Thinking about Labor on Labor Day

 Yesterday afternoon, on our way to a wedding that I'll write more about tomorrow, I asked my friend if she thought I could wear my white skirt with blue embroidered designs into late fall or even winter.  She asked about the fabric, which is cotton.  The skirt looks summery, but with the right top, I could see it looking wintry, like something with a snowflake design.

Then I laughed at myself.  How many decades has it been since we worried about wearing white after Labor Day?  And I'm teaching in a place that will not fire me for a fashion faux pas.  Most of my fellow faculty members seem to be at midlife or older, with a preference towards comfortable clothes with a zing of stylish touch.  My skirt will not be out of place.

Many of us think about Labor Day as the end of summer, and I'm old enough to remember when college classes started the Tuesday after Labor Day.  My mom does too; she said in her generation it was because college students had jobs at country clubs that would close after Labor Day.  In terms of weather, I've always lived in places where summer will stretch on through September and perhaps beyond.

Even though many of us will see today as simply a day off, it's a good day to think about work, both the kind we do for pay and the kind we do out of love. And what about the work we feel compelled to do? I'm thinking of that kind of documenting of family history, of cultural history, of all that might be lost without our efforts.  I'm thinking of our creative work.  There's so many more different kinds of work than just work for pay.

I'm thinking about our attitude towards work too.  I am glad to see that this article, published in 2016, about the theology of work is still online.  Here's my favorite quote from it, with ideas informed by Christian monasticism:  "Taking Benedict’s approach would force us to reconsider how we think about our work. Instead of, 'What work am I called to?' we might ask, 'How does the task before me contribute to or hinder my progress toward holiness?; Not 'How does this work cooperate with material creation?' but 'How does this work contribute to the life of the community and to others’ material and spiritual well-being?' Not 'Am I doing what I love?' but 'What activity is so important that I should, without exception, drop my work in order to do it?'”

And here's a Buddhist thought about work for your Labor Day, found in an interview with Bill Moyers and Jane Hirshfield who explains, "Teahouse practice means that you don't explicitly talk about Zen. It refers to leading your life as if you were an old woman who has a teahouse by the side of the road. Nobody knows why they like to go there, they just feel good drinking her tea. She's not known as a Buddhist teacher, she doesn't say, "This is the Zen teahouse." All she does is simply serve tea--but still, her decades of attentiveness are part of the way she does it. No one knows about her faithful attention to the practice, it's just there, in the serving of the tea, and the way she cleans the counters and washes the cups" (Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, page 112).

First Day as Synod Authorized Minister

Yesterday was my first day as a Synod Authorized Minister, which is a position where I am allowed to do/have all the responsibilities and duties of a minister in a church, but only in one specific church that the Synod designates.  So, I can consecrate bread and wine, but only in that one church.  I can officiate a funeral, but perhaps not a wedding, since there might be state laws about that.  It's different from being an ordained minister, but much of the work looks the same.

Yesterday, we got in the car and drove over the mountains to Bristol, Tennessee.  We had no trouble finding the church, and we pulled in at the same time as one of the church leaders was walking across the parking lot.  I had 45 minutes to meet people and to get oriented to the building and the worship service I was about to lead (I had the bulletin in advance, so there weren't any unpleasant surprises).

I had wondered if any of my relatives still went to the church, and sure enough, a cousin introduced himself to me.  That led to me explaining my family connection to the other early arrivals at the church, and they knew my grandmother's sister, Martha, who worshipped at that church her whole life.  So, at the beginning of the service, when I introduced myself, I explained the family connection.

The worship service went smoothly.  The altar sits flush against the back wall, an older style.  I decided not to turn my back to the congregation as much as possible, and I asked how the previous pastor had located herself in the worship space.  She did much of the service down close to the congregation, which works for me.

I preached 2 sermons on the Trinity, since it was Trinity Sunday.  My children's sermon used ice, water, and steam from an electric kettle--hurrah for quick heating kettles that did produce steam.  My adult sermon focused on God the Creator who we meet in Genesis and God as Community.  I may say more about these sermons later.   I woke up thinking about how I could have made each better, but that tendency probably comes with the sermon territory.

After church, I talked to more parishioners and then de-robed and figured out the exiting process; I don't have a key for the door to the sanctuary (two other doors have a code for entry), but the person who does have the key stays to lock up.  People spent time lingering in the sanctuary to talk to each other after the worship service, a coffee hour of sorts, but without coffee and treats to eat.

We got in the car and drove back over the mountain, and the drive back seemed even easier/quicker than the drive there.  We didn't eat before the drive, and on the way home we saw a sign for a brewery called the Thirsty Monk.  We speculated about monasteries and breweries and followed more signs.  Alas, it wasn't a monastery, and the brewery was actually off site.  Still, we stayed for a flight of beers and fried pickles.  It was spontaneous and tasty and didn't take us too far off our itinerary.

One of our neighbors had an impromptu late afternoon neighborhood gathering in their beautiful backyard, which was a great way to end the day. Several of our neighbors are retired pastors, and they said, "It's a shame you're not further along in ordination" and told me about other churches that have also not had a full-time minister.  These are churches in the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia--not unpleasant places to live.  I know that there could be many reasons for vacancies, but it does seem a bit troubling (and also not my problem to solve, not exactly).

We finished the evening on our own deck, overlooking our own beautiful back yard.  My spouse spread birdseed along a deck rail, and we watched the birds approach, eat, and fly away, over and over again.  I said, "It's like we're sitting in a cathedral made of birds!"  It was mystical and awe inspiring.

Mystical and awe inspiring--in many ways, key words to describe the whole day.  

Anxiety and the Body and Anniversaries

 At some point in the wee, small hours of the morning, I jolted awake, convinced I had forgotten to do the Church History assignment due on Saturday.  For a brief moment, I thought it was Sunday morning, or maybe late Saturday night, and I should get right up and do that response that was due.  Then I remembered that I don't have anything due in that class until Thursday.

I have yet to settle into a rhythm for my seminary classes, so I spend what feels like a substantial amount of time re-reading syllabi to make sure I haven't missed anything.  I do have writing due today, Monday, but I have hours to get it done.  I have a short paper on Luther due on Thursday, and I keep reminding myself that I have plenty of time to get that done.

Still, I am feeling anxiety deep in my body.  This morning, I reflected that maybe I'm also feeling some anniversary anxieties still left in the deep recesses of my body.  

Three years ago today, I made the first post on my blog that mentioned the new virus that was circulating in China.  I concluded this way:  

"It's the time of year when I'm reminded of the struggles that come from having a body: post-holiday weight gain that isn't magically vanishing, a cold that wants to take over, achy joints. 

But it could be worse. I'm always aware of how much worse it could be.

With this new corona virus, I hope we're not all about to find out how much worse it could be."

There are days when I'm still stunned at how much worse it turned out to be.  So many people gone.  Whenever I hear/read anyone get indignant about the great case of the disappearing U.S. worker and wondering where the work force has gone, I reply, "Many of them have died."  I don't know of anyone who said, "I hate working, so now, I'm just not going to work anymore.  How will I pay for food and rent?  I don't know.  I'll figure something out."

No.  We've had over 1 million deaths in the past 3 years, just from this disease alone.  Some of those people would have died of something else, but many of them needn't have died at all.

This week will mark the one year anniversary of being severed from my job.  For the most part, I've made my peace with that event--but then I feel this anxiety, and I wonder if I've really let myself process it all.  I know all the reasons why the new owners who bought the school let me go, but what makes it tough was that they let me go just a few months after they led me to think that I had a more secure future at the school than I had been thinking I had.  If it had been a long, slow slide to unemployment, the way that it had been for much of 2021, it would have been easier.  I would not have thoughts that returned to this question:  "What changed?  Why was I chosen and then unchosen?"  I can supply lots of possible answers, but I just don't know.  Most days, I don't care overly much.  Some days, it's still a bit painful, like a bruised shin.

Let me also remember that today, this very day, is the two year anniversary of discovering the program in which I am now enrolled at Wesley Theological Seminary.  It was a Saturday, and I saw the Facebook ad for the DMin program with Arts and Theology as a focus.  I was bummed--the DMin program is for people with different academic credentials who have been employed in a church position for several years.  But as I explored, I realized that the MDiv had the Arts and Theology track too.

As I went back to look at past blog posts from this day, I'm a bit comforted to see that I'm often feeling anxiety at the end of January.  A year ago, I was worried that I was getting behind in seminary classes, classes that had just begun.  Today I am grateful that I have whole days that I can devote to these classes, that I'm not trying to balance class work with online teaching with a full-time administrator job.

Epiphanies Past and Present

Today is the feast day of the Epiphany, a holiday that celebrates the arrival of the wise men who have been studying the stars when they notice a new one.  They travel, looking for the one whom the star heralds.  They consult a ruler, Herod, and they inadvertently trigger Herod's jealousy, which sets into motion a series of horrible events, the murder of every child under the age of two in Bethlehem.  Jesus isn't there--in a dream, Joseph has been warned to flee with his wife and baby, and he obeys.

I've been looking through my Epiphany posts for the last few years, and I am struck by how much my life has changed.  In 2020, after writing a paragraph where I talked about how I wished I could keep Epiphany,  I wrote, "Instead I will go to my workplace where I will get ready for the term that starts on Wednesday, do some accreditation writing, and then have a New Student Orientation. I'm tired just thinking about it. There's shopping to be done (supplies and food for New Student Orientation) and paperwork--lots and lots of paperwork. Sigh."

Ah, the good old days, before that school was bought by people who changed the academic calendar and severed most of us from our jobs.  The good old days, before the pandemic, when that school still had students and faculty and the hope of increasing enrollment.

This year, I am in a very different place.  I thought about being at seminary and how strange it is that we have no Epiphany worship today.  Then I wondered if the National Cathedral might be having worship this evening.  Did I want to be out and about this evening after going downtown to catch the Vermeer exhibit which leaves after Jan. 8?  

Lo and behold, the Cathedral is offering a noon Epiphany worship with the Eucharist--hurrah!  So I've rearranged my schedule.  I'll walk to the Cathedral for the service, then I'll walk to the Metro stop that's an hour away.  I'll head downtown, and if all goes well (which it should), I'll still have plenty of time for the Vermeer exhibit.

Let me close this post by remembering past Epiphanies that revolved around one of my favorite poems I've ever written.  In 2019, I had been listening to news stories about various immigration crises, and I thought about the 3 Wise Men and if they had come to the U.S. Border.  I made this sketch:

And then I started thinking about a poem with multiple strands:  Epiphany, a current crisis on the border, the crisis between east and west that ultimately led to the taking down of the wall between East and West Germany, a bit of the underground railroad.  Ultimately, this poem arrived, and Sojourners published it in 2020.  It's a perfect fit.



Border Lands


I am the border agent who looks
the other way. I am the one
who leaves bottled water in caches
in the harsh border lands I patrol.

I am the one who doesn’t shoot.
I let the people assemble,
with their flickering candles a shimmering
river in the dark. “Let them pray,”
I tell my comrades. “What harm
can come of that?” We holster
our guns, and open a bottle to share.

I am the superior
officer who loses the paperwork
or makes up the statistics.
I am the one who ignores
your e-mails, who cannot be reached
by text or phone, the one
with a full inbox.

When the wise ones
come, as they do, full of dreams,
babbling about the stars
that lead them or messages
from gods or angels,
I open the gates. I don’t alert
the authorities up the road.
Let the kings and emperors
pay for their own intelligence.

I should scan the horizons,
but I tend the garden
I have planted by the shed
where we keep the extra
barbed wires. I grow a variety
of holy trinities: tomatoes, onions,
peppers, beans, squashes of all sorts.
I plant a hedge of sunflowers,
each bright head a north star.

Queen's Funeral Day Melancholia

  I felt oddly melancholy yesterday; it was a beautiful end of summer kind of day, and my life perks along nicely.  Why the melancholy?

There was ongoing coverage of Queen Elizabeth's funeral, but that didn't make me feel sad.  I had tasks that felt overly onerous, like calling Wells Fargo bank, again, about the May 31 check fraud perpetrated against my South Florida church, that the bank still hasn't managed to straighten out.  I feel like my church has been a victim of fraud again and again:  once by the people who wrote fraudulent checks, and again and again by the fraud department that cannot seem to return the thousands of dollars that flowed out of the account even after we alerted Wells Fargo that the fraud had happened.

I spent much of the day working on an exegesis assignment for my Foundations of Preaching class.  It's got lots of parts, but it's not too onerous once I got working on it.  I still have a bit to go, but class isn't until 6:30.

I went on two walks, both pleasant.  So why my Monday sadness?

I had gone back to check out some dates to make sure I was remembering events properly.  I did it in the way I often do, by going to old blog postings.  You would think that seeing where I was a year ago, in a school with compromised technology and a lack of transparency about the future, you'd think those posts would make me happy to be somewhere else.  

And indeed, they did, but they also made me sad.  I remembered all the happy times, the times of appreciation from my students, the times when we made festivals--sometimes we had much in the way of resources, and some times we had very little, but every effort helped to form community.  And I felt sad yesterday, remembering what was lost.

I also felt sad for all the people treated so shabbily.  I want to believe we've all gone on to better things, but it's impossible to forget the pain and disruption.

So, yesterday I spent time at the edge of a melancholy vortex that wanted to pull me under.  This morning, I'm feeling better.  I made this Facebook post/tweet:

"Listening to The Smiths' "The Queen is Dead" (the full album) while making apple butter to go with yesterday's homemade bread and sorting photos from my walk to St. Columba's Episcopal church, as one does, the day after the queen's funeral."

And while I'm documenting, here's my favorite queen's death/funeral tweet so far:

Thomas William Ruston

@thomaswruston

·

12h

A funeral watched by 5.1billion people owes itself to people trained in disciplines the government thinks is worthless: theology, poetry, music, camerawork and media

Labor and Labor Day

 It is Labor Day Monday, a paid time off holiday for some.  Technically I have today off, but since I am teaching online classes, if I wanted, I could take every Monday off.  I'm also a student, so my Monday class doesn't meet tonight--but I did have a written assignment due, which I've turned in.

I've spent this Labor Day week-end in Williamsburg, Virginia with my parents.  It's been a delightful time.  I will head back this morning in hopes of avoiding the worst of Labor Day traffic.  Once back at my seminary apartment, I'll work on an assignment due in my Foundations of Preaching class tomorrow and do some grading.

Many of us think about Labor Day as the end of summer, and I'm old enough to remember when college classes started the Tuesday after Labor Day.  My mom does too; she said in her generation it was because college students had jobs at country clubs that would close after Labor Day.  In terms of weather, I've always lived in places where summer will stretch on through September and perhaps beyond.

It's interesting to think about Labor Day in this time of "quiet quitting" and people restructuring their working lives.  Will we see this time period as one that changed labor relations forever?  Or will we see the forces of capitalism and empire crack down and break the momentum of workers?

Even though many of us will see today as simply a day off, it's a good day to think about work, both the kind we do for pay and the kind we do out of love. And what about the work we feel compelled to do? I'm thinking of that kind of documenting of family history, of cultural history, of all that might be lost without our efforts.  I'm thinking of our creative work.  There's so many more different kinds of work than just work for pay.

I'm thinking about our attitude towards work too.  I am glad to see that this article, published in 2016, about the theology of work is still online.  Here's my favorite quote from it, with ideas informed by Christian monasticism:  "Taking Benedict’s approach would force us to reconsider how we think about our work. Instead of, 'What work am I called to?' we might ask, 'How does the task before me contribute to or hinder my progress toward holiness?; Not 'How does this work cooperate with material creation?' but 'How does this work contribute to the life of the community and to others’ material and spiritual well-being?' Not 'Am I doing what I love?' but 'What activity is so important that I should, without exception, drop my work in order to do it?'”

And here's a Buddhist thought about work for your Labor Day, found in an interview with Bill Moyers and Jane Hirshfield who explains, "Teahouse practice means that you don't explicitly talk about Zen. It refers to leading your life as if you were an old woman who has a teahouse by the side of the road. Nobody knows why they like to go there, they just feel good drinking her tea. She's not known as a Buddhist teacher, she doesn't say, "This is the Zen teahouse." All she does is simply serve tea--but still, her decades of attentiveness are part of the way she does it. No one knows about her faithful attention to the practice, it's just there, in the serving of the tea, and the way she cleans the counters and washes the cups" (Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, page 112).

Blessing Backpacks, Blessing Us All

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

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

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

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

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

The Last Day of Work, the First Day of Unemployment

Yesterday was a very strange day, but strange in different ways than almost every other work day that came before it.  For one thing, it wasn't a work day, although I did drive to the office at the same time as usual.  But I was dressed so very differently:  I kept my workout tights on, with a pair of long shorts over it, and my running shoes.  For a shirt, I asked my spouse, "Do you think the Harriet Tubman or the I Chose Wesley shirt?"  I went with Harriet Tubman, in part because of what's printed on the back:

Keep Going

If you are tired, keep going;

If you are scared, keep going;

If you are hungry, keep going;

If you want to taste freedom, keep going.

Did Harriet Tubman really say that?  I have no idea.  Did anyone notice what my T-shirt said?  I have no idea, but I liked knowing.

First I had to unload the car; when I got home Thursday night, I had to get set up for my seminary class and then go to class, and after class, it was too late.  I unloaded the car, and my spouse and I headed to campus in separate cars.

We packed up one car, and he headed back to the condo we're renting.  I packed up the rest of my office and put the boxes in the car.  It was strange, and I realized I've never packed an office in these circumstances.  Usually I've been leaving because of my own choice, so I felt it was important to leave things in order for those who came after me.  In my last job, I even went so far as to digitize the departmental files for the person who came after me.

With this severance, I wasn't able to access my electronic files, so even if I wanted to be helpful that way, I couldn't be.  I took my personal items out of desk drawers and file cabinets, but whoever comes after me still has a lot of cleaning to do.  Some of those files and piles of paper were there when I joined the college in 2016.  And now the filing cabinet of doom will be someone else's task.  

I left all sorts of holiday decorations that I don't want.  I left books.  I left box after box of masks, gloves, and other supplies.  In the past year, I got several microgrants from Thrivent to buy food for students, and I left that too.

I put the last 5 boxes of stuff in my car, left the office keys and fob on the desk, and drove away.  I got home, unloaded the car, and drove to Total Wine to stock up.  The traffic was terrible, and I reflected that now I can run errands at whatever time is most convenient for me.

That's the strangest part of this severance.  When I was laid off in 2012, it was because of a restructuring, and I had a good chance at securing a similar position in the new structure.  So I kept going to work, doing my best, so that I would be chosen (and I was chosen, much to my relief).  When I left my job in 1998, it was to move to South Florida, and I had the summer to decide if we would stay or if we would go back to South Carolina to my job there--it was a teaching job where I could take summers off, which I did, so I immediately started working on finding permanent work.

In my current situation, I spent much of 2021 thinking I would lose my job, so I/we made decisions to get ourselves into position to weather that storm.  And when it looked like I wouldn't lose the job, we had already put processes into place--we had rented the condo, put a lot of money down, and decided to sell the house.  We decided to continue with our plan to sell the house because of the burning hot real estate market down here; if one sees one's house as an investment and one lives at the coast, one must sell when it's time.  It was time.

I spent much of the day realizing that I don't have to go to work on Monday.  I will still have online classes to teach and seminary work to do--but not having to be in an office for 45-55 hours a week will free up so much time.  And I won't be commuting twenty minutes to half an hour each way.  And I don't have to be desperate to find another full-time job; my plan is to go to seminary in the fall and live in campus housing.

I have never left a job and had that kind of time open up.  Yesterday, I thought of all the ways I could start to fill that time, and I instantly thought/prayed, let me not screw this up.

Yes, let me not screw this up.

Play List for Job Loss: Higher Ed Bad Boyfriend Strikes Again

In some ways, yesterday at work was a normal day, the new normal, where there's construction noise and whimpering animals and people who show up with no notice asking to be let into the server room.  During my lunch break internet ramblings, I found the web site of a woman who used to operate the most amazing fabric store for quilters in all of Broward county, and I ordered some fabric to go with the fabric I bought in January. I'm starting to formulate a vision for my next quilt!  I have dreams of quilt camp.

After lunch, at 2:00, I was on a video call interviewing a candidate for Director of Career Services when our HR person sent a chat through Teams asking if I was available for a quick meeting at 2:45.  I replied "yes" and spent the next half hour wondering what was about to happen.  It occurred to me that I might be let go, but I thought it was more likely that I would get a heads up about someone else being let go.  I thought it was even more likely that I might get an innocuous question.

Nope.  I was let go.   I got off the call, packed a few boxes, then it was on to home and my seminary class that I'm taking on Thursday nights: "Speaking of God in a Secular Age." It was surreal to be taking a class that discussed Catholic and Protestant ideas of grace when one has just been laid off.

It occurs to me that this is not the first time I have experienced a lay off (see this blog post for more details about the last time I was let go from an administrator job).  And like last time, this time was not entirely unexpected.  After all, I spent much of 2021 expecting that the campus would close, and my job would vanish.

But then the campus didn't close, and in fact, the new owners announced expansion plans.  Construction is underway.  Some part of me still expected to be laid off at some point--but it's strange when it actually happens.

On Tuesday, in fact, we had begun to think about plans that might be possible if my job lasted as long as the lease on the condo, until August of 2023.  Even as my spouse was running figures, some part of my heart urged caution.

I have begun to think of Higher Ed as a bad boyfriend, who breaks one's heart again and again, and apologizes profusely and each time, one thinks it might be different. Not an abusive boyfriend, in that one's face isn't broken and it's not bad enough that one knows to run away. There's potential--one wants it all to be different. But the Higher Education bad boyfriend breaks one's heart in so many ways.

Let me hasten to say that I feel fortunate in so many ways.  Since we spent much of 2021 thinking I would lose my job, we made alternate plans.  I am so grateful to Feb. 2021 Kristin who went ahead and applied for seminary and candidacy.  I am so grateful that we have sold the house.  I am so grateful that I have a vision of an alternate future.

While I will miss many of my colleagues, I am also grateful that someone else will have the task of leading the campus through the accreditation visit in 2 months.  I was not looking forward to many of the changes that were barreling towards us.

I will return to the campus today for a final time to box up books and load up the car.  When the HR person asked if I had any questions, I thought, I have so many questions.  But the one I asked was "I have more personal stuff in my office than I can get home today in my little car.  How do you want me to handle that?"

This morning, after a night of restless sleep, I woke up with a Meat Loaf lyric in my head:  "I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you." Thanks Higher Ed Bad Boyfriend! Now listening to Jimmy Buffett's "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On." That man doesn't get enough credit for his skillful lyrics.

This morning's complete play list, minus Meat Loaf:

"Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" by Jimmy Buffett

"Further on Up the Road" by Bruce Springsteen

"I Shall Be Released" by the Band

"The Wanderer" by Johnny Cash and U2

"Midnight Rider" by the Allman Brothers

"After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young

"Surrender" by U2

"Straight Lines" by Suzanne Vega

"Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones

Pivoting, or Not

 The intensity has increased, the intensity of the "What to do about Fall term 2021" tweets/posts/articles.  I'm seeing parents agonize, teachers ponder, administrators making one pivot and then another.  We're all pivoting.  Or we're standing fast, hoping for the best, wondering what exactly it is that we're hoping for.

As a school administrator of a very small campus, I feel fortunate in many ways.  We've never abandoned the measures which we adopted in the no-vaccine days of the pandemic.  We still wear masks, we still try to stay out of each other's breathing spaces as much as we can, and because we were a shrinking campus in the pre-pandemic times, we've kept our class size small.  I used to chafe at the restrictive ratios that come with a Vet Tech program, but now I'm happy for them.

I also know that it's not sustainable, running a campus with these small numbers, but others will make those larger decisions about viability and timing.  For now, I show up and try to shepherd the campus through each day's challenges, and each day brings different challenges.

In darker moments, I cannot imagine how we're all going to get through this, and in my darkest moments, I have some trouble even putting into words what "this" even is.  This new Delta variant is so very contagious.

I do know the history of diseases, and that most virulent variations of a disease burn themselves out, becoming milder versions that don't threaten their hosts as severely.  I also know, but don't often say out loud, that the process of becoming a milder disease often happens across centuries, not over a year or two.

I pray the most classic of prayers:  "Help us, help us, help us, oh Divine Creator with a longer view than ours."

As a teacher, I know that some of us have been advised to make alternate plans, in case we need to go all remote again.  I know that some of us are in schools that are committed to in person, no matter the cost.  I am tired of wondering why the governor of my state of Florida is so opposed to masks.  I confess that I've come to appreciate some of the other aspects of masking.  There's the germ avoidance, of course.  But there's also not worrying about having something in my teeth or about lipstick or whether or not I need a mint.

Yesterday, I got some communication from the seminary where classes start in just a few weeks.  It's interesting to watch all of these angles from the student side.  I chose remote classes back when I wouldn't have thought we'd be having this kind of disease surge.  Yesterday we got a letter from a dean advising us that our teachers might be making different choices in learning modalities.  I'm assuming that he was telling us that in-person classes might turn out to be a combination of in person and remote, or perhaps all remote, if conditions worsen.

I am glad I have chosen not to live on campus.  I don't want to pay for campus housing if I'm going to go there just to log onto my computer.  I can save major amounts of money by doing that from the space I share with my spouse.

I was never considering living on campus this term, since I expected to be employed for part of it.  But this situation raises interesting questions for the future.

As a student, just like as an administrator, I don't have enough information to make plans for 2022 yet.  Let me just keep tending to the work of each day.  For now, that is all I can do.

Onground Intensives Done Virtually

This week, in addition to everything else in my life, I've been doing the onground intensive for my spiritual direction certificate program.  I don't have many vacation days, and I may need them later, so I decided to do the intensive from my work office, while also trying to attend to administrator duties.  It's left me exhausted.

The intensive started on Wednesday, and I was already a bit worn out.  On top of my administrator duties, I had spent several hours attending a virtual orientation/advising session and getting registered for seminary classes, along with getting documents and cashier's checks for the condo rental.

I try not to contrast the onground intensive experience that I had on campus in January of 2020 with the two virtual intensives I've had since then.  It's not a fair comparison, I know.  The good news:  the comparison makes me glad that I'm taking the approach to seminary that I am launching this fall.  My instinct was right:  it would have been hard, if not impossible, to do online seminary with onground intensives while still being a college administrator; the programs I was considering required 2 week intensives twice a year, usually at times when it would be hard for me to be away for 2 weeks--not that there's ever a good time to be away for 2 weeks in my administrator experience.

I will also wonder how my spiritual direction certificate experience would have been different if the pandemic hadn't disrupted it.  I find myself so exhausted and not taking full advantage of the offerings.  For example, last night, I sat at my office desk, alone, after the campus closed for the night, trying to do the Ignatian visualizing as part of a Vesper's service:  "Imagine that you are Simeon.  long pause   Imagine that you are Anna.  long pause   Imagine that you are Mary and Joseph, on the road to the temple.  long pause"  Eventually, I just couldn't do it anymore, and it pains me to admit, I turned my attention elsewhere.  If I had been in the chapel, surrounded by my fellow students, would I have been more likely to focus?  Yes.

We are doing the flipped classroom model, which means I worked my way through modules that were basically filmed lectures.  They were good, but less compelling than they would have been in a classroom.  Or maybe I was more distracted.  Or maybe I had already read about many of the topics, and so many of the presentations didn't seem to tell me much that was new.

It is also strange to be going through this intensive after I have decided to go to seminary.  I chose this program originally, after a period of discernment where I thought I was choosing between this program and seminary.  I was fairly sure that I couldn't do seminary in the allotted amount of time and also be an administrator.  In the pre-pandemic days, there were fewer options than there may be now that schools have had to experiment with classes done from a distance.

It's strange to be going through this intensive realizing that I'm now discerning something new.  Would I have been open to the new discernment had we been doing the intensives face to face?  If we had been able to do that, many elements of life would have been different.

I'm still grateful for the experience.  I've learned a lot, and it hasn't been that expensive.  And it's been a better use of time than many of the ways I could have spent it.  Even the shortcomings have made me realize my longings.

Appreciation for Work in All Its Forms

 The rhythms of life on a campus interest me, how some weeks are fairly laid back, while others are much more intense.  Then there's the time here and there that compresses that rhythm into an entire week.  But most of my weeks are like that--some days are oddly empty of communication, where I have a colleague send me an e-mail, just to make sure the system isn't broken, and then there's the day when all the week's e-mails seem to come in one hour, demanding immediate attention.

I expected yesterday to be one of those intense days; it was the rare day when we were expecting so many people to come to campus that we made a list of who we should be on the lookout for.  Later, I made this Facebook post:

"We were expecting many people to come to campus today: the health inspector doing the annual check on biohazardous waste storage, the head of IT, the student considering enrolling in our Vet Tech program, and the person delivering coffee/tea pods. We were not expecting the plumber.

But we do have toilets in the women's restroom that need to be replaced, and he's here with new toilets and parts. And we don't have male students on campus today, so we can use the men's room.

Progress!"

In the end, we didn't ever see the head of IT or the health inspector.  We did get 4 of our 5 boxes of tea pods, but the potential student never came.  It was the kind of day where I didn't want to immerse myself too deeply in any projects because I knew I was likely to be interrupted.

Some of the interruptions were worth it.  Late in the afternoon, a student stopped by.  She gave me a thank you card with a kind note that thanked me for helping her.  I got downright teary.

Much of what I do to keep the school running is unseen by students, which is as it should be.  Most of the students in the school where I'm an administrator will never have me as a teacher, which makes me even more invisible.  I do find meaning in keeping the school running smoothly--being persistent in insisting that we need the toilets to be fixed, filling up the snack basket, strategizing with faculty about how to solve issues.  Often I get verbal thank yous, particularly from faculty.  

I will keep that card--I have a whole file of stuff that I save to remind me that my work is important.  Happily, there aren't many days when I need to look at the file.  I am in a space where I'm appreciated--and some days, I even get a card to remind me of that fact.

Maybe God Is Trying to Tell You Something

Our Admissions team at school has a radio that they tune to different stations.  Yesterday as I walked by, I said, "Is this the song I think it is?"

It was!  One of the Admissions reps said, "Oh, I love this movie!"  It was "Maybe God Is Trying to Tell You Something."  I said, "I love this song!"  And at the skeptical looks, I sang along.

Because it's a classic call and response kind of song, soon we were all singing--and a few of us danced a bit.  I did wonder a bit at the strangeness of singing and dancing to a gospel song with such a clear religious message, but the Spirit was clearly moving us, and so I went along.

Because so many of my colleagues hadn't seen the movie, and because I wanted to hear the song again, I went back to my office and pulled up this clip.  I sent my colleagues a link, along with this message, "In case you want to see the original of the song “God Is Trying to Tell You Something”—the ending of this clip will make you cry, but in a good way—or maybe only if you know the preacher and his daughter in yellow have been estranged for much of her adult life."

I thought about the ways this song has woven its way through my adult life.  I loved Alice Walker in undergraduate school, so of course, I went to see the movie of The Color Purple, and I loved it too.  I bought the soundtrack, and this song was my favorite.  For at least a decade, it found its way onto the inspirational mix tapes that I made for the car.  And even now, when I wonder if God is trying to get my attention, this song springs up from my brain.

I last played this song at work at the job I had before this one.  I was told that I had reached the upper end of the salary scale for my position, and therefore, I wouldn't be getting the raise I had been told I would get.  I didn't point out that I'd been above the upper end for several years and gotten raises.  I didn't point out that I did far more than my job title would indicate.  I simply said, "I understand," went to my office, shut the door, and played the song several times.

A year later, I accepted the job offer for my current job.  And now, here I am in a place where many of my colleagues feel free to sing and dance when a spiritual comes on the radio.

The Ministry of Work

This week at work has been the kind of week where I do all sorts of work that I'm not sure I was hired to do:  fix the Keurig machine, make a bulletin board that celebrates African American History week, a trip to Wal-Mart to buy a variety of supplies, and bringing in books for the library's display that celebrates African American History.  Don't get me wrong--I'm not complaining.  But most weeks, I do wonder what would have happened if my school had hired a "Not my job description, below my pay grade" kind of person.  It might have taken awhile to manifest, but the results wouldn't have been good.

Luckily, I like feeling useful.  I like knowing that my actions both large and small make the campus a better place.  I'm the one who refills the sugar containers and who makes sure we have the sugar to do it.  It's a small thing, and people don't often notice when I do it.  But if no one did it, we'd notice.  The campus would be a slightly less welcoming place.  Too much of that, and people start to look for a more welcoming place.

Some of our ideas fall flat--for instance, we were planning to have a chili cookoff a week from today, but so far, no one has signed up to compete.  We'll send out an e-mail on Monday, and if there's no interest, we'll move along to another project.  I've bought lots of heart shaped cookie decorating kits for Feb. 14, so lack of interest in a chili cookoff won't break my heart; in fact, I was only doing it because a few people suggested it.

I'm taking a page from the way my church approaches these kinds of projects.  I see myself in a pastor/leadership role.  There are important tasks to be done, and I do them.  There are ideas that feed my creative soul, and I do them.  If others have a vision that fits with the larger mission of the school, great, if they want to lead that project.  If no one wants to lead a project, we don't do it.

I'm lucky in a way that many church pastors aren't:  my campus has only been in existence for about 6 years, so I don't have to wrestle with the "That's the way we've always done it" response.  People are happy for our efforts to make the campus a cohesive community.

As I think about why I'm happy to do a variety of efforts in the hopes of building community, I'm realizing that because people are happy and appreciative, it makes me more willing to do the tasks.  I've worked at places where people sneer and say, "Why bother?"  It's dispiriting.

I'm happy to be at my current campus.  It's not exactly the liberal arts college where I thought I'd work back in my grad school days when I pictured my life.  It's not the ministry I might have chosen, had I gone to seminary.  But it has elements of those ideals, and so, it works for me right now.

A Theology of Work

The issue of work is never far from my mind, and Labor Day is a great time to think about it in depth.  Not a week goes by when I'm not wondering if I'm doing the work I was put on earth to do.  Of course, that presupposes a purpose of sorts. 

 It's interesting to me that I feel that I only feel I'm doing meaningful work if I'm making an important difference each and every day.  And if I'm being honest, I want it to be an important difference like the kind that Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks made, the kind of difference where future generations will be better off because I walked the planet (and yes, I realize this could sound like monstrous ego, but it's also fueled by a fierce yearning for social justice).  Did Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King feel that they made a difference each and every day?  Probably not.  It's only in retrospect that it's clear.

Maybe it would be better to ponder the ways I could make life better for the workers around me. I'd like to move towards the Buddhist teahouse approach of meaningful work.  In an interview with Bill Moyers, Jane Hirshfield explains, "Teahouse practice means that you don't explicitly talk about Zen.  It refers to leading your life as if you were an old woman who has a teahouse by the side of the road.  Nobody knows why they like to go there, they just feel good drinking her tea.  She's not known as a Buddhist teacher, she doesn't say, "This is the Zen teahouse."  All she does is simply serve tea--but still, her decades of attentiveness are part of the way she does it.  No one knows about her faithful attention to the practice, it's just there, in the serving of the tea, and the way she cleans the counters and washes the cups" (Fooling with Words:  A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, page 112).

I wonder why we don't hear much about a Christian theology of work--it could be that the workplace is changing so quickly that theologians haven't had a chance to catch up.  We've gone from being a nation where the majority makes a living from agrarian pursuits, to a largely industrialized work force--and that's the 20th century.  And now, all those industrial jobs that so many of us suddenly miss--even though when I was in college, we rallied against those evil factories that gave people repetitive use injuries and lung disease from the fibers released in factories (both cloth fibers and metal/asbestos fibers)--those are gone away, as are many office jobs, as is any hope of job stability.

Or maybe it's because that theology isn't taught in our seminaries and grad schools.  This article says, "Courses on marriage and sexuality are staples of university and seminary curricula, but courses on work are rare. This mutually acceptable silence is a great pastoral failure, a squandered opportunity to understand the universal call to holiness in everyday economic life."

The article reminds us that we do have a theology of work, if we dig back far enough, to the Benedictines:  "The Rule has a larger lesson, though. Its guidelines for living in the monastery teach that work can be a component of spiritual practice and is essential to fulfilling a community’s needs, but it must never become an end in itself and in fact should be limited in order to prevent it from inculcating vicious habits. The discipline that Benedict enjoins upon his monks, and that workers today could emulate, is selective disengagement from labor."

Life in a monastery is compartmentalized in a way that I envy:  there are times for work, times for prayer, times for meals, times for study--there's some overlap, but not the expectation of multitasking that so many of us face. 

Can we create something similar in our modern workplaces?

It's interesting to think about the way that a Benedictine approach would reshape the questions that we ask about work:  "Taking Benedict’s approach would force us to reconsider how we think about our work. Instead of, 'What work am I called to?' we might ask, 'How does the task before me contribute to or hinder my progress toward holiness?; Not 'How does this work cooperate with material creation?' but 'How does this work contribute to the life of the community and to others’ material and spiritual well-being?' Not 'Am I doing what I love?' but 'What activity is so important that I should, without exception, drop my work in order to do it?'”

These are good questions for Labor Day--or any day.

Holy Burdens

During key points in my life, I am sure that I heard people say, "That's just my cross to bear," but I can't think of any specific instances. 

Lately, I started thinking more about the cross of Christ and what it means when Christ warns us of the crosses that will come when we follow him.

I've also come across more than my share of people who take on the long-tortured face of martyrdom--without realizing that their situation really doesn't warrant the overly dramatic sighs, the long telling of sad tales of woe.

I've begun to be uncomfortable with this language of martyrdom, especially in an age where we are seeing more people truly martyred for their faith, as with the various executions committed by ISIS in the past year.

And yet, it also does seem right and just to acknowledge that each of us will be called to serve in ways that will take us to places we would not willingly choose.  It's not exactly a martyrdom, not really a true cross.

This morning, I came across a phrase in Martha Spong's blog post:  "holy burden."  This phrase seems perfect to me to describe what many of us might have once said was "our cross to bear."

Spong, who is part of a two minister family, used it this way:  "Some days it feels so ordinary to be there in a church-owned house with my wife and our children that the only thing I stress about is whether the puppy will chew on something that belongs to the church rather than to us. Other days, it feels like I finally know what cross I was always intended to bear, a cross engraved with the words 'Queer Christian.' It’s not a death sentence; rather it is a holy burden, and the work of my life, to be queer and faithful."

I think of my own holy burdens:  being the hospice chaplain periodically at work, as we have lots of losses to mourn, of being the one who argues for gentleness in personnel issues, of being the one who diligently works at the various ministries of reconciliation that a modern college requires--these burdens do not leave me martyred, but they do often leave me drained.

Thinking of it as a holy burden might change my mental state.  In some ways, I don't need to change my mental state--I already look at these tasks as my particular ministry.

Jesus never promised us that it would be easy, this business of being the light in the world, the yeast in the bread dough.

But it's so important that we do it.

Existential Crises

Some weeks, I feel good about what I'm doing with my life:  good about what I can do as an administrator, good about my teaching, good about my writing.  During really good weeks, I also feel like I'm a good wife, a good friend, a good daughter/sister/aunt.

This week has not been one of those weeks.  This week has been a week where I think back to grad school days:  I had such promise then, and I didn't even realize it!

This has been a week where I sorted through boxes of old assessment artifacts, carefully collected, dutifully analyzed, the subject of many reports, stored for years, and never asked for, reports never read.  It's been a week where I'm asked to create spreadsheets of information that already exists on other spreadsheets.  And then, because my existential crisis wasn't deep enough, I went to a mandatory, 3 hour HR training session on how to discipline and document misbehaving employees.

Our church will be spending the next two weeks with Matthew 16:  13-28, and I found it a refreshing read this morning.  In this Gospel reading, we find Jesus asking some of the basic questions. “Who do men say that I am?” “Who do you say that I am?” It’s a curious exchange that has Peter proclaiming Jesus as Lord, and Jesus instructing him not to tell anybody about himself.

Hmmm. Is this a basic existential moment? Surely, of all the humans who have walked the earth, Jesus would have the least reason for asking these questions—depending, of course, on your view of Jesus. Many of us believe that Jesus understood his purpose from babyhood, or at least during his childhood, when he disappeared only to be found in the Temple, teaching the priests (that story appears in Luke, not in the other Gospels). On the other hand, some scholars speculate that Jesus didn’t understand the full scope of his mission, that Jesus, like many of us, spent his days asking God, “Am I doing what you want me to do?”

We see in this text Peter getting the kind of affirmation that many of us crave. Jesus tells Peter that he will be the cornerstone, the rock.

I think of Peter and imagine that in times of frustration, he must have looked back at this moment with Christ. What a comfort that memory must be.

I spent much of my younger years longing to be sure that I was doing what God put me on earth to do, as if I had only one destiny, and I might be missing it.

My parents, in their wisdom, kept reminding me that God can use me no matter where I am. God is the original collage artist, taking bits and pieces that don’t seem to go together, and creating them into a cohesive whole.

During weeks like these, I remind myself of the multitude of small acts that I make each and every day to make life better for those at our school.  I listen to distressed colleagues, and if I can try to solve problems, I offer a solution--but I remind myself that sometimes, all I am called to do is listen.  This week I helped a sick student who was scared she was dying--but I convinced her that her flu was simply reasserting itself.  I helped a student with all sorts of complicating issues find his classroom which had been moved.  I managed to find a few extra classes for our adjuncts.  I helped a student who needed syllabi from 2008-2009 when she attended, plus credential information for the faculty.  Yes, I have those files on the computer!  I helped a student who needed transfer credit for classes she took in Germany.  This list could go on and on.

As we head away from Candlemas and towards Transfiguration Sunday, I do find myself haunted by the questions of light and our mission on earth.  Are we transfiguring the world?  Do these small acts of compassion make a difference?

I have to believe that they do.

Good Work, Good Sabbath--and a Good Book

Two weeks ago, I started reading Timothy Keller's latest, Every Good Endeavor:  Connecting Your Work to God's Work.  At first, I thought, I need to buy this wonderful book!  I'll stop reading right now and wait until I have my copy so that I can mark it up.

But I'm trying to buy less books.  I decided that since I had my library copy and time to read, I'd keep going.  And I turned down pages as I went. 

In the end, I decided not to buy the book--not because it's not good, but because I'm not likely to read it again.  If the book was on my shelf, I would go back through and read the marked passages--which made me decide to write some of those quotes here.

But first, a bit of a review.  Timothy Keller takes a different view of work than much of our current culture.  He decries the idea that some work is worthwhile, while much of work is not.  He encourages us to remember that we're made for work and have been from the very beginning:  6 days of work in the garden, one day of rest.

More important, he encourages us to move away from our idea that some work is God's work while most of work is done in a non-sacred realm--and thus, a very small amount of workplaces are doing God's work.  He reminds us again and again that any workplace has sacred work that needs to be done.  We can be about God's work of Kingdom building even if we're not pastors or youth directors or music leaders.  He encourages us not just to do our work, but to be very competent, as competent as we know how to be.


He uses a story by Tolkien as a grounding metaphor.  He tells us the story of the painter, Niggle, in "Leaf by Niggle."  Niggle has a vision of a leaf and then the larger tree, and he spends his whole life working on this painting, while being distracted by the needs of others--hence, he never finished his painting.  He has also been desperately putting off a journey. In the end, he must go on the journey and leave the painting unfinished.  But then he discovers that in the new country, his painting exists, not as a painting, but as a real tree.  It's part of the True Reality that would live forever.

Keller sees this story as a parable about work and Heaven.  He reminds us of the meaning of Niggle for our workplaces, especially when we get frustrated or tired:   "Whatever your work, you need to know this: There really is a tree. Whatever you are seeking in your work—the city of justice and peace, the world of brilliance and beauty, the story, the order, the healing—it is there. There is a God, there is a future healed world that he will bring about, and your work is showing it (in part) to others. Your work will be only partially successful, on your best days, in bringing that world about. But inevitably the whole tree that you seek—the beauty, harmony, justice, comfort, joy, and community—will come to fruition. If you know all this, you won’t be despondent because you can get only a leaf or two out in this life. You will work with satisfaction and joy. You will not be puffed up by success or devastated by setbacks" (page 30).

You can find links to parts of the book, including the Introduction with his discussion of Niggle as metaphor, here.  Here are some additional quotes that I found inspirational.

"The current economic era has given us fresh impulses and new ways to stigmatize work such as farming and caring for children--jobs that supposedly are not 'knowledge' jobs and therefore do not pay very well.  But in Genesis we see God as a gardener, and in the New Testament we see him as a carpenter.  No task is too small a vessel to hold the immense dignity of work given by God.  Simple physical labor is God's work no less than the formulation of theological truth" (page 49).

"In Ephesians 6, Paul sets forth a simple but profound principle that both ennobles work (for those in danger of viewing it as drudgery) ad demythologizes work (for those in danger of making it their identity). He says all work should be done 'as if you were serving the Lord'" (page 213). He also gives a great explanation of slavery during Paul's time and how it is different from more recent experiences of slavery.


A book about a Christian approach to work would not be complete if it did not also discuss the idea of Sabbath, and this one has a great discussion. Keller explains why the idea of stopping work is so radical, both in ancient times and in our own. He encourages us to adopt a true Sabbath mindset:

"Anyone who cannot obey God's command to observe the Sabbath is a slave, even a self-imposed one. Your own heart, or our materialistic culture, or an exploitative organization, or all of the above, will be abusing you if you don't have the ability to be disciplined in your practice of Sabbath. Sabbath is therefore a declaration of our freedom [emphasis Keller's]. It means you are not a slave--not to your culture's expectations, your family's hopes, your medical school's demands, not even to your own insecurities. It is important that you learn to speak this truth to yourself with a note of triumph--otherwise you will feel guilty for taking time off, or you will be unable to truly unplug" (236).

Of Maypoles and Miracles

So, how will you be celebrating this first day of May? Will you weave ribbons around a Maypole? Will you go to a demonstration in favor of worker's rights? Will you bring a bouquet of flowers into the house? Will you sing "Solidarity Forever" or "L'Internationale"?


I imagine that most of us will go to our jobs on this fine May Day. Well, those of us in the U.S. will go to our jobs, if we still have jobs. May Day is a holiday in many other parts of the industrialized world.

In my elementary school in the 1970's, we had a May Day celebration that focused on flowers and Maypoles, not on workers. Looking back, I'm amazed that our teachers were able to rig together a Maypole. We spent weeks practicing the weaving of the ribbons in the Maypole dance. We had a whole Mayday festival. Parents came. There was a Mayday king and queen.

Ah, those good old pagan school days!

I have spent most of my life in climates where Spring came long before the first day of May. In fact, in most places I've lived, Spring has shifted into Summer by May 1.

My inner Marxist would want me to give up all pagan celebrations of beauty. My inner Marxist would demand that I transform the workplace.

How I wish I could. My inner Marxist and my inner 19 year old have amazingly simplistic ideas of how the world works and how much power individuals have. That's why I both love my inner Marxist and my inner 19 year old and find them frustrating.

And yes, it can get a bit crowded in my head.

My tired worker self goes through her days noting convergences that other people might not notice and making poems out of the connections.  A few years ago, May Day and Ascension Day converged.  Today, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Lutherans celebrate the feast day of Philip and James.  You may wonder why I'm not focusing a whole post on them.

I thought about it, but as I researched the two disciples, I didn't find much.  In John's account of the feeding of the multitudes, Philip is the disciple who talks about the cost of feeding everyone.  Later in John (chapter 12), Philip is also the disciple approached by some Greeks in a crowd who ask to be introduced to Jesus.  Philip tries, but Jesus gives a mystical answer (so typical for John's Gospel) that later readers see as Jesus talking about his upcoming death and withdraws.  And then he goes off and hides.

Clearly, Jesus doesn't understand the value of ecumenism the way that later cultures will.  Clearly Jesus isn't interested in networking, the way that modern business would have us all do.

If Philip lived today, Philip would be the one who went to business school.  Philip would write books about the irrefutable laws of leadership.  Philip would be the cautious one reminding us of what the true costs of our discipleship would be--and he wouldn't be talking about it in Bonhoeffer terms.  He'd have some sort of mathematical formula to show us what we should spend time doing, what would pay off.  He'd talk about opportunity costs.

I feel a bit of fondness for Philip.  Each of us probably has our own inner Philip.

Oh, great, another inner voice to join all the others in my head!

Still, I recognize some of my behavior when I read these limited accounts of Philip.  I often feel like the one who doesn't quite get it.  I often feel like the one who comes up with a solution, only to be brushed off.  I feel like the one voicing perfectly reasonable objections while not understanding the miracle that's right there in front of me.

We all feel that way, like there's a group of cool kids, and we linger at the periphery never excluded, but not really included either.  I joke about expecting to be able to graduate from high school some day.

I wonder if bosses understand this dynamic and use it to control workers.  I expect that some nefarious bosses do.

As someone who supervises people now, I wonder how I could turn this dynamic around.  How can I make sure everyone feels included?

Marx would probably tell me that it can't be done.  He'd talk about the alienation of the workers.

Maybe my elementary school teachers had the answer:  construct a Maypole!

In some ways, it's the same answer Jesus gives us.  Jesus sees an aching need and wants to feed a crowd.  Philip gives the answer that many of us would give:  too costly, can't be done.  Jesus creates such a miracle of abundance that there are 12 baskets of leftovers.  It's a Maypole of a miracle.

The Spiritual Gift of Counting Money after Church

I tend to think that volunteer work looks a certain way:  it helps the poor, the dispossessed, those who can't help themselves.  If I'm not alleviating a social injustice, I tend not to count it.

Yesterday, we spent almost 2 hours after church counting the offering.  We have 3 services, plus there was the Ash Wednesday money and the Men's Pancake Supper fundraiser dollars that had never gotten taken to the bank.

You might say, "How difficult could it be?"  I would excuse your dismissal.  I, too, used to say such things.

We're not a very automated church.  We have a variety of slips that come back that have to be separated.  We have envelopes for this, and envelopes for that:  regular offering, special gifts, upcoming events that require flowers and dedications (lilies, poinsettias, etc).  We have people who forget to use their special envelopes, and so we have to sort the pew envelopes.

We have cash, and we have checks.  And then there are the forms.

Oh, the forms.  We've streamlined them, but still.  The bank requires forms, and we fill in our own forms for our records.  We make various tallies, and then they must match.

It's dizzying and headache inducing, and it takes time.  And then, when it's done, we take it to the bank, to the overnight depository, because it's just not safe to leave that much cash in an office.  And then we bring the overnight depository key back to the office.

When I take a tally to determine how much good I'm doing in the world, I tend to forget about this kind of work.  It doesn't feel like I'm making the world a better place by doing it.  No one says thank you.  No one exclaims how important it is.  Like straightening the kitchen after coffee hour, it's very much a behind the scenes kind of thing.  Even more behind the scenes than coffee hour clean up, I would argue--the people who stay for coffee hour can see the mess they're leaving behind.  People who donate money have often never stayed to count.

But just like the kitchen clean up, the money counting and going to the bank is essential.  There are bills to be paid, paychecks to distribute, social justice to be done--and none of it can happen if the money doesn't make it to the bank.

Anyone can clean the kitchen, but not everyone can be allowed to count.  Some people should not be subject to the temptation of that much cash, that much banking information.  Some people shouldn't be allowed access to the confidential information contained in offering plates. 

And you'd be surprised how many people don't have the basic math skills required for counting.  Or the patience.

I was tired before we started, and we came home to collapse on the sofa.  We watched a western, Open Range, where the bad guys are clearly differentiated from the good guys, and by the end, the town is cleaned up.  No mundane tasks like counting the money.  I've been shaped by this ethos.  It's no wonder I think that social justice work should blaze forth, not work behind the scenes.

Soon we will be in the season of Pentecost, that time where we think about our spiritual gifts.  I notice that Saint Paul never mentions counting the money either.

Sure, I'd like a flashier spiritual gift:  to be able to heal or prophesy.  Of course, those probably come with some fairly severe drawbacks.

Ah, the eternal task:  to appreciate the gifts that I have, without envying the gifts bestowed to others.