The Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven

Today is one of the many Marian feast days. Today we celebrate Mary's Assumption into Heaven. Here are the readings for today:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:7-11

Psalm: Psalm 45:11-16 (Psalm 34:1-9 NRSV)

Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7

Gospel: Luke 1:46-55


When I was very little, I was taught about the two Old Testament people who got to go to Heaven without dying (one was Elijah, and I can't remember who the other one was). We were taught that very good, very righteous people got to go to Heaven without dying--but interestingly, our class of little Lutherans was not taught about Mary's Assumption into Heaven. Mary, the mother of Jesus--why was she left out?

My childhood Lutheran churches didn't mention Mary much at all, outside of the seasons of Advent, Christmas Eve, and the post-Christmas Sundays. As I've gotten older, I've felt a bit of mourning for all the celebrations and richness that we've lost in our Protestant traditions that were so eager to show how different we were from the Orthodox religions.

I remember hearing about the possibility of Assumption into Heaven, and I remember as a child wanting to be good enough for that eventual reward. Clearly, my childhood self was not well-schooled in the concept of grace.

I understand that Mary has often been used as a tool of sexists who want to dominate women and convince them to deny their wants and needs. But as I look around and see the consequences of a whole nation devoted to selfish consideration of ONLY their individual wants and needs, I wonder if it's not time to return to the models of the saints, the prophets, Mary, and Jesus.

You might protest, "We haven't left those models. What do you mean, return?" But for most of us, we're surrounded by so many examples of bad behavior. For example, it's difficult to watch TV and come away feeling enriched. The news is full of bad behavior, and many a reality show rewards bad behavior. It's time to start adding good role models back to our lives. As a Composition teacher, I know that a lot of us do learn best when we have a model to follow. And many of us need lots of models.

Mary gives us a wonderful model of how to structure our religious lives. Today is a great day to go back to read the Magnificat, Luke 1: 46-55:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;
he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed;
the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.
He has mercy on those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm
and has scattered the proud in their conceit,
Casting down the mighty from their thrones
and lifting up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
to remember his promise of mercy,
The promise made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children for ever.

Across Decades, a Woman Weeping for Afghanistan

I spent much of yesterday returning to a state of tears over Afghanistan, while at the same time marveling over how many decades I've spent feeling weepy because of what's happening in Afghanistan.  My first memory of knowing about Afghanistan as a country was the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the boycott of the Moscow Olympics, which made my teenage self both angry and weepy.

As I prepared for my wedding in 1988, Afghanistan was in the news because the Soviets were pulling out.  I joked that we should have gotten married earlier because peace seemed to be breaking out in the most unlikely places in that summer of 1988.

Ah, the foolish optimism of youth.  I was astonished that Afghanistan seemed to fall back into the middle ages once the Soviets left.  The 1990s brought all sorts of misery to Afghanistan, particularly to females.  It was shocking to me that a country could go backwards that way, in terms of women's rights.  I thought about Margaret Atwood's claim that anything that was in The Handmaid's Tale was something that was actually happening in the world as she wrote the book in the early 1980's, and I felt a shiver along with my weeping.

For the past twenty (20!!!) years, many events in Afghanistan could provoke weeping, but I held out hope that the U.S. presence in the country helped stabilize it.  I predict that events in the coming weeks will solidify that claim, as the U.S. leaves, and once again, the country will head to a place that's very unhealthy for females.

As I listened to coverage of yesterday's events in Afghanistan, I thought of the scene in The Princess Bride about the classic blunder of getting involved in a land war in Asia.  When I first saw that movie in 1991 or so, I heard the line and thought about Vietnam.  Afghanistan has been another part of Asia that has a long (very long!) history of being very challenging to invaders, from Alexander on to the U.S., century upon century of sorrow.

Not for the first time, I wondered why anyone would want to have the U.S. as an ally.  I thought of our history of abandoning those who tried to help us.  Some of my earliest political memories are those of the exit from Saigon, those images of people clinging to helicopters and trying to push their way to a safe exit.  As the news from Afghanistan has gotten progressively worse as the U.S. leaves, I've thought of the South Vietnamese, of the Kurds, of all of those types of people in Afghanistan who have tried to help the U.S. and will now be in great peril.  And I've thought of the females, who are also in great peril, solely because of their gender. 

My life has shown me the folly of trying to save everyone.  My life reminds me again and again that I can't even keep my closest loved ones safe, so why should I think that I can somehow protect the vulnerable in other countries?  Why should I think that I can save those who didn't win the lottery of being born into a safe body, a safe country, a safe situation?  

Why do I believe in safety at all?

As I waited for the AT&T person to finish making my phone line communicate with the outside, I ended my day by reading Patricia Smith's brilliant and terrifying Blood Dazzler, a good reminder of all the aspects of life that threaten us:  hurricanes and poverty and bad information and poverty and learned helplessness and poverty and forced helplessness.  I loved this cycle of poems that revolve around Hurricane Katrina, and each subsequent reading only increases my appreciation of the work.

I wondered about my own ruminations throughout the day and wondered if I could create some sort of poem cycle that connects Afghanistan and the health of a nation and the personal health choices that lead to ruin.  Or maybe I want a simpler poem, a poem about a woman hearing about the dire circumstances of Afghanistan's women and children, a woman sobbing in the car as she goes to pick up her books on hold at the public library, a woman who has spent her day at work trying to make the educational path easier for college students.  Let my brain ruminate on that a bit before I attempt to catch it on paper.

This morning, I came across this magnificent blog post, where Dr. Wil Gafney makes connections between Afghanistan and the ancient prophets of the Hebrew Bible.  Her work always makes important connections, so I wasn't surprised to find her continuing to do so.  I am grateful for a solid spiritual dimension to my reading about Afghanistan this morning.  

I am grateful to know that I am not alone in weeping.

Wedding Anniversary in Year 2 of a Pandemic

A few days ago, one of my friends asked, "When you met your spouse, did you immediately know that he was the one?  Did you immediately envision growing old with him?"

I said, "It was 1983 when we first met.  I thought we'd be dead in a nuclear war soon.  But I did think he'd be a good partner in surviving the immediate aftermath before the radiation slowly killed us."

She laughed, but indeed I was serious.  I think of myself as the last of the Cold War babies, the ones always scanning the sky for a mushroom cloud.  My elementary schools had both tornado drills and nuclear drills, which were the same:  take a book, crouch against the wall in an inside hallway, put the book over the back of the head and spine, and hope that it's all adequate protection against a failing foreign policy/the result of warm air meeting cold.

In 1983, when I first met my spouse at our small, southern, liberal arts college, I chose a major based on what I liked, not on what I thought would take me into the future.  People asked, "What are you going to do with a major in English?"  I said, "We're all going to be dead in a nuclear war.  What does it matter?"  I read various survival scenarios.  I kept my 74 Monte Carlo longer than I should have because it had an ignition that would survive an electromagnetic pulse.

Even though I was expecting a nuclear war, I still got married on this day in 1988.  People gathered, we made our pledges in the same church where my parents made similar pledges, and off we drove for a short honeymoon in Asheville, NC, before we had to be back for grad school orientation.

This week, we've begun transitioning to the next phase of our married life, as we have moved to the condo that we're renting.  I don't know if this is true for everyone, but moving brings out the best and worse in our relationship.  My thoughts have returned to those post-apocalyptic scenarios.  My spouse would be very good at making a shelter out of the ruins.  Why is moving so hard?  I would be very good at gathering and reassembling the scraps of society into something useful.  Why is it so hard for me to take a household and move it a mile away and figure out which item goes on which shelf?

One of the benefits of having been together for decades is that I know our patterns, and on my good days, I'm patient.  On my best days, I know how to get us to a better spot, out of our frustrations and anger towards the ideas that we had of how we were headed to a better spot.

We still have so much work to do, but we are further along than we were this time last week.  I no longer expect that we will soon be dead in a nuclear war, but I do realize that we're at a slightly higher risk of that scenario in our post-Cold War time.  During my childhood, the U.S. knew who had which nukes.  Now we don't.

A global pandemic that has produced a highly contagious variant is not the pandemic I planned for, but here we are.  And now we are doing the kind of planning for the future that some people do in their younger years:  looking at our finances, looking at our expenses, making some judicious moves that will net us the best return on our investment.

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.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, August 15, 2021:

Proverbs 9:1-6

Psalm 34:9-14

Those who seek the LORD lack nothing that is good. (Ps. 34:10)

Ephesians 5:15-20

John 6:51-58


In this Sunday's Gospel, we see Jesus confounding his listeners; the more he talks, the more confused they become.  And who can blame them?  Here's Jesus who seems to be talking about eating human flesh and drinking human blood; let's not underestimate the strangeness of Jesus' message.

In a variety of ways, the confusion has continued, century after century. Communion can be a divisive issue even in our own time. Churches differ in how often they celebrate Communion, and denominations differ widely in what they think the Eucharist means.

Jesus didn't intend for the sacrament to become divisive. On the contrary, Communion is designed to unite us--that's why most churches offer the sacrament as a communal practice. Unlike prayer, which is easily done in private and often silently, the Eucharist should solidify us and nourish us as a group, much the way that meals together nourish us not only as individuals, but also as friends, colleagues, and/or family.

Of course, we can't leave it there. Communion should also transform us to do the work of God on earth. The surrounding lessons tell us of virtues we should strive to manifest in our lives. Our goal is to be leaven to this loaf of a world, to be the beacon of Christ in the world.

Again and again Jesus reminds us of the necessity of nourishing ourselves with him. We can feast on the food that will bring us eternal life.

God calls us to do serious work. We must live as if the Kingdom of God has already taken over our world. To keep ourselves strong for that work we need to keep ourselves fed with good food: meals of nourishing food, the words of the Bible, the words of writers who inspire us to transform both ourselves and the world, the images of people who inspire us to visions of a better world, music that can wind its way through our days, prayers that keep us connected to God, relationships that remind us that we are loved and cherished and worthy, and the sacrament of Holy Communion.

When the Wait List Turns into a Seat

It feels like a very long time ago that I signed up for seminary classes.  I put myself on the waitlist for the first half of the church history class.  Week after week went by, and the wait list didn't seem to change.  In the meantime, I had been thinking that maybe doing 4 classes was too ambitious anyway.

And then, yesterday, I discovered that I now have a seat in the class.  What to do?

The obvious answer:  buy the books and get ready for the class.  Why did I put myself on the waitlist if I wasn't planning on taking the class?

When I first signed up for classes, I wasn't sure that my job would last very deep into the fall.  In fact, I thought that I might be let go in early September once we moved all the labs over to the Ft. Lauderdale campus.  I put myself on the wait list knowing that if I ended up unemployed, I'd be happy that I had given myself the possibility of an extra class. 

Fast forward to now, and it's clear we won't be at the Ft. Lauderdale campus in the next few weeks.  The Vet Tech program has specific lab requirements.  The school can't just plunk them into an abandoned surgical tech lab space.

Still, I might be able to handle the additional class.  My school observes Jewish holidays, and we've got a lot of them in September.  I could be focused and get a lot of the heavier reading done in September.

My online orientation to seminary class seemed to say that the classes will open in Blackboard 2 weeks before classes start--2 weeks is Monday.  Hopefully, I can look at all the classes and get a sense for the work load:  the reading schedule, the assignments, and the due dates.  I know that I have until week 2 of classes to withdraw and not be charged.

For so much of summer, I felt like I was in a holding pattern.  And now, suddenly, the pace has shifted.  I have some decisions to make, but there's still time--not as much time as there once was, but there is time.

Let me also remember to pray.  I hear the words of my spiritual director:  "How are you praying about that?"  And often, to my chagrin, I realize that I am not praying about it at all.  Let me also ask God to help and guide me.

First Blog Post from the Condo

 Here I sit in the new (new-to-us) condo, with soca music pounding in my head.  There is no soca music playing; I'm hearing all sorts of mechanical sounds that it will take me some time to get used to, but didn't interfere with my sleep as Saturday moved to Sunday.

No, I'm hearing soca music because there was a soca festival at the arts park across the street from our new location, loud, thudding, SO LOUD music, from the time we got back from church until we went to sleep.  And I went to bed later than is usual for me because the festival lasted until 10.  Sigh.  But it won't always be that way.  People paid $50-$80 for that concert--no, it won't always be that way.

On Saturday night, there was a blues/rock kind of concert, and we were able to sit on our balcony and enjoy it.  Yesterday was the kind of concert where my spouse put on his ear protecting headphones, the kind that you use at a gun range, to go out to have a smoke.

Our move on Saturday went as well as it could.  I'm glad that I got the 15 foot truck, not the 20 foot truck.  We barely had enough time to unload the smaller van.  The security guard rode the elevator with us, and it was a smallish elevator.  I don't know how people get a king size bed up to their condos.

So far, we have unpacked most of what we brought over, but most of what we brought over was bigger furniture, the kind we need to move with a truck.  This morning, half of what I had planned to wear to work is here with me and half a mile away at the old house.  I'm still not sure how I'll structure my morning.  

My mood vacillates.  Until yesterday afternoon, I was mostly happy with this decision, although I'm glad that we're renting, not buying.  Yesterday morning, I had a delightful morning reading a book, reading the old-fashioned way, a book spooling out across paper pages.  Yesterday afternoon, despite the pounding music, we managed to find the wi-fi here, the internet access that is included as part of our rent.  It took me many attempts and a different log-in key, but here I am, writing a blog post.

I am glad that I did my seminary orientation right when the course first opened up.  I knew that August would soon be filled with other obligations, and it looks like I am correct.  Packing, moving, with more packing to do, more addresses to change, more figuring out of how to transport the old life to this new location.  And then getting the house ready to go on the market.

Now to get them all taken care of before seminary starts at the end of this month.