Saturday Snippets: the Prodigal Samaritan and Other Meanderings

Here we are, practically at mid-July.  Let me capture a few snippets that I want to be sure to remember:

--Last night, we had some folks over for dinner, some Music Week friends and family.  I offered invitations on Thursday, and the ability to be spontaneous made me happy.  I was also happy that my spouse was able and willing to take care of the important details, like buying the grillables, while I was at work.

--My spouse bought pork chops and country ribs because they were on sale.  Happily, all our friends and family eat pork.  But even if they didn't, we'd have had enough.  I finally made squash casserole, and we had watermelon too.  We had a pan of roasted potato pieces and a big salad.  One friend brought a bowl of peach chunks, which went so beautifully with pork and also worked for dessert with the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies I made earlier in the week.  

--We had seven people around the dinner table, which is about all we can fit comfortably.  It's a small table for our small space.  I'm glad we were able to make it work.  I'm grateful for friends who understand the challenges of a small space.

--I'm also grateful for a dishwasher, which made clean up so much easier.

--One early morning over oatmeal, I was talking about my dream coffee maker.  It would have several parts.  One would be a single serving, pod-like, machine.  One would be a traditional 10 cup coffee brewing contraption.  It would also make espresso and steam/froth milk (and the steamer needs to be detachable and dishwasher safe).

--Of course, such a machine would take up too much valuable counter-top real estate, even if I could bring myself to afford what a company would charge for such a contraption.  But it is the one counter-top appliance that I use every day.

--This morning I'm finishing my sermon on the Good Samaritan.  Earlier this week I said I was writing a sermon on the Prodigal Samaritan, and I have mused about what that parable might be.

--I have a lot to say about the Good Samaritan.  It's rare to have a Gospel reading that could go in multiple directions.  I often feel like I can barely eke out one sermon.  I'm grateful that this sermon came together easily, because it's been a jam-packed week.

--It's been a wonderful week.  I am not sure I could keep going at this pace, but I'm glad to know that I can hang in there for at least one jam-packed week.

Important Questions about Seasons and What We're Holding

 A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about adrienne maree brown's question, "How are you holding this?"  I think it's a much better question than "How are you doing?"   "How are you doing?" inspires insipid answers:  "Fine."  "How are you holding this?" lets people respond more honestly if they wish.  It's a different way of thinking about our emotional state.

Yesterday I came across another question I want to remember.  In this article, Christine Valters Paintner says that her spiritual director asked this profound question:  “What is it the season for?”  She goes on to elaborate:  "It was a profoundly freeing question, because it honored that my life had varying seasons, times when certain things were called for and other things needed to be released."

I am not good at resting in the season I'm in; I'm often looking back or looking forward.  I am so often eager to get to the next season.  And if I'm honest, I don't always even realize that I'm in one type of season and not a different one.

Let me begin this new spiritual practice.  Let me remember to ask what season I'm in, what the season needs, what I need in terms of the season.  Just as I rarely crave mulled apple cider during the summer months, perhaps I will find that different spiritual/life cycle seasons require different types of sustenance.

Perhaps focusing on the season will help me move with intention. 

How Are You Holding That?

How are you holding that?

In a podcast that explores Octavia Butler's Parable of Sower chapter by chapter, in the podcast that discusses chapter 12, 37 minutes in, adrienne maree brown tells us that she uses that question when she finds out about a person's loss.  When I heard her discuss that approach to grieving, it felt important, and I wanted to record it.

I like that it gives people space to talk about how they're really feeling.  If I say, "Wow, that must be tough,"  --  well, it may not be tough, right?  It might be an unexpected blessing.

I've thought of this ambiguous grief as we approach the one year mark of when the pandemic first changed most of our lives so dramatically.  It's grief that isn't over yet, so it's a different kind of grieving.

It's also a strange kind of grief because it's been a year of big lows and also some highs, at least for most of us.  It hasn't been all bad for most of us.  How do we talk about all of that?  It's particularly strange when we're bombarded with all sorts of media that tells us how we should be feeling.  It's hard to find space to hold anything.

How are you holding that?

A New Kind of Hospitality

I spent much of yesterday writing and revising our protocols and procedures for a safe reopening of our campus.  Reopening isn't exactly the correct term.  We're having some students come back to do lab work.  We've looked for ways to minimize the need to do that:  many of our students will be doing simulations as we explore ways to do labs from a distance.  Some lab information can be done virtually.

There's been some insistence about what cannot be done virtually.  I'm the administrator several levels removed from the classroom/discipline, so I have tried to let faculty and Program chairs make the decisions about what can be done virtually and what must be done face to face.  I have encouraged everyone to think about other options, and I've reminded us all (perhaps tiresomely) about the dangers of being together in the same room.  We will practice social distancing, but that's not as safe as staying home.

Today one of our tasks will be to prepare the campus physically.  That means moving chairs out of classrooms and putting down tape on the floors where the remaining chairs should stay.  We will put tape down on the floors, even though we don't expect students to be lined up in hallways.  We will keep the student breakroom locked when students are on campus; students will need to come in, do their labs, and leave.  If they need to eat, they're safer eating in their cars.

Some part of my heart is breaking over these developments.  We've done so much to make the campus a hospitable place, and now we have to abandon it.  I know that safety from contagion is a different kind of hospitality, but I would rather attend to the kind of hospitality that involves baked goods.  Sigh.

So, today I will wear clothes suitable for taping the floors:  another chapter that doesn't appear in my edition of Dressed for Success.  What is the proper sartorial choice for a business setting when one will be moving furniture?  I will wear jeans and sneakers and a sleeveless mock turtleneck so that I can bend over without giving it much thought.

As we prepare, I will pray.  That, too, is a different kind of hospitality.  I will pray for the safety of us all, I will pray that we can prepare students for their futures without jeopardizing their health, I will pray for those of us who will need patience as we oversee these protocols--and I will pray that our students will understand the necessity for these protocols.

Ungendered Bathrooms and Being an RIC Congregation

Today my church, Trinity Lutheran in Pembroke Pines, celebrates our 2 year (or is it 3 year?) anniversary of being a Reconciling in Christ congregation.  Here's a mediation I wrote for our newsletter:

This Sunday, we will celebrate the anniversary of becoming a Reconciling in Christ church, which means we have decided to be more welcoming, and in particular, we are more open to non-heterosexual people. They can worship with us, they can take communion with us, and they can eat meals with us. For some of us, this behavior seems basic, just good manners. But the larger world is not so welcoming, and a reader doesn't have to go very far to come across horrific stories of violence against people who have a different sexuality or gender.

We might say that we're fine with being welcoming, but why do we have to stress our hospitality so openly? Why focus on it? Can't we just go back to talking about something else?

We stress our hospitality statements in part so that people who are different than the people traditionally welcomed in churches will know that our church is a safe space. We also do it so that we as a church remember our commitments.

Most of us have some degree of protection in the larger world. I'm a white woman who lives in a safe neighborhood. I have a job that gives me both money and health insurance. I have a spouse who is the opposite of my gender. I have some money put aside, and I have family members who would help me if I needed it. I am not an outsider in society, and sometimes, I can forget how it feels to be an outsider.

Of course, it doesn't take more than a nighttime stroll through a downtown area to remind me that I'm not as safe in our society as I would be if I had a male body. I'm a tall, large woman in midlife, so I'm safer than I would be if I was younger and thinner. I'm a woman who has had self-defense training, so I move through the world differently than some.

But the world is full of people who are much more vulnerable, people who can't just stay out of dangerous neighborhoods, people who can't hide that they're not safe in the world. Transgender women are much more likely to be murdered than I am, just because they are transgender.

When I was away at Southern Seminary, I had a valuable reminder of how it feels to be vulnerable. Southern Seminary has changed all of their bathrooms to be open to all--in other words, there's not a men's room and a women's room. Trinity has done that too, but we've transformed our bathrooms to be single use. Southern's restrooms still have stalls, urinals if they were once men's rooms, and in one building, shower stalls.

It took me a day to realize that we could lock the door to the bathroom and be the only one in the bathroom. For a day, I thought we'd all be in the bathroom, taking care of our business, male and female together. For a day, I went back to my room when I needed to go to the bathroom, because the bathroom didn't feel safe to me, even though I wasn't really expecting to be attacked in a bathroom with people just outside the door. It was not lost on me that what I felt would not be unfamiliar to a transgender person.

I thought about all the people who spend their days not feeling safe enough to go to the bathroom, and once again, I felt grateful for our church community that has tried to transform itself in such key ways.

More important, we realize that transformation isn't a one time event. It's easy to backslide. It's easy to forget how dangerous the world is, especially when we're at less risk than others. And sadly, in the larger world, the church as an institution has often been one of the dangerous places for those who are different.

This Sunday, let us recommit to our idea of what it means to be a welcoming church. Let us stand in solidarity with the outcast--just as Jesus taught us to do.

Shelter Week and Beyond

A friend asked me how we're eating, now that our kitchen has been dismantled.  So far, we are doing most of our cooking on the grill--the stove was moved into the front bedroom 2 weeks ago. Now that we have dismantled the sink, it gets a bit harder. Plus, I didn't realize how much I need countertop space until I didn't have a counter. So, we're eating simple things. My spouse made a pot of mac and cheese on the burner that's part of the gas grill--like having a one burner stove top ring to the side of the main grill, so that's been handy. I eat a lot of cheese and crackers and wine for an evening snack--my favorite, and if I added some veggies, I could almost count it as a meal.

During most weeks of the year, we don't have a regular evening meal every night, like some families do.   During regular weeks, I'll have more of a snack than an evening meal, so our current life doesn't feel too different--at least in terms of dinner.   Making coffee is a chore--I have the coffee maker set up on a small table that's usually an outdoor table.

I am in that summer phase of eating, where it's just too hot to eat, and I'm hungry but nothing sounds good. Sigh. So, having the kitchen dismantled isn't making me too grumpy. Later, when I wish I could bake something, it might.

But I have a house. I have that on the brain because my church is doing a shelter week this week. It's this program where area churches serve as temporary shelter for homeless families that are in transition to having a home. So families come to the church for an evening meal and to sleep the night. Church members sleep there too, just so that everyone feels safe.

This week, between two families, there are 7 children, all of them under the age of 4, except for an 8 year old. I went over after work Tuesday night. I changed out of my work clothes and helped get the kids fed, and then we did some reading together.

I had planned for this.  I had gone to the used bookstore that is near my school to pick up some kid's books--they had a great selection, so I bought a lot. It was a treat to shop for them.  I also picked up some used books that I have in mind for a Halloween display at the school library.

I envisioned that I would read and all the kids would gather round. Nope. But the bright girl who was only 3 years old "read" to me--she looked at the pictures and made up a story, with book after book. It was a delightful, though exhausting, way to spend an evening.

I know that I am lucky--I have a house to go home to, even if it's under reconstruction.  If I need a quiet evening, I can plan it.  I can't imagine being a single mom in charge of 4 small children with no home.

I am also thinking of all the people in the Carolinas who will be displaced by Hurricane Florence.  Some will rebuild; some will never recover.  I listened to the clip of President Trump yesterday promising that residents will have every resource that they need and promptly.  I tried not to laugh with bitterness.

I'm lucky.  I had savings, so I didn't have to hope that the government could help me.  The government wasn't going to help me, because I had insurance--again, I'm lucky.  My damages may end up costing me more than the insurance paid--we're trying to be frugal, while getting everything done properly.  But I stress again:  I'm lucky to have savings and other resources. 

I'm most lucky in that my house has been a livable structure while we've been working our way through these repairs.  The flood waters didn't swamp the main structure.  The rest of my South Florida community wasn't so damaged:  so I could work, and I could get supplies, and my friends didn't all move away.

I have these things on the brain today, the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria's devastation of Puerto Rico.  I know that my experience could have been worse.  And the ever present fear:  that there may be a worse time coming.

But let me try to move my brain away from that idea.  I've spent a lot of my life worrying about stuff that never came my way.  Let me stay as prepared as I can, while living my life.

Hospitality Questions

The theme of this year's Create in Me retreat was Holy Hospitality.  The retreat focuses on a different aspect of the Trinity each year; this year was the Jesus year. We looked at all the ways Jesus provided hospitality, and it will probably come as no surprise that many of those ways involved food.  The second day of our Bible study looked at that last chapter of John, where Jesus calls from the shore and tells the unsuccessfully fishing disciples to try again, to cast their nets on the right side of the boat.  Then they have grilled fish and bread for breakfast on the beach.

During that Bible study, we had a smidge of quiet time to reflect on this question:  "What do we love that gets in the way of loving others with agape love?"  It doesn't seem like a profound question, but when I started writing, it only took  me 3 sentences to get to a crying point.

Here's what I wrote as an answer:  "my control freak self.  The one who wants assurance that I'm on the right path, the path where I won't make mistakes.  The Kristin who needs financial security.  The Kristin who is afraid that no one really loves her or that she'll be abandoned or left all alone, the only one on a porch of rocking chairs."

As I write this, I see that I took the question in a slightly different direction.  What I love that keeps me from offering true hospitality and love is the feeling that I have when things are going well, when I can predict the outcome.  What keeps me from offering/creating that love and hospitality is my fear that no one really likes me.  And then there's that fear of the death of love that I can't seem to shake these days.  In my younger years, I feared the death of love that comes when the beloved decides to love another.  These days, it's literal death that I fear--not the death itself, but the being left behind.

We talked about all sorts of hospitality, the kind we offer one-on-one, the kind that we create as institutions.  I was less interested in the question of how our churches can be more welcoming to the stranger, and more interested in how we can create deeper communities with those already there.

Both of those questions are important.  And in many ways, they are rooted in the question that made me cry--what's going on inside us that gets in the way of hospitality?

Before the Retreat, the Journey

It feels strange to be at Lutheridge with my laptop, to be connected to the Internet, to be writing instead of reading—although I did write a poem this morning.  I finally wrote my poem about Jesus having a midlife crisis. It took me to interesting places that I didn't expect.  I can't really ask for more from a rough draft.

In the frazzle-dazzle days leading up to yesterday's long drive, I thought about going to the library to get some books for this trip.  But I knew I'd be taking the laptop, and I guessed that I'd have less time to read.

We had a long drive yesterday, as I knew we would.  I left the house at 4:45, and picked up my church friend at 5:02, and then we were on our way!  I was surprised by how many vehicles were already on the road, but we didn't hit any rush hour traffic.

We did, however, have several places of traffic coming to a severe slow down or complete stop on the Interstate--including for the last six miles before our exit to Lutheridge.  Luckily, I remembered an alternate way to the camp, so we took the exit for Fletcher.

During yesterday's journey, we had great conversation, hours and hours of it, and lunch at a Cracker Barrel.  I had forgotten one of the joys of a long car trip--having a chance to get to know another person in a way that's rarely available--when else would we sit side by side for 12 hours if not during a car trip?

Last night, the retreat got off to a great start.  Our theme is Holy Hospitality.  I'll say more later about how the Faith Center is decorated with lots of cozy corners.  I want to remember that someone had started a bread machine, so the scent of baking bread filled the air.  I immediately felt at ease.

Yesterday, I was dreading the getting to know each other time.  I understand why we need to do these exercises, but I tend to find them draining, and I was worn out from the road.  Instead of some of the one-on-one games we sometimes play (3 lies and a truth), we played a sort of bingo.  We had cards with interesting details that might make up a person's life:  "I can say hello in 3 languages."  "I own more than five cookbooks."  Here's what it looks like:

I liked that it provided some discussion points, if we wanted, while the true introverts could keep moving in the effort to win a Bingo prize.

We moved on to have the opening worship, where we had our hands anointed with oil.  And then we had our opening night refreshments.

I love the water bottle approach to hospitality. 

We're encouraged to take a water bottle and to keep using it again and again.  We even have labels for the bottles. 

What a cool idea!

That's what I love about this retreat--I always come home inspired and full of great ideas.  Now it's time to get ready for the day.  My church friend and I will start the day with a walk.  It will be much chillier than either of us are used to--it's unseasonably cool here, but that's Spring in the mountains.

Dinner with the Camp Counselors

Last night's dinner with the camp counselors went well.  I was nervous about it, and those of you who are better at these social occasions might wonder why.

I knew it would be just me and the 5 camp counselors for dinner.  I'd have been less nervous if some of the church VBS leaders had tagged along, but they had been working VBS all day, so I understood why they didn't want to make the trek to my house.

I had decided to make chicken with poblano mole sauce.  It's been a success when I've served it before, but it's unusual.  I made a black bean and corn salad to go with it, and I put out tortillas and tortilla chips.  I hoped that people would find enough to eat.

Happily, they loved the chicken.  They took seconds of everything.  We talked about Wednesday's dinner.  I worried that they get pasta too often.  They've been staying in people's houses all summer, and some of them have been doing this for several years, and they said they've never had spaghetti.  So, I will make my pasta with marinated veggies, along with some meatballs in a tomato sauce, and I'll let them decide how to combine it all.

I find it fascinating that I'm making meals for 4 college students and a high school student, and no one is a vegetarian or a vegan.

The item that makes me most nervous about hosting a get together with people I don't know is the question of what we'll talk about.  I needn't have worried.  Our conversation was wide ranging, from all the foods one can deep fry (squares of mac and cheese anyone?) to strange food combinations, like peanut butter on a burger to various camp experiences, some with food, some not.  We spent a lot of time after dinner talking about musical instruments.

The high school student was fascinated by the dulcimer, which I bought for $40, but never taught myself to play.   Actually, it would be more accurate to say I taught myself, but now I don't remember--it was a brief season with the dulcimer. 

By the end of the evening, he played it with a bit of a slide guitar sound.  As always, I'm fascinated by how people play instruments when they've had no training.  What makes some of us frozen with fear, while others explore? And I was intrigued by the fact that all of us can play the ukulele, to some extent.  Is the ukulele becoming more popular?  Or was it just some fluke?  I suspect it has to do with how affordable an instrument it is and how accessible.

They stayed for about an hour and a half after dinner.  We talked not only about musical instruments, but about camp experiences, both the residence camp and the travelling to churches to assist with VBS camps.  I was interested to know what kinds of lodging they'd had.  They've stayed in people's guest rooms mostly, with a sleep sofa here and there.  So our cottage is perfectly fine; in fact, one of them said, "If I was a college student here, I'd love to rent something like this cottage."

As I cleaned up, I tried not to notice all the ways I'd failed to clean my house for them--I was too busy getting the cottage in shape.  I had clean dishes and a clean bathroom, but my floors could use a sweeping, and let's not talk about the dust. 

I decided long ago that I can't keep up the housekeeping standards of a past generation.  But I don't want to let that fact keep me from extending hospitality.  I suspect that most people don't even notice the dust--or they say, "Hey, I'm not the only one who lets the dusting get away from me."

I'd like to have people over more often--but that often requires a feat of scheduling that's beyond me.  So for now, let me be happy to have had this experience--and its reinforcement of my belief that this hospitality is a worthy skill to practice.

Hunger and Hospitality

I am thinking about the monastic practice of hospitality and how that practice translates to other, non-monastic, non-overtly religious settings.  I'm thinking about the small college campus where I work.

I'm also thinking about the intersection between hospitality and food.  We've always been a hospitable campus:  when you get off the elevator into our lobby, you'll be greeted by at least one person at the front desk.

Of course, that's partly hospitality and partly safety.  We want to make sure that we know who has arrived, and we want to make sure that visitors know that we know.

I have been impressed with the way we greet returning students with the start of each quarter, but yesterday, I decided to go a step further.  For the morning students, I bought granola bars, bananas, and tiny, seedless oranges; I think they're clementines, but they go by lots of names now.  For the evening students, I put the fruit back out along with plates of cookies that a friend of mine picked up at a Winn-Dixie going out of business sale (I have 4 cases of cookies, and each case holds at least 16 packages, so I have plenty to distribute).

I got lots of positive feedback throughout the day.  I heard that students loved having food and loved the atmosphere.  That's one major reason why I did it.

I also did it because I know that students across the nation are more at risk of food scarcity.  I know that students are often rushed in the morning and even if they have food at home, they often arrive to campus having had no breakfast.  I'm also looking for ways to help those students who could use a few more food opportunities throughout the week.

But I'm mainly looking for these kinds of opportunities to create a sense of warmth and hospitality.  I want our school campus to have the kind of effect on students that Jan Richardson describes in a recent blog post:  "My experiences in Ireland gave me a new glimpse of the power of welcome, of what can happen when someone gathers us in and invites us to be at home when we are not at home, or have had to leave our home, or do not know where home is."

Many of our students are moving through harsh landscapes where they are not loved or affirmed.  I want our campus to be a shelter in the storms that swirl around them.

Can granola bars do that?  Yes, if they're part of a larger, intentional vision, one that Jesus taught us so long ago and that monks have continued to embrace.  You can't address deeper hungers if you don't address the more immediate physical hunger.

The Convincing Care in the Carrot Peels

Yesterday afternoon, after taking care of various teaching and administrative duties , my colleague friend and I headed over to a local, high-end barbecue place .  Since my spouse wouldn't be home until 10:15 after teaching his evening class, I decided to have an early dinner.  My friend had a coupon for a free appetizer, so we shared a smoked fish dip.

It comes with tortilla chips, but my friend is trying to watch her carb intake.  She asked if she could have celery or cucumber to go with it.

The bartender who was waiting on us said that she would see what she could do.  But the only vegetable they had was carrots.

She brought us a beautiful plate of carrots.  Later we found out that she had peeled and sliced them herself. 

She said her boss had said, "Why are you doing that?  Now they'll expect that the next time they come."

She replied, "And if I'm working, I'll peel carrots again."

Of course, one of the reasons that we return to the restaurant is because of the level of care shown by that particular bartender. 

I thought about her attitude, which she's displayed even before we got to know her.  She's always been warm and welcoming, like we're her best friends who just walked in the door.  She's always made sure the glasses are filled and that the food is good.  She goes the extra mile by peeling the carrots.

What would life be like if we all showed that level of care?

It would be much closer to the world that God desires for us all. 

The peeling of carrots is not traditionally thought of as a spiritual gift, but done with the right spirit, it can be an important one--an aspect of the all-important spiritual gift of hospitality.

How to Be Welcoming to All

Last night, on the eve of the beginning of a Supreme Court case that may make historic decisions about marriage rights, my church council discussed what it would mean to be a Reconciling in Christ church.

Before I get lots of nasty comments about how I'm not a true Lutheran, let me remind everyone that my ELCA church is part of an ELCA synod that is a Reconciling in Christ synod.

Reconciling in Christ congregations declare themselves to be welcoming to all, specifically to transgender, homosexual, lesbian, and queer people.  Some might wonder why that welcoming stance needs to be articulated.  Some of us know that churches might declare themselves to be welcoming, but they really aren't. 

There is some part of me that wonders if we are very late to this conversation.  Many younger people aren't wrestling with this issue, the way that their elders are.

When I look at our church, it doesn't seem to me that we have a struggle with being welcoming to gays and lesbians.  In fact, we've had a transgendered person as a member for a few years, and although that situation was very new for many of us, we rose to the occasion. 

I certainly don't mind going through the process of being a RIC congregation and declaring ourselves to be welcoming.  But part of me thinks we're spending a lot of time and energy on what I suspect will be a non-issue. 

Instead, perhaps we should be talking about how to be welcoming to the mentally ill.  I wrote this blog post about our experience in church on Sunday.   It's much harder to be welcoming to the disruptive mentally ill than it is to be welcoming to most gay and lesbians who come through our door.  After all, most of our gay, lesbian, and transgendered visitors and members have been very similar to the rest of the congregation.  But the mentally ill may not be.

It's hard in modern society to know how to be welcoming and open and how to keep us all safe.  There is some niggling part of my brain that whispers, "God did not gather us together to be safe."

Our church insurance company would not like to hear that whisper.

In many ways, my thoughts this morning trace back to the burden of having a building to care for.  Did Jesus die on the cross so that we could discuss insurance issues and how to install a ramp for the handicapped and how to keep the roof from leaking?

I've written about this issue before, like in this blog post.  As I've said before, I don't have the answers.  A church building is both a blessing and a curse.  A community of humans will have different ideas of how to be welcoming.

But it is good to be wrestling with these issues together.  We have a better chance of embodying the light of Christ when we combine our flickers into a brighter flame.

The Disruptive Visitor

Yesterday I got to church just after 9:00, and a man was sleeping against the back of the outside of the fellowship hall.  I asked our pastor if he had seen the man, and he nodded.  He said, "I tend to leave sleeping people alone, unless there's some larger issue like alcohol."

Our 9:45 service is held in the fellowship hall so that the choir can have one last practice in the sanctuary before our 11:00 service.  At 10:20, as we were around a big table having a discussion, the man came into the fellowship hall and got a cup of coffee.  We were talking about free will and our understanding of God's plan for us.

The man quoted several verses from Proverbs and left the building.  As we prepared to pray 10 minutes later, he came back.  I asked if he wanted to join our prayer circle, and he said, "Yes.  But not like this.  He is risen!"  And off he went again.

He came to the 11:00 service and sat in the back.  As we sang "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today," the man seemed to be singing, but also rising his fist in triumph.  Throughout the service, he occasionally shouted, "Alleluia" or "Amen."  For the most part, he wasn't disruptive.

During the prayers of the people, he wasn't visible on the back pew, but he did raise his arm, pointing towards the sky.  When our pastor said, "The peace of the Lord be with you," the man pointed at the front of the church.

When people came up for Communion, he came up to the altar, instead of kneeling at the rail.  Our pastor explained the procedure, and he knelt.  But then he started yelling a verse from Revelation, I think, something about the mark of the beast.

Since he had been seeming increasingly agitated, we asked him to leave, and one of our burlier men walked him out.  He left calmly.

My spouse and I talked about it on the way home, and I heard people talking about it on the way out.  Most people were scared.  Some people thought the man was harmless.  He wore an Army t-shirt and had a big Army duffle, which made some people nervous about his ability to kill us all.

My spouse said, "Maybe he had a Messiah complex.  Maybe he was the Messiah.  Until he seemed to be channeling Satan."

We talked about how the people of Jesus' day likely would have seen Jesus the same way our church did:  Jesus would have made them uneasy, with his disruption of services, although they might have been impressed with his knowledge of Scripture.  Many would have speculated on Jesus' mental health, although they'd have talked about it differently.  They'd have seen Jesus as possessed.

My spouse said that the man did us all a favor.  Most of us are probably not nearly as attentive on a weekly basis as we were yesterday.  We are not as involved with the worship service as that man was yesterday.

I will continue to think about this stranger who showed up on the second Sunday after Easter.  I'll think about Jesus, who hung out with the strangers and the outcast.  I'll think about God, who hangs out with the lowly. 

I doubt that I'll be any more sure of what to do than I was yesterday.

Hospitality and the Renewal of Camp

One of the highlights of last week came on Thursday.  A local pastor contacted my spouse as someone who could help him figure out people in Broward county who have a connection to church camps in general and Luther Springs in particular. 

Instead of a meeting over coffee or in someone's office, my spouse suggested that the pastor come over for dinner.  My spouse knows how to do hospitality!  I tried not to worry too much about all the ways our house might not be good enough.  I've written about this idea of scruffy hospitality, most notably in this blog post.  I say, "Come on over!  My kitchen floor isn't clean enough to eat off of, but that's why we have plates."   But secretly, some part of me believes that my floor should be clean enough to eat off of, and that I will be judged harshly when it is not.

My spouse made a wonderful meal on the grill.  We let our guest decide whether to eat in the dining room or on the front porch.  The pastor, who has a degree in urban planning, chose the porch.

Our porch table is big enough for three plates and not much else, so we made our plates inside and took them to the porch.  And then, we had a delightful time.

We talked about camp and Luther Springs, of course.  But we also talked about the issue of the local church.  He's pastor of a church that doesn't have its own building, and given the costs of acquiring a building and land--and then insuring that building--the church likely never will have its own space.  We're part of a church that has a building and 4 acres, most of them sitting vacant.  Occasionally we think of doing something else with the land, but it never works out.  Currently, we have a multitude of other groups and churches also using our building.  Most days, that sharing situation is a gift to us all.

We talked a bit about larger church stuff and theology.  What a treat!  Most of our dinner guests are not inclined to talk about theology.

Will it lead to more involvement in camp?  There's no getting around the fact that it takes 5-6 hours, or longer, for most of us to get to Luther Springs.  If we're in the western part of the panhandle, it's even further.  That makes a week-end trip almost impossible.

I know that most people think that camp means summer camps with kids spending nights away.  But I think camp can be just as vital for grown ups.  We could have lots of renewal in a week-end--however, it might not be as possible when that week-end is book-ended by a car trip of that size.

It was a weeknight, and so we called it a night at 10:00--a late night for me.  But it was worth the slight weariness that I felt on Friday. 

When just talking about camp leads to feelings of renewal, just think about what a time away at camp could do!

True Hospitality, Scruffy Hospitality

We have a dining room table that comfortably seats 6 when expanded with the extra leaf--although, usually the extra leaf means we've got 8 coming for dinner.  And in our current dining room, we really can't expand the table.  We can't even move the table out from the wall and still have room for everyone to maneuver around it.

That hasn't stopped me from having people over, of course.  But last night looked to be a challenge.  We had 10 adults coming over, plus 3 children and a baby.  Hmm.

I thought about the movie I saw a few weeks ago, the movie that made my friend say, "This movie makes me want to move to the South of France."  I replied, "This movie makes me want to move my dining room table outside." 
I thought about doing that, but we've had brutal heat this week.  And it's been a bad summer in terms of mosquitoes.

So, we moved some living room furniture out of the way, and we moved the dining room table into the living room.  I still had to put out a call for extra chairs, but my guests had some.  I do miss the days of having a house big enough to store folding chairs for just such an occasion.  But we made do.

I don't have a tablecloth big enough to stretch across the dining room table that I rarely expand.  I no longer have a length of cloth that I could use.  But I do have a quilt that was given to me by the women's group at my mom's church when I went to be a retreat leader.  It's a simple quilt, made of squares, machine stitched together, knotted instead of quilted. 

I stretched it across the table.  It had barely enough width, but not quite enough length.  I decided it would do.

As I set the table, I thought, "What would Martha Stewart do?"  Certainly not what I would do.  She would never buy a house that couldn't comfortably accommodate her dining room table.  She probably has a whole house full of tablecloths that fit that table.

But it was a fun evening nonetheless.  I'm glad I didn't let my lack of Martha Stewartness keep me from having people over.

It put me in mind of this blog post on scruffy hospitality, which encourages us not only to come as we are, but to host as we are.  The writer, an Anglican priest, shares his sermon, which has this nugget of wisdom:  "Scruffy hospitality means you’re not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you host and serve friends in your home. Scruffy hospitality means you hunger more for good conversation and serving a simple meal of what you have, not what you don’t have. Scruffy hospitality means you’re more interested in quality conversation than the impression your home or lawn makes. If we only share meals with friends when we’re excellent, we aren’t truly sharing life together."

I've been making more of an effort to have people over, even if I won't have a chance to deep clean or dust.  My toilet and sink will be clean, but we may eat off paper plates, like we did last night, because we still don't have a working dishwasher.

I know people who never have people over for dinner, and part of me understands.  It might be easier to go out to dinner together.  But that will prevent a lot of us from socializing.

I much prefer to say, "Come on over.  We'll be serving ________.  Feel free to bring a dish, or just bring yourselves."  I don't know about you, but it seems that any gathering of friends these days includes a vegetarian/vegan, a diabetic, and someone who's avoiding gluten.  My theory is that if everyone makes sure to bring something that they can eat, then we'll all be fed.  And if someone comes who hasn't had time to shop, we can feed them too.

Scruffy hospitality!  It probably wouldn't make for a compelling TV show, but it's more of a livable lifestyle than the one that Martha Stewart promotes.

And it's an ancient spiritual discipline. 

What would Jesus do?  He'd invite us all to gather and share.  We need to do it more often.

Church as Telecom Company

I've had several experiences this week that have made me think about customer service, particularly when it pertains to the church.

Those of you who read my blogs know that I'm in the process of moving.  It's a process that has become much more complicated since the last time I moved.  Once, I called the various utilities to let them know, got to the new place, and everything was ready.  This time, I had to pay a deposit at the water department, even though I've been a customer since 1998.  And then, there's the phone and Internet.

I don't want to dwell too much on my unpleasant experiences with AT&T.  I've spent hours on the phone trying to get the move set up, and then, when things went astray, I've spent hours on the phone trying to straighten everything out.  I talked to customer rep after customer rep who couldn't find me in the system.

I finally broke down.  I said, "Really?  I've been your customer since 1987, and you can't find me in your system?"

I thought of all the people who tell us we've been transformed into a service economy.  I am here to tell you that we have work to do.

I kept thinking about church, and the ways that our churches offer customer service--and yes, I realize that it's a mistake in many ways to think in terms of customer service when we think about church.  More on that in a few paragraphs.

I thought about this behemoth of a phone company who still doesn't know who I am.  I think about my current church, who does know who I am.  I think about some of the women in my church who have told me I should call them when I am consumed by worry.  I am still so happy that they made that suggestion.

I think of a church I visited which gave me a visitor name tag, yet not a soul talked to me.  I had a visitor's name tag!  It couldn't have been more clear that I was new.  I stood there, waiting for someone to talk to me, to invite me to the coffee hour, to ask me if I had moved to town or was just on vacation.

Not one soul talked to me.  I felt so lonely and awkward.  I thought back to adolescence.  Do I never get to graduate from high school?

I left that church and never went back.  And I've been so conscious of being welcoming that I sometimes make mistakes in the other direction.  I remember an Easter Sunday breakfast when I sat at a table that had a man eating by himself.  I made conversation and asked if he was new.

He rared back in disbelief and told me he had been going to this church for decades.  I wanted to say, "Well, I've never seen you here before, and I'm here every Sunday."

Luckily, another church member came to my rescue with memories of that man at that church during his childhood.

Obviously, a church is not a telecom company, but I do wonder how often we behave in the way that those big companies behave.

I'm not the first person to observe that most of us want to be known.  We don't want to be a customer lost in the computer.  We don't want to be a visitor whom no one welcomes.

Those of us who have been going to our churches for a long time may have lost sight about how it feels to be the new kid.  I've been a new kid more times than I like to think about, so I'm always looking for the people at the margins, people waiting to be invited to share coffee and then later, to share concerns and worries.

It's what we're called to do.

Week of Weeping at Work

What a week it's been at work:  in short, much weeping, weeping in the hallways, weeping in public.  Once upon a time I thought of creating small chapels so that religious students had a respite and a place to pray.  Now, I wish that I had.  Would a chapel be a more comforting cry space than a conference room?

I've been thinking about tears, about a theology of tears.  I've been thinking about our obligations of hospitality and what that means for those of us who mourn and weep.

When I was much younger, I saw a lack of emotion as a sign of maturity.  Now, I, too, cry with those who weep. It just seems cruel to let people cry alone.

I'm frustrated by my inability to make the situation different.  I can't manufacture jobs to replace the jobs that have been cut.  I can't promise that there will be no job cuts in the future.  Those decisions are not up to me.  I'm just left here on the ground to carry them out and to try to keep the school functioning.

At my school, and maybe at your workplace, we are living in an ever more haunted place:  ghosts of colleagues disappeared in prior RIFs, ghosts of programs that barely function (or cease functioning) as we no longer have the staff to carry them out, ghosts of our earlier optimism.

I try to hold on to the Easter message, that even out of death can come new life.  I try to remember that even when I think I can do nothing, I can pray.  I can listen and be present.  I can offer a tissue.  I can pray.

I can pray.  Not out loud.  I know that many of my colleagues would react in horror if I suggested that we pray together.  I'm not real comfortable with that myself.

But I can pray silently.  I can ask that God be with us all as we grieve.  I can ask for guidance.  I can ask for the peace that will allow me to be present and attentive.  I can ask for the Divine Presence to be with us all.

Yet Another Shooting

I have been away, at Lutherock, a Lutheran church camp in the high mountains of North Carolina.  I had thought I would be writing about that experience this morning.  But that subject can wait.

While I was driving back, I heard news of the shooting at the Sikh temple.  I feel sick whenever there's a shooting, but especially when it occurs at a place where people should feel safe:  schools, movie theatres, places of worship.  And then I feel a bit of anger:  we should feel safe every place!  But that is not the world we live in.

My local Lutheran church takes precautions.  We keep the office door locked during Sunday services, even while the doors to the sanctuary and fellowship halls are open.  There are Sundays when I wonder if we're foolish to trust that much.  Once I went over to the fellowship hall to get the coffee started, and a down-on-his-luck person asked if he could use the phone.  I said yes.  He used the phone, and I offered him the food I was setting out for coffee hour.  He took a bagel and headed out.

I am aware that it could have all gone horribly wrong.  I was aware from the moment I saw the man in the distance and made the decision not to turn around, to continue on to the fellowship hall that was both empty and too far away from the sanctuary for anyone to hear me. 

I was lucky.

Hospitality does not protect one from violence.  Being in a place of worship does not protect one from violence.  Righteous behavior does not protect one from violence.

We are not promised that.  But we are required to work towards making that vision a reality.

I pray for all of those minorities who now feel a bit more targeted because of the shootings.  I pray for the rest of us too, because these acts of violence make us all feel less safe.  I pray for all the tortured souls who pick up weapons to deal with whatever consumes them. 

But above all, I pray with yearning for the day when the promise is fulfilled, when Creation is fully redeemed, when we no longer fear this kind of horror.

Broken Hands and Hospitality

On Sunday, our pastor broke his hand while opening the door to welcome people before the worship service.  Somehow it got caught in the handle and bent the wrong way; it's hard for me to visualize it.

What's even harder for me to visualize is that he kept going, through the worship service, through the memorial service that came after the worship service, and the covered dish dinner that was a tribute to the parishioner for whom we had the memorial service.  What a trooper!

My poet self now stops to ponder that phrase that my parents always used when they admired someone who kept going even when circumstances might have dictated stopping.  A trooper--I always assumed it had militaristic origins, but as I typed it, I thought about state troopers.

My poet self also thinks about the fact that our pastor broke his hand while extending hospitality.  Luckily he broke his non-dominant hand.  My poet self also considers the fact that a door broke his hand.  Doors and hands and hospitality--I feel a poem lurking.

My practical self tells my poet self to knock it off.  Sometimes a door is just a door.  Sometimes people break their hands, and it has nothing to do with larger issues of hospitality.

I've wrestled with that door many a time, and I'm not surprised that it broke a bone.  My practical self wonders what kind of message that door sends to visitors.

Perhaps visitors don't read as much into the facilities as I worry that they do.  My church, like many others, does not have extra money.  We can't replace doors and bathrooms and other dated interiors, just because visitors might find them more pleasing.

And then there's the part of me that laughs at our larger world.  We see danger lurking in all sorts of situations:  airports and dark streets and stock markets across the world.  We so rarely anticipate the menace that might reach out and bite us.

The Hospitable Church vs. The Church of the No Trespassing Sign

I've written before about churches and "No Trespassing" signs; this post talks about the homeless, our churches, and doomed church-parishioner matches.

Our church council does more than just make budget decisions.  We also do some Bible study, and that Bible study is created by our pastor to help us think about some of the larger issues facing both our individual church and the larger Church. 

Lately, we've been thinking about hospitality.  Our Gospel for this Sunday also addresses hospitality.

When we think about hospitality, some of us think about the greeters who hover around the doors, the greeters who should be on the look-out for newcomers.  Some of us think about the genuinely different people who might come to church and how we would make them feel welcome:  our grandmothers might have fretted about the people who showed up dressed in their jeans, while some of us in more modern churches might wonder about how to make transgender people feel at home.  They're variations of the same question, even if people don't see it that way.  Difference makes a lot of us feel threatened, and we react in different ways.

Of course, the more practical amongst us might point out that hospitality begins in the parking lot.  If I arrive at your church, will I know where the door to the sanctuary is?  When I get inside and need to use the bathroom, is there a sign?  And then, when the service begins, what processes do you have set up to guide me?

I've been going to church most of my whole life, so I know my way around a hymnbook.  But many people don't.  And the paging system of Lutheran hymnbooks is downright baffling to a person who has never used one.  Why can't we just have simple pagination all the way through?  Start with page 1 on the first page and carry on.

No, instead, in our latest Lutheran service book (it's more than hymns!), to make things even more confusing, we have  a section with no page numbers at all (the Psalms section), in addition to the already confusing fact that we number the hymns and the front matter has a regular page numbering system.

Of course, by the time the next service book comes out, perhaps we won't use books at all.  Perhaps I am the last generation who feels frustration with the physical book.  Maybe in 10-20 years, people will use their smart phones, and maybe there will be q r codes from the pulpit that will guide us.

And then the hospitality team will have to decide how to welcome the people who have no smart phone.

Yes, the questions of hospitality and how we welcome the stranger will always be with us.  Some people might argue that the Church has greater problems facing it.  But issues of hospitality and community building--these are the essential questions, as Jesus tells us again and again.  Jesus spends no time on the sexuality issues that threaten to rip our modern churches to shreds.  Jesus spends time creating spaces where all sorts of people will feel welcome (unless they choose to feel threatened, of course). 

We should too.