it will be easier to follow our Good Shepherd along the right pathways. And when we do have to go through the valleys of death—and there can be so many valleys of death in a single human life—when we do have to go through the valleys of death, we will know we do not need to be afraid. We’re not walking alone. We’re not abandoned. The one who loves us and claims us will lead us home.

Don’t follow the voices that will abandon you, running away to leave you to be devoured by wolves. Listen for the voice that calls you to resurrection, to new life, to loving community—to new life.

Communal Poetry Project

 Two years ago, I was part of a seminary class that studied Jericho Brown's duplexes.  As part of my final project, I wrote some duplexes of my own.  I went through my poetry notebooks looking for lines that didn't make it into a poem, and I created a Word document of them.  I ended up with lots of abandoned lines in a big document, and I return to the document periodically when I need inspiration.

This week, I used those lines in a different way.  I needed something different to do with my English 100 class.  I decided to celebrate National Poetry Month with a communal poetry project.  Along the way, I talked about how doing different kinds of writing can make us feel refreshed when we return to academic writing, so it wasn't only a diversion.

I took the document that I created a few weeks ago as part of my internship.  I was trying to create a Mad Libs kind of thing to prompt people to tell their spiritual stories, and I modified it for the poetry project.  I knew that these students needed something to get their creative ideas flowing--or to have something to use in case they didn't get any creative ideas at all.  I created a fill in the blank document that would prompt them to make a list of nouns, verbs, emotions, and then a different fill in the blank document with words missing from lines from famous poems ("Hope is a thing with ______"), hymns ("Oh for a thousand tongues to _____") and pop songs ("You turn me round and round like a _______").

Before class, I cut up the lines from my abandoned lines document and put them in a bowl.  We had a time of taking those lines and adding lines.  If nothing came to them, they could use one of the items from the Mad Libs documents.  At one point, I collected slips with my line and the student line and gave them to a different student to write a new line.  Students ended up with 9-15 slips of paper on their individual tables.

Before class, I had rearranged the tables (I love a classroom with tables that are mobile!).  On the back tables, I taped blank paper, which created 9 blank documents for my analogue cut and paste.  I brought tape with me to class, and I gave students a piece of tape and had them go tape a slip to the longer sheet of paper.  It wasn't as chaotic as I thought it might be. 

We ended up with pieces of paper that were fairly full, but still had space.  I mention this because I wasn't sure how many blank sheets to create.  And as students walked back and forth, they had plenty of room.  Ten students participated, so I'm not sure how this would work with larger groups.  I'd probably have a few more blank documents.

I then read each of the communal poems out loud.  It was interesting to see how the lines spoke to each other.  I talked about the kinds of academic papers we might write if we were asked to write about poems like these.  I also asked about their process.  Only three students read the slips that were already there as they thought about where to tape their own slips.  The process for most students was fairly random, and I was amazed at how the poems held together.

At the end of class, I had students write about the process to tell me what they thought.  Three students said that their favorite part was when I read each poem; that made me happy, because I felt a little unsure of that part.  And the best part--one student talked at great length about how amazing the experience was, the whole process.  Hurrah!

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post confessing that I was failing National Poetry Month.  Yesterday, I feel like I succeeded.

Internship's End

 Last night, my internship experience came to a close--it was a natural end, nothing dire.  But it does feel like an event worth noting.

First, some background.  Wesley handles internships differently than some  schools.  It's a part-time job coupled with a class where we meet each week to process our experiences together as a group.  The part-time position can be in a church, the typical learning to be a parish pastor kind of job.  But it could also be in any number of other settings, from prisons to hospitals to non-profits.  If a seminarian has a specific vision, as I did, she can file the paperwork to have her site considered.

I was lucky to have this flexibility.  When I was thinking about possibilities, I wasn't sure where I would be living.  The campus housing was slated to be torn down, and I was mulling over options.  I decided that an internship that I could do remotely made sense.  I had been impressed with the way the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA offered online options for spiritual growth, so I reached out to them.  They were agreeable, and happily, the paperwork was not too onerous.  I know that Synod staff are busy folks, and I hated making paperwork requests.

During my seminary journey, I've never been too worried about traditional classes:  I know that I can write, and I can read rigorous books and journal articles, and I have little problem meeting class deadlines.  But the internship process worried me a bit, with its additional parts:  class instructors, internship staff from the school, and Synod staff.  Happily, everything went smoothly.

When I first started at Wesley, the internship stretched over two years, with the class meeting every other week.  I prefer the more intense model that I just completed.  Much can go wrong over two years, and I would hate to have to start over.  Much can go wrong over one year, and I'm glad to have this requirement completed.

When I talk about much that can go wrong, I know that may sound like I'm being a bit of a drama queen.  But I've seen classmates derailed by events, like the death of the mother who was providing childcare or a pregnancy that turned problematic or any number of other health problems.  I know that internship sites that seem fantastic can change.  I feel fortunate that I didn't have any stumbling blocks.

I also feel fortunate that my internship journey has been filled with wonderful people, people I worked with directly and indirectly at the Synod level, faculty, classmates.  I have felt supported and nurtured at every turn.  I know that not everyone gets that experience, and I am so grateful that I have had the experience that I just completed.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, April 21, 2024:

Acts 4:5-12

Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. (Ps. 23:1)

1 John 3:16-24

John 10:11-18

Here's another familiar set of images in today's Gospel, ones that are so familiar that we neglect to see the strangeness. But read the passage again and notice how many times Jesus says he's the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. At first, knowing the outcome of Jesus' life story as we do, we might find that a comforting thought.

But imagine that you're a little lamb with a scary wolf nearby. Maybe the good shepherd kills the wolf while laying down his life for you. But does that leave you protected from the other wolves that are out there? No. At a Create in Me retreat years ago, pastor Jan Setzler pointed out that a dead shepherd is no use to the sheep. I hadn't thought about this parable from that angle before he pointed it out in a Bible study. Most of us don't raise livestock these days, so we forget how strange this metaphor would have seemed to an audience of people who knew shepherds.

The people of Jesus’ time who heard him speak in this mystical way would have been more puzzled than comforted. I suspect that would have been their usual reaction to him. His parables are familiar to us, so we’ve lost sight of their strangeness. Two thousand years ago, people would have said, “What good is a dead shepherd?”

They might have been more like me. I want a shepherd who will remind me to come out of the rain. I want a shepherd who will tilt my head back down so that I don’t drown in the rain because I’m too stupid not to inhale the rain. I want a shepherd who will gather the flock together and kill the predators with a skillful shot from a sling. I want a shepherd who leads us to safe pastures.

And the good news of the Gospels is that we have such a shepherd.

These verses serve to remind us that the world we live in is a scary one. You may think you can make it on your own, but you can't. Notice that Jesus doesn't compare us to cats or horses--no, we're sheep, some of the dumbest animals ever domesticated. You may be able to make it on your own up to a point--but where will that point be?

No, we need the safety of the flock, the safety of a shepherd. We need someone who will train us to recognize his voice. The good news of the Gospels: we have that shepherd in Jesus.

A Different Approach to Responsive Readings

Last week at the Create in Me retreat, we did some worship planning. In a way, it's a familiar aspect of the retreat. But this year was different: we had one person who had done the prep work in advance (choosing texts and music, thinking about the order of worship, recruiting some leaders) and worship prep was an afternoon option, not a morning requirement.

We didn't have as many people who wanted to participate, so some approaches wouldn't work as well. For example, in the past, a Word team might have acted out the Bible reading, but with just one person, that's not as viable. In the past, the Movement group might have put together a performance or brought silks for the congregation to use, but not this year.

In some ways, the final worship service was more participatory, which I didn't anticipate. We didn't have a Movement group, so we adapted one song to have movements that the whole worship congregation would do--and it worked.

I was in charge of the Word team, which was one other person. She read one passage, which was fine. But I wanted to do something different with the other two Bible passages. I thought about drafting people to help me act out a scene, and there probably would have been people who were willing. But in the worship prep afternoon session, we came up with a different idea: a responsive reading.

Most of us probably think of responsive reading as something we do with a Psalm. But I was happy to experiment, and so I spent an hour with the Ruth and Naomi text and the David and Jonathan text (our retreat had a friendship theme this year) and created the following. I'm posting it here, because the responsive reading went well, and I wanted to remember that it worked:


The Story Ruth, Read Responsively


Right Side

All our men have died, husbands, sons, and we are left alone.

Left Side

I advise the women who married my dead sons to go to the house of their mothers. Perhaps they can marry again. We cry together.

Right Side

We know that I am too old to remarry, but they are not.

Left Side

I cannot give them new sons. They should find someone else to marry.

Right Side

Orpah leaves, but Ruth does not.

Left Side

Ruth says, “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live.

Right Side

Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

Left Side

Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.

Right Side

May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!”

Left Side

If Ruth wants to come, I will not stop her. We go to the land of my people, Bethlehem. We get home just before the barley harvest.



The Story of David and Jonathan read responsively


Right Side

Jonathan loved David—the bond was immediate. They made a pact.

Left Side

To seal the pact, Jonathan gave David his robe, his tunic, sword, bow, and belt.

Right Side

David was successful in war—too successful.

Left Side

Jonathan’s father, King Saul, vowed to kill David.

Right Side

Jonathan warned David and came up with a plan to save him.

Left Side

David hid, while Jonathan reminded King Saul of all the good David had done.

Right Side

King Saul changed his mind and vowed that David would not die but live.

Left Side

In this way, Jonathan saved both David and his father.

A Different Kind of Lectio Divina

Before we get too far away from the Create in Me retreat, I want to make sure I record our experience with Bible Study, which was different from any we had ever done.  We had as our text Luke 5: 18-25, the story about a paralyzed man lowered through the roof where Jesus was teaching and healing.  We did some Ignatian types of meditation, imagining ourselves as part of the story.

Then we did a different kind of encountering of the text.  We were divided into groups, five to a table.  We listened to our leader read the story again, and we circled words that leapt out at us.  We listened to the story again, discerning the one word that was important.  Each member of the group shared their word, and we put them into an order.  It might have been a sentence that made sense or perhaps not.  Then we were given big sheets of paper and a stick of charcoal and we wrote the words over and over again.

My group's words were:  friend glorifying their faith friend.  My word was "their"--I was interested in faith as a collective action in verse 20:  "When he saw their faith, he said, 'Friend, our sins are forgiven you.'"

Here's the drawing on the first day:

I tried to fill up all the space, but we didn't have to do that.  I was interested in words on top of each other, but we didn't have to do that.  The member of our group that wrote words in a circle on the page ended up with a very different sketch that was also pleasing.  In fact, I liked everyone else's better than mine, but that's not an uncommon feeling for me.

The second day, we did a different interpretation of the story from Mark, and then we returned to our sketches.  We drew some more.  We were trying to be alert to see if shapes emerged, shapes or anything else.  I thought my paper looked like a big mess, so I did some smudging.  I took my finger and wrote the word "Friends" across the smudging.  Here's the result:

I wanted to play with color pastel, but those weren't the instructions.  In the future, I would add color.  I really enjoyed the meditative aspect of the work.  It reminded me of cutting paper, which I can find oddly soothing.

I thought this worked well as a group activity at a creativity retreat.  I wonder how it would work in other settings.  The charcoal can be very messy--a bonus and a drawback, depending on the group.

Did it provide deeper insights?  I'm not sure.  I preferred it to the Ignatian imagining.  But I do confess that today, just six days later, I couldn't remember which words we chose.  I remembered the word "friend" but not the others.

I am trying to come up with something to do with my English 100 class next week.  Maybe we'll try a version of this.  Hmmm.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, April 14, 2024:

First Reading: Acts 3:12-19

Psalm: Psalm 4

Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-7

Gospel: Luke 24:36b-48

In this week's Gospel, we have another appearance story, and what an odd story it is. In the post-Resurrection stories, Jesus has taken on supernatural capacities that, with the exception of some of his accomplishments with his miracles, he didn't really demonstrate before his crucifixion. Here, he suddenly appears; a few verses earlier, he has vanished after eating.

The disciples, rooted in the rational world, can't make sense of what they're seeing and hearing. Those of us who spend our secular lives surrounded by people who are disdainful of the mystical might find ourselves more sympathetic to their plight.

I find myself coming back to verse 41, the disciples who “disbelieved for joy.” In Eugene Peterson’s words, it seems too good to be true (The Message version of the Bible).

So many things get in our way of believing in good news: despair, fear of hurt, joy, our commitment to what our senses tell us. Even as the disciples see Jesus standing in front of them, even as they touch him, even as they share a meal together, they can’t believe how lucky they are. They literally will not believe.

How much we are like the disciples, buffeted by bad news, unable to see the Divine standing right there in front of us. How nice it would be to have Jesus there to help us understand all these mysteries: “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (Luke 24: 45). So many weeks we have minds that have snapped shut. I find myself envious of these disciples who are there at the beginning, with open minds and joyful hearts and a soul that finally understands.

I remind myself that I have an advantage that these disciples didn’t have. I know that this Good News will be spread far and wide. I know how the world has received it at various times. I have seen regular humans who are able to transform their corners of the world with an ability that seems almost superhuman—but it is a power that comes from Christ.

I want to be part of that community. I want to be a resurrection human, one of those lights who doesn’t let the drumbeat of bad news drown out the Good News of Jesus.

Jesus is still here, reminding us of his scars and of the capacity to overcome those things that scar us. Jesus is still here, waiting to share a meal with us. Jesus is still here, reminding us that we are witnesses and co-creators of the Kingdom, that we are called to a far greater destiny than our tiny imaginations can envision.

Eclipse Regrets

I now have eclipse regret.  Perhaps I should have gone on a quest for totality.  I knew we were going to be at 85% totality, and I thought that would be enough.  But now, seeing other people's pictures and reading about their experiences, I'm wondering if I should have made more of an effort.  After all, we won't have these opportunities often, at least not in driving distance.

I'm also feeling a tinge of sadness for other reasons.  I made this Facebook post yesterday afternoon:  "Strange to think about how much has changed since August 2017, the last time I viewed a solar eclipse. Back then, I wrote this conclusion to a blog post: 'Make plans now: August 12, 2045, my house will be on the path of full totality. If the rising seas haven't washed it away, you're all invited to my house. Full totality will be at 1:37 p.m.' That was my Florida house, now someone else's Florida house, and that post was just a few weeks before Hurricane Irma."

We stayed in that house for four more years, many of them years of trying to stay sane in the midst of home repairs from hurricane damage.  Sure, we were one of the lucky ones--our insurance paid for the repairs, with minimum struggle to get them to do it.  We thought it was going to be a struggle, with a need to send documentation about our contractor and to get said contractor to fill in reports periodically to get the funds released periodically--and then, out of the clear blue sky, the funds were released in one big check.

I spent the next four years expecting the insurance company to come and demand paperwork or demand their money back or somehow make my life more difficult.  Happily, they did not.

Thinking about 2017 makes me sad for all sorts of reasons.  Even though I didn't have the amount of leave accrued in my new job that would have let me go on a quest for totality, I was happy in that job at that moment.  We had just had a successful accreditation visit.  Our new president who was in charge of two campuses was still mostly at the Ft. Lauderdale campus, still mostly not concerned with my campus, the Hollywood campus.  It was all going to go badly in many different ways in the coming years, but if I had any sense of that fact, it was only a glimmer.

There's also some sadness because we spent that 2017 eclipse in and near the pool in our backyard; my sister and nephew were down for a visit, and we were having a marvelous time.  We still have a marvelous time together, but it's different now, in the normal ways that everything changes as we age.

I have spent time trying not to look back, but every so often, I'm stopped in my tracks.  Usually, I'm stopped for happiness.  If I could go back to 2017 Kristin and tell her how life has changed, she would be amazed:  a home in the mountains, almost done with an MDiv program, a part-time preaching position, and a teaching job at a small, liberal arts college.  That list represents lots of dreams coming true.  It also represents some severances:  something we don't always remember when we think about dreams coming true, that dreams coming true mean some dreams fade away.

It is time to get ready for that teaching job--off I go, soon, down the mountains to teach English at Spartanburg Methodist College.  I teach, while the bathroom install is happening here.  It will be good to be away.

Let me close with another Facebook post from yesterday:  "Today I looked at the sky and looked at the ground, hoping for interesting shadows during the eclipse. No interesting shadows, but I did realize for the first time that one of our spindly trees is a dogwood, one of my favorite trees."

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Preservation through Prose: Spiritual Memoir for Yourself or for Valued Elders

Instead of doing a big post looking back at the Create in Me retreat, I am much more likely this week to write a series of smaller posts.  This morning, we are hoping that our bathroom remodel gets underway, and I still have to go to campus this week.  In short, it's not going to be a week of lots of downtime.  I'm hoping for some downtime in May.

But before we get too far away from the retreat, let me remember my writing workshop on Saturday, a workshop called Preservation in Prose, a spiritual autobiography/memoir workshop.  It was a delightful group, even though there were only two people in addition to me and a person who came late.  And even more delightful--I got some writing done too.

What we did is adaptable for individual writers and for larger groups.  It's good to capture our own stories, and it's also a way to capture the stories of other people who aren't as interested in writing.

I began with a collection of objects on the table:  quilt squares (one old and tattered, one a take-away from Quilt Camp), a nail, a game piece, an Easter bunny sticker, a Scrabble tile--in short, anything I could find on various tables at the Create in Me retreat, plus some goodies from an Easter Egg hunt bag of treats prepared for kids.  We each chose one and wrote about why we chose it.  Then we discussed.

We moved to a different kind of imaginative writing.  First we imagined ourselves twenty to thirty years from now.  It's a variation of asking my students to imagine themselves as 80 year olds.  I had them write a letter from their older selves to the people they are now.  Then we did the same thing in reverse.  Have your late adolescent self write to the person you are now.

Then we made some lists like this one:

6 natural objects

6 humanmade objects

6 ordinary actions

6 art materials

We talked about metaphor, simile, and imagery--how can our concept of God change if we compare God to something on the list?  

From there, we filled in this list on one side of the handout that I created:

Detail of shift from one season to another ________________________________

Type of noise ________________________________________

Element of nature _____________________________________________

Type of emotion _________________________________________________

Favorite flower __________________________________________________

Something very tiny ________________________________________________

Floor or wall covering ______________________________________________

Something nourishing ________________________________________________

Favorite fruit __________________________________________________________

Element of self-care ______________________________________________

Something only found in a park _________________________________________

Something that oozes _____________________________________________

Favorite treat ________________________________________________________

Something that turns _______________________________________________

Favorite musical instrument ________________________________________________

Something that grinds ___________________________________________________

Something huge_____________________________________________________

Something only found in a big city ____________________________________

Favorite food made for you by an older generation ___________________________

Then we filled out this list with the items from the first list:

--A commitment to God helps us offer __________________________________.

--We yearn for the day when justice covers the earth like ______________________________.

--We are crushed into bits smaller than _____________________ by Powers and Principalities, by the forces of the world, by Satan.

--Truth rolls down through the valley like ________________________________________.

--When I work with God, it’s as if _______________________________________.

--When I think of redemption, I think of __________________________________.

--I first heard God’s call as __________________________________ .

--Evildoers cover their rotten foundations with _____________________________.

--We burn with __________________________________for the vision of new life that Jesus offers.

--I have seen the Holy Spirit moving through world like ________________________________.

--My spiritual history is like ___________________________________________.

--Injustice grinds us like a giant ____________________________________________.

--The____________________________ of justice turns slowly, but the turning does occur.

--The community of God is like _____________________________________________.

--The ___________________________of justice has found fertile soil in my heart.

--A partnership with God is like _________________________________________.

--_________________________grows in the garden of redemption.

My brain created some poem fragments that had nothing to do with the two lists--that was a delight too.

Sermon Conclusions and the Unexpected Blessings of a Retreat

I will write more about the Create in Me retreat when I have more time tomorrow.  Soon I will need to put on my presentable clothes and drive across the mountain to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  One of the blessings of the retreat:  yesterday, it gave me a way to conclude my sermon on the disciples in the locked room and doubting Thomas:

God meets us where we are. I was at a creativity retreat at Lutheridge this week, and at the creative writing workshop I offered one woman said of her spiritual journey, “Jesus knocks on the door. All we have to do is answer it.” This week’s Gospel reading tells us that we don’t even have to open the door. If we’re too tired, too full of doubt and despair, Jesus doesn’t need us to do a dang thing. That’s the nature of grace. Before we even realize we need to open the door, Jesus appears, offering us what we need, getting us ready for what’s ahead.

Retreats and My Current Life

A few weeks ago, I was at Quilt Camp at Lutheridge.  This week I'm at a different retreat at Lutheridge, the Create in Me retreat.  Both of them make me happy, but in different ways.  Create in Me has a variety of activities, with workshops and Bible Study and much more involved worship services.  Quilt Camp gives us lots of time and space to work on our own projects that we bring with us.

When I'm at one, I'm missing the other.  Having gone to both for several years now, I know to expect this feeling.  I'm also missing past years, past people.  Again, I know to expect this, but it often makes me feel strange.

It's not a new revelation:  I'm happier when I'm not comparing experiences.  Still, it's so hard for me not to compare.

I've also been thinking about past years, about how sad I was as I made my way home to the flat land of Florida.  I've been thinking about how astonished past Kristin would be to find out that I had finally found a home in the mountains.

Of course, one of the disadvantages of a house here at Lutheridge is that I don't really feel like I'm on retreat, like I've been away, when I return to my house each night.  Of course, one of the advantages of my current life is that many of the elements of retreat life are present in my daily life.

Eclipse Glasses and Easter

I thought about crafting a sermon for the adults around the ideas of Easter and the eclipse.  But I decided to use the ideas for my children's sermon--in the church where I am Synod Appointed Minister, the adults listen to both the children's sermon and the one for the adults.

I ordered enough eclipse glasses for all, children and adults, and before the children's sermon, I gave each child a pair, had them put them on, and took a picture.  I've edited these pictures to protect the privacy of minors.

Then I had them take the glasses off.  For those of you who haven't gotten your eclipse glasses yet, these are very dark, as they should be.  If you put them on and can still see objects as you look through them, they won't protect your eyes when you stare at the sun.

I told the youth to be listening in the post-Easter readings, because people would have this same experience when they met the risen Jesus.  They wouldn't recognize him at first.  Then something would happen, usually involving food, and it would be as if they took their eclipse glasses off--suddenly they'd be able to see what was right in front of them.

Our lives are the same way.  God is at work in the world, but often, we can't see it.  Maybe we're wearing our eclipse glasses of grief, despair, or cynicism.  Maybe we're too anxious to look.  Maybe we're focused on the wrong thing, while something of celestial magnificence is happening.

Jesus appears, and gently, he reminds us to take off our eclipse glasses.  In the breaking of the bread, we recognize divine love.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, April 7, 2024:

First Reading: Acts 4:32-35

Psalm: Psalm 133

Second Reading: 1 John 1:1--2:2

Gospel: John 20:19-31

This week's Gospel returns us to the familiar story of Thomas, who will always be known as Doubting Thomas, no matter what else he did or accomplished.  What I love about the Gospels most is that we get to see humans interacting with the Divine, in all of our human weaknesses. Particularly in the last few weeks, we've seen humans betray and deny and doubt--but God can work with us.

If you were choosing a group of people most unlikely to start and spread a lasting worldwide movement, it might be these disciples. They have very little in the way of prestige, connections, wealth, networking skills, marketing smarts, or anything else you might look for if you were calling modern disciples. And yet, Jesus transformed them.

Perhaps it should not surprise us. The Old Testament, too, is full of stories of lackluster humans unlikely to succeed: mumblers and cheats, bumblers and the unwise. God can use anyone, even murderers.

How does this happen? The story of Thomas gives us a vivid metaphor. When we thrust our hands into the wounds of Jesus, we're transformed. Perhaps that metaphor is too gory for your tastes, and yet, it speaks to the truth of our God. We have a God who wants to know us in all our gooey messiness. We have a God who knows all our strengths and all our weaknesses, and still, this God desires closeness with us. And what's more, this God invites us to a similar intimacy. Jesus doesn't say, "Here I am, look at me and believe." No, Jesus offers his wounds and invites Thomas to touch him.

Jesus will spend the next several weeks eating with the disciples, breathing on them, and being with them physically one last time. Then he sends them out to transform the wounded world.

We, too, are called to lay our holy hands on the wounds of the world and to heal those wounds. It's not enough to just declare the Good News of Easter. We are called to participate in the ongoing redemption of creation. We know creation intimately, and we know which wounds we are most capable of healing. Some of us will work on environmental issues, some of us will make sure that the poor are fed and clothed, some of us will work with criminals and the unjustly accused, and more of us will help children.

In the coming weeks, be alert to the recurring theme of the breath of Jesus and the breath of God. You have the breath of the Divine on you too.  In our time of awareness of how disease spreads through breathing, it will be interesting to see how we respond to this imagery.

But God's breath transforms creation in ways that viruses can only dream of.  God's breath can transform us too.

One Last Look at Easter 2024

Before we get too far away from Easter Sunday, I want to record some memories.  It was a whirlwind day, in many ways.  But compared to other church folk, my day was laid back:  no sunrise service, no Easter egg hunt, only one service.  

In some ways it was like any other Sunday.  We got up early and got ready for church at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  I had a decent enough Easter outfit, but as always, I didn't like my shoe options.  I decided to wear my special Easter socks that come just over my ankles with sandals.  It was warm enough for bare feet, but my feet are in rough shape--Maundy Thursday feet, not Easter feet.  It usually doesn't concern me, but Easter felt different.  In the past I've solved the problem with toenail polish, but I hadn't planned ahead.

I found a way to solve my sermon, did a bit of polishing, and printed it out.  We put our stuff in the car and headed across the mountains, which looked soft and furry in the early morning light.  I couldn't get a good shot of them, but this gives you an idea.

And later, when we stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center where we always stop, I saw this glow in the mountains.  I knew it was a trick of clouds and sunlight.  But it had an Easter morning vibe that this view doesn't usually have.

We got to the church early-ish, before most folks, because we had no Sunday School.  The wooden cross sat outside, wrapped in chicken wire, empty.  But it wasn't long before people arrived and started filling it up with flowers.  When a parishioner offered to take our picture in front of it, we couldn't resist.

My spouse had suggested that in addition to unboxing the alleluias, we have noisemakers for everyone to shake when we say or sing an alleluia.  Faith Lutheran hadn't done that before, and it worked beautifully.  There was an energy in the church that isn't always there.

My sermons went well, both the children's sermon with eclipse glasses (more in a later blog post) and my sermon on the Gospel (if you want to read that sermon, I put it in this blog post).  There was a moment near the end where I felt like I might get a bit choked up at the idea of Jesus waiting for us further on up the road.  But I pulled myself together and finished the sermon.

After the service, several people told me I had done a marvelous job.  That might have just been the Easter energy.  Still, it was great to feel the Easter energy taking us all out into the world. 

And then we hopped in the car and drove back across the mountains--still beautiful, a subdued set of blues.  We stopped by the local grocery store just before we got home, and we picked up our Easter meal:  steak, potatoes, mushrooms, and red wine.  Not exactly traditional Easter, but we don't have traditional Easter meals in our house.

It was a good Easter, and I am guessing that in much later years, when I look back, I'll see it as one of the best Easters.

Easter Sermon 2024

I was really pleased with how my Easter sermon went--the written copy will be lacking a bit of the energy, but you'll get the general idea:

Mark 16: 1-8

Are you wondering what happened next? Are you wondering if we forgot to copy a paragraph or two as we prepared bulletins? I assure you, we did not. The Gospel of Mark ends here.

Are you feeling shortchanged at this point? We might say, “Don’t we even get to see the resurrected Jesus?” It’s much more common to hear the Gospel of John on Easter Sunday, and I see why. The writing teacher in me sees the other Gospels as much more developed. The ending is more satisfying. We get a first hand resurrection, not news of the resurrection.

You might be remembering different endings of Mark, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Most Bibles include a few more verses to develop this story in ways that are more similar to the other Gospels. But those verses were added much later, in the second century or later, and those endings were based on the endings of the other Gospels which had been written by then.

My New Testament professor would say that we’re missing the Resurrection appearances, but the Resurrection is here. We’ve got an empty tomb, after all. We know we have the Resurrection because of what happens after the women run away. They may have been too terrified to speak in the closing moments of the Gospel, but clearly they got over their fear. We’re here, in a church, hearing the story, with other versions of it if we want something different. We can infer that although the women ran away amazed and terrified, that amazement won the day. Or maybe, as other events happened to corroborate what they heard at the empty tomb, the women found their voices. That’s often how it works when we experience a traumatic event.

After those earliest days, people went out to all the ends of the earth to tell that story. They wouldn’t have done that if there had been no resurrection, if they had just lost a teacher who told them interesting parables in a poetic way.

In so many ways, the original ending of Mark, which we have here, is a fitting end to this particularGospel. The Gospel of Mark is short, and the pace is quick, even hurried. There’s an urgency to Mark, and the ending fits with this urgency. “Go, tell”—and the women do. No one lingers as they try to sort out who this man is and how he knows so much. They run away in both amazement and terror.

Amazement and terror might be a shorthand way of summing up the whole Gospel. Throughout the Gospel, we see people amazed and terrified—baffled and frightened and amazed and terrified. People don’t know what to make of what they’ve seen Jesus do, and of all the Gospels, this one shows a Jesus who is more reticent, more likely to tell people NOT to tell what they’ve seen. This ending fits the rest of the Gospel, with women leaving in a state that is both amazed and terrified. And it fits the story—Jesus raised from the dead? Even now, thousands of years later, it’s a profoundly disturbing ending. Think of our own lives, all the times we’ve prayed for a different ending. We might pray for a miracle cure, but once our loved ones die, we understand that act as final. The women in the Gospel of Luke have been through a trauma, witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus—and now, news of resurrection, along with an empty tomb. The urge to run away makes sense.

The women are sent back to Galilee, back to where the ministry of Jesus began. Jesus waits for them there, for the ones who watched him die, the women. You may remember from our reading last week that the women watch him die on the cross from a distance. Mark doesn’t give us the crucifixion scene of support at the base of the cross. Jesus dies alone, but he comes back. The women are told to tell the men, and Peter by name, Peter, the one who denied Jesus. Jesus waits for them there, in the place where it all began, waiting for the ones who ran away, for the ones who denied him, for the ones who deserted him along the way. Jesus waits for us too. Nothing we have done is too awful for redemption.

Some Bible scholars point out that the men are headed towards Galilee, and one Bible scholar says that they were probably running for their lives. But Jesus has gone on ahead of them. This detail, too, fits nicely with the resurrection message. We may think we’re on the run, but Jesus waits just a bit on up the road. As always, Jesus is one step ahead.

This ending speaks to the mystery that we proclaim each week: Christ has died, Christ has risen. The ending, both of the Gospel of Mark and of the work God is doing in the world, is open ended, a work in progress. The women are sent out with a message and a task—and so are we. The story is not complete—why do we think we should get a tidy ending?

Some Bible scholars see this ending as elegant. The women run away, too terrified to tell anyone. But clearly, something changed. We don’t get to hear the particulars, and that leaves us free to imagine a different ending, or to imagine all the ways it might have happened. More importantly, this bare bones ending invites us to enter into the ending. The story ends this way—with a non-ending—and that invites us to insert ourselves into the story.

In some ways, Easter is about endings. The Roman empire kills Jesus and believes they have rid themselves of a rabble rouser, an insurgent. The religious authorities kill Jesus and believe that they will win favor with Rome. But Easter reminds us that earthly powers don’t have the final word. Earthly empires don’t get to write the ending. Earthly empires aren’t nearly as powerful as they would want us all to believe.

We may find it hard to believe, this idea that good will prevail, that love wins in the end. We live in a world where it seems the rich will prevail. We live in a world where the rich evade justice and the poor are punished. But Easter promises a different ending.

Like the women in today’s Gospel, we may have trouble processing this idea. Life changes, and often faster than we can process the information. We're left struggling, grasping for meaning, refusing to believe the good news that's embodied right before our eyes. We don't recognize the answer to our prayers, our desperate longings. We're stuck grieving in the pre-dawn dark. Or we are too terrified to even talk about what we’ve seen.

That’s O.K. Jesus waits for us, back in the place where it all began. Jesus waits for us to catch up, just a little further on up the road.

Each and every day, God commits to the forces of creation and resurrection. Each and every day, God invites us to gather together, to begin our ministry anew, to join God in overthrowing the forces of brutality with the force that is love. Each and every day, I hope we say yes, even if we are terrified, even as we are amazed.

Empire is so much more fragile than it seems. Chaos always lurks at the margins—and sometimes chaos moves front and center. But God has a larger vision and invites us to be part of it.

Today and every day, I hope we say yes.

And rest assured that if we say no, we’ll get more invitations. God will not abandon us. No—God will wait for us, on up ahead, and when we get there, we’ll realize that Jesus has been by our side all along.

Easter Pre-Dawn: 2024

 Easter Sunday:  soon we will go to the car and head over the mountains to Bristol, Tennessee, where I will preach and preside at Faith Lutheran.  I've preached many sermons before, but never the Easter sermon.  We are doing the passage from Mark, the last part of Mark, without the verses tacked on in the second century.  The women run away, amazed and terrified.

But that's O.K.  They are going to Galilee, where they will tell the men what they have heard.  They are going to Galilee, where Jesus will meet them.  Jesus has gone ahead.  Jesus has also gone back to the place where it all began.  From there, the next phase of ministry will launch.

Time is short.  Time to put on my Easter socks to hide my Maundy Thursday feet (such mangled toenails!) and white sandals.  Time to print the sermon.  Time to go, to proclaim the good news that the brutal forces of empire and hate do not have the final word.

Empire is so much more fragile than it seems.  Chaos always lurks at the margins.  But God has a larger vision and invites us to be part of it.

Today and every day, I hope we say yes.

Four Years of Morning Watch

Four years ago, a core group of us gathered at church to do the livestreaming of the service when we could no longer gather as a large group--that was how we began doing it.  It was a small group, and we were spread out.  We also brainstormed other things we could do, like a Compline service.  I volunteered to do something in the morning.  One of the brainstorming group suggested that in addition to some sort of reading, that we have time for something creative.

At first I thought about choosing the readings, and then I thought, why do this?  I have Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours; she's done this work for me.  I did the readings for the day, took a five-seven minute pause to do meditation, writing, sketching, yoga, whatever gets us grounded for the day.  And then we came back for closing prayer, also from The Divine Hours, and I gave some closing thoughts, a benediction of sorts.

It hasn't changed much.  I do show the sketch I'm working on; my dad made a comment that he wanted to see what I was working on, so I started holding the sketch close to the camera. 

I've continued to do morning watch, and it's interesting to scroll back through a selection of posts that Facebook gave me when I did a search.  Here I am with much longer hair.  Here I am in a variety of rooms (the house near the beach, the downtown condo, our Lutheridge house, my seminary apartment, vacation/travel destinations).  Here I am with Christmas lights in the back, and here I am almost always with construction happening in the background.  I won't link to all those posts, as I'm almost sure it's only interesting to me.

This blog post tells a more complete story of the early days.  It also contains this link to the first day when I used Phyllis Tickle's work--on March 30, I had technical difficulties, so I didn't post that broadcast.  It's gotten 187 views.  Later broadcasts get much fewer views.  But I hear from people who find it meaningful, so I'll keep doing it.  Here's a link to this morning's broadcast.

To be honest, even if I didn't get encouragement, I'd probably still do it.  It helps me to stay faithful to this method of formation.

My Good Friday Sermon

When I was a child, I loved the Good Friday service. Along with Christmas Eve, it was one of my favorites. I went to a church that did a Tenebrae service, and I loved the lights dimming down until we sat in total darkness. With a huge boom, the pastor closed the big Bible, and we filed out in silence. I loved the service because it was so different than what we did every Sunday.

In my adult years, I’ve grown frustrated with Good Friday for many reasons. Often the church service makes me yearn for more: more drama, more sadness, more shock at the horror of the story. Often the theology makes me queasy as well, with all that focus on sin and worthlessness; Jesus as blameless, God as stern, and we are at fault. Parts of that theology ring true, but there are so many ways that the theology of substitutionary atonement can go wrong that I hesitate to preach from that position.

Many of the earliest Christians, who were still Jewish after all, saw Jesus as both Messiah and prophet, one who came to announce the inbreaking Kingdom of God, but also one who came to let society know where God saw that the community had gone astray. Old Testament prophets spoke of the sins of society as a whole, not individual sins; for example, an Old Testament prophet would criticize policies that left citizens without enough food, and worry less about whether or not I ate every scrap of food on my plate. Many church denominations through the ages have been much more focused on individual sin, not societal sin, like injustice. Did Jesus really have to die on a cross because I would be mean to my baby sister two thousand years after his death? My fifth grade Sunday School teacher told me he did, and even at the time, I thought this idea was much too simplistic.

When I discovered the theologians who focused on crucifixion as capital punishment, I felt like I had discovered a way that the story made more sense to me. Jesus was crucified; he wasn’t stoned to death or beheaded with a sword or thrown to lions (or other cruelty in the Coliseum). Crucifixion was a Roman punishment reserved for enemies of the empire: revolutionaries, insurrectionists, and runaway slaves and those who would upset the social order. Christ crucified meant that he had so upset the social order that he needed to be dispatched in this public way that would also serve as deterrent to others who might be considering similar actions.

With crucifixion in mind, does the story of Jesus’ life make sense to us? Is his message that revolutionary that Rome would step in and kill him? But the more important question to me now: why do so many denominations focus more on the Crucifixion than on other elements of the story? I’ve been to more than one Easter service that seems stuck in Good Friday with lots of talk of sin and worthlessness than the amazing act that God performs.

These days, I approach the Good Friday story by seeing lots of people in the grip of something they don't understand, working within power structures they can't control, power structures that are spiraling away from what people thought they understood towards chaos and pandemonium. I see people with great disappointment that Jesus was not like Barabbas, the insurrectionist.

Once we might have thought of the chief priests and Pilate as the ones having the power. Now I think about the larger sweep of history, and even Rome's power seems fleeting. These actors have political power, true. But political power can be so precarious. The last few months and years have reminded us of that fact over and over again.

The story of the Crucifixion reminds us that we all suffer--even God who comes to be human with us suffers. There are some Christians out there who would tell us that if we just pray hard enough, we can avoid the sadness that's out there: our illnesses will go away, wealth will fall into our laps, prosperity of all kinds await us if we just trust in God enough. While these things can happen, they are not promised. More than once, Jesus seems to say that followers can expect to suffer just as he did.

The Good Friday story tells us what is at stake. Even God must suffer in the most horrible ways. God comes to earth to show us a better way of living our human lives, and in return, the most powerful earthly empire at the time arrests him, spits on him, presses a crown of thorns into his flesh, tortures him in other ways, and crucifies him, making sure that he is dead.

It's good to remember on Good Friday, and during all of our Good Friday times, that God can make beauty out of the most profound ugliness, wholeness out of the most shattered brokenness. We will explore that idea more on Easter and the weeks following Easter.

Good Friday reminds us of all the ways our hopes can be dashed, of all the ways that we can be betrayed and abandoned, of all the ways that it can all go so terribly wrong. N. T. Wright says, "The greatest religion the world had ever known and the finest system of justice the world had ever known came together to put Jesus on the cross" (How God Became King, page 208). It’s no wonder that we’ve spent so much time and energy trying to figure out what it all meant.

For today, let us sit with Good Friday: the sadness, the horror, the wishing that our salvation did not have to look this way. Let us remember how much our societies want to break anyone who offers a different vision of a more just world. Let us stand in solidarity with those who are shattered by our societies. Let us trust in a God who gives us free will to make disastrous decisions, but who will also show us in spectacular ways that the forces of death and destruction will not have the final word.

Quick Maundy Thursday Post

 Another Maundy Thursday, and I am writing later than I usually would.  I was finishing both my Maundy Thursday and Good Friday sermons, trying to connect the printer, getting ready to drive down the mountain to teach at Spartanburg Methodist College.

After I am done teaching, I will drive back up the mountain, stop at my Lutheridge house, and then my spouse and I will drive to Bristol, Tennessee, so that I can lead Maundy Thursday service at Faith Lutheran.  There have been many moments this morning when I wondered why I didn't just move my classes online.  Today will be more driving than many Maundy Thursdays in the past.

I am used to working my way through Holy Week, and I am glad that my seminary doesn't have classes--one of the benefits of a theological education, as opposed to other types of school I could be doing.

Still, my writing time today is short, so let me end with a good quote.  In her book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor comments on the Last Supper: "With all the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, he [Jesus] did not give something to think about together when he was gone. Instead, he gave them concrete things to do--specific ways of being together in their bodies--that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself" (43).  Jesus gave us all "embodied sacraments of bread, wine, water, and feet" (44).

Meditation on Holy Week and Easter and the Gospel for This Sunday

 The readings for Sunday, March 31, 2024:

First Reading: Acts 10:34-43

First Reading (Alt.): Isaiah 25:6-9

Psalm: Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Second Reading (Alt.): Acts 10:34-43

Gospel: Mark 16:1-8

Gospel (Alt.): John 20:1-18

Finally we move through Holy Week to Easter Sunday. At last, our Lenten pilgrimage draws to a close. It's strange to write about Easter when we have yet to move through all of Holy Week. But the Christian life invites us to live in this strangeness, the coming of God existing in various planes of time: the past, the present, and the not yet.

It's interesting how our emotional lives aren't always in sync with the liturgical seasons or the Lectionary.  Perhaps you still linger back at Ash Wednesday. Perhaps you find the Good Friday texts more evocative than the Easter texts. Maybe you're in a state of joy, back with the shepherds hearing the angel choir. Maybe, like Mary, you prefer silence and pondering the mystery. 

Maybe this year we can approach the Holy Week stories differently. Maundy Thursday gives us a view of how to love each other. Notice that it's about what we do: we eat together, we wash each other's feet, we anoint with oil. It's not about an emotion--it's about an action. It's not a theory of love, but a concrete way of showing that we love each other.

We are called to break bread together, to drink wine together. We are called to invite the outcast to supper with us. We are called to care for each other's bodies--not to sexualize them or mock them or brutalize them, but to wash them tenderly. Thus fortified, we are called to announce that the Kingdom of God is breaking out among us in the world in which we live, and we are called to demand justice for the oppressed.

Perhaps we find ourselves more like the disciples who would transform the loving act of anointing with oil into a way to help the poor by selling that oil and giving the money to the poor. It seems a good way to show love. Jesus rebukes this way of thinking. We will always have the poor; we won't always have the ones we love. 

Good Friday gives us a way to think about betrayal and how we can respond. The Good Friday message is that we will all betray God. But some of us will try again, while others will give up in abject despair. Some of us will apologize and try to do better, while others will choose death.

I also find myself thinking about the tree that must wish for a great destiny, but is transformed into the cross, an instrument of torture. Likewise, Jesus, who has been in some amount of control of his own actions, but finds himself handed over to others. In these past years when I've watched so many friends and colleagues battle cancer--handed over to the medical-industrial complex--the idea of the Passion takes on an excruciating hue.  

Holy Week takes on an even more poignant tone, as we consider the pandemic time we're still living through, along with a variety of social justice movements that remind us that we still have work to do to make our societies better for all.

Easter promises us that our efforts will not be in vain. In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N. T. Wright says forcefully, " . . . what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff" (208). We may not understand how God will transform the world. We may not be able to believe that bleakness will be defeated. But Easter shows us God's promise that death is not the final answer.

Spring reminds us that nature commits to resurrection. Easter reminds us of God's promise of resurrection. Now is the time for us to rekindle our resurrection selves.

The Feast Day of the Annunciation

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

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

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

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

But before she is called upon to these greater tasks, first she must slow down enough to hear God. I've often thought that if the angel Gabriel came looking for any one of us, we'd be difficult to find. Gabriel would need to make an appointment months in advance!

In our society, it's interesting to me to wonder what God would have to do to get our attention. I once wrote these lines in a poem:

I don’t want God to have to fling
frogs at me to get my attention. I want
to be so in touch that I hear the still,
small voice crying in this wilderness of American life.
I don’t want God to set fire to the shrubbery to get my notice.

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

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

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

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

(And yes, I realize the feast day might be moved because we're in Holy Week, but I'm writing about it today, before heading off to 9 a.m. Mass at Saint Barnabas for a Worship Immersion paper).

Hearing the Holy Week Story Anew

Today is Palm Sunday, or for some of us Passion Sunday.  Some of us will hear the whole Holy week story today, and some of us will hear it throughout the week, and some of us will do both--the whole story today and then returning to church and/or devotional time that returns us to the story.

Today in my sermon, I'll suggest that we approach this repetition as a lectio divina.  As we hear the story again and again, what word or phrase lodges within us?

We will be hearing stories that many of us have heard many times before. How can we hear them with fresh ears?  One way is to use the Ignatian discipline of trying to imagine ourselves as part of the story.

One year I was startled to realize how much I identified with Pontius Pilate as an administrator. That year, I saw the Good Friday story in a different light. One year I read Mary Oliver's "The Poet Thinks about the Donkey" (you can read it here: https://predmore.blogspot.com/2016/03/poem-poet-thinks-about-donkey-by-mary.html). I hadn't thought much about the donkey that carries Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and my perspective shifted.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking. Tell the story from the perspective of:

--the person who cleans up after the last supper

--the towels used by Jesus to wash the feet of the disciples

--the cross itself

--an indifferent observer on Palm Sunday

--the sibling of Jesus who had always seen this day (Good Friday? Palm Sunday?) coming

--the disciple we don't usually hear about

--the rooster that crows three times

Here's hoping for a creative week-end, in all the ways our creativity can manifest itself!

Theologian to the Algorithm: Inspirations from Quilt Camp

On Wednesday morning, I had 15 squares that needed finishing.  This morning, I have 8.  In some ways, I thought I was making more progress.  I thought I might be able to sew the whole top together, but I don't think that will happen this week.  I am fine with that.

I've gotten a chance to connect with old friends.  I've taken a look at their projects and heard about their lives.  That aspect is one of the most important parts of a retreat for me.

I've gotten a lot of sewing done, and a lot of sorting of scraps.  I have an idea for a next project, one that will be easier to pick up and put down as I keep my spouse company while he watches T.V.

I've gotten other work done too, seminary work and teaching work, done with scraps of time here or there.  It's a valuable lesson, and I'm glad that I learned it early--one can accomplish a lot, even if one only has 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there.

I've remembered other truths too, like the calming effect of stitching straight lines by hand.  In our devotional time on Wednesday night, we took a deep breath in and a deep breath out.  We did it a few more times.  I thought, I know the power of deep breathing--why do I always forget to do it?

I've heard from several people who tune in to morning watch, the short devotional that I do each morning.  It's housed on my Florida church's Facebook page, and I link to it on my Facebook page each day.  I started doing it 4 years ago, as various church members were trying to keep our community sane and grounded and connected.  It's good for me, so I keep doing it.  I hear from a few people who leave comments, but there's no way for me to know the ultimate numbers of who views it.  I have never been able to decipher Facebook's metrics, and I'm sure that's by design.  Right now, it's free, so why not continue?

I say free, and I do realize that Facebook gets something out of it, or we wouldn't be able to use the site the way we do.  It's hard for me to imagine that my 12 minutes of devotional time is very useful to the algorithm creators who vacuum up all our data and content, but who knows.

Now I have a vision of generative AI learning by using my morning devotional time, which uses Phyllis Tickle's work in The Divine Hours, which uses an ancient lectionary.  That's me, theologian to AI and the algorithm!

I love retreats for the wide ranging inspirations they provide.  Happily, this one is no different.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel: Palm Sunday

 The readings for Sunday, March 24, 2024:

First Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a

Psalm: Psalm 31:9-16

Second Reading: Philippians 2:5-11

Gospel: Mark 14:1--15:47

Gospel (Alt.): Mark 15:1-39 [40-47]


Palm Sunday has become a busy Sunday. Somewhere in the past twenty years, we've gone from hearing just the story of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem to hearing the whole Passion story--on Palm Sunday many Christians leave the church with Jesus dead and buried. If we return to church for the rest of Holy Week, we hear the same stories on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. It makes for a long, Sunday Gospel reading--and reinforces one of the paradoxes of the Passion story: how can people shout acclaim for Jesus in one day, and within the week demand his Crucifixion? Maybe it's good to hear the whole sad story in one long sitting, good to be reminded of the fickleness of the crowd.

It's one of the central questions of Christian life: how can we celebrate Palm Sunday, knowing the goriness of Good Friday to come? How can we celebrate Easter with the taste of ashes still in our mouth?

Palm Sunday reminds us of the cyclical nature of the world we live in. The palms we wave this morning traditionally would be burned to make the ashes that will be smudged on our foreheads in 10 months for Ash Wednesday. The baby that brings joy at Christmas will suffer the most horrible death--and then rise from the dead. The sadnesses we suffer will be mitigated by tomorrow's joy. Tomorrow's joy will lead to future sadness. That's the truth of the broken world we live in. Depending on where we are in the cycle, we may find that knowledge either a comfort or fear inducing.

Palm Sunday offers us some serious reminders. If we put our faith in the world, we're doomed. If we get our glory from the acclaim of the secular world, we'll find ourselves rejected sooner, rather than later.

Right now, we live in a larger culture that prefers crucifixion to redemption. For some of us, we see a brutal world that embraces crucifixion: no second chances, perhaps no first chances.

It's at times like these where the scriptures offer comforts that the world cannot. Look at the message from Isaiah: "The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. . . . For the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near" (Isaiah 50, first part of verse 4, verse 7, and first part of verse 8).

God promises resurrection. We don't just hope for resurrection. God promises resurrection.

God calls us to live like the redeemed people that we are. Set your sights on resurrection. We are already redeemed--it's up to us to fold the grave clothes of our lives and leave the tomb. Turn away from the cultures of evil and death that surround us.

Now more than ever, it's important that people of faith commit to redemption and new life. From the ashes, let us build the community that God wants for us.