Field Notes

 When I was a child, one of my favorite books was Harriet the Spy. I would have had the book with the  cover that looked like this one I found in a Wikipedia article: 

I saw Harriet both as inspiration and cautionary tale.  I wanted to keep a notebook of observations, the way that she did, but the 1970's suburbs of Montgomery, Alabama did not lend themselves to the same kind of field notes that Harriet kept in the city of New York.  I didn't want to make notes about my classmates; even as I read about Harriet's exploits, I knew that nothing good would come of writing snarky and mean comments about one's classmates.

Still, there's something compelling about the process of keeping a field journal of sorts.  Years ago, one of my friends had a teenage girl who took her old canoe out on one of the tiny lakes that is part lake, part drainage area.  Every day, she sat in her canoe and made notes about the birds she saw, about the plants that grew, about the water quality.  Here, too, I wanted to follow her example, but I didn't have a lake or a canoe.

Yesterday, I sat down to make sense of an assignment for my Spiritual Formation for Ministry seminary class.  A large part of this class trains us to be neutral observers, which is not as easy as it might sound.  We observe without judging, without making suggestions, without imposing meaning.  And you might ask, like my spouse did, why it's important for ministry, and I would have trouble explaining, but some part of me understands, even as I can't put it into words.

In a non-pandemic world, we would be given a social service type agency and observe them at work.  Because we're taking the course online during a pandemic, our task is to go to any setting that's easy for us and make observations.  We are to do this several different times and to use one of the approaches in the resources for this module. We could approach the task from a quantitative angle:  counting and categorizing.  We could map the location--seating charts or traditional maps.  We could listen to conversations.  We could do something more prayerful and/or meditative:  lectio vicinitas.   

I decided to use this opportunity to get out of the condo and take a walk around the Arts Park across the street.  So yesterday at 1:43 p.m., I took my small, red notebook and walked the perimeter of the park.  It was Valentine's Day, so I saw couples having a picnic in the middle of the day.  I saw teenagers sequestered beneath some playground equipment.  I saw kids on bikes, and I saw more stuffed animals than I expected, fewer real animals.

It was fun to take notes in my notebook, although the making meaning part of my brain kept trying to interpret:  why so many police?  Why so many teenagers on a school day?  Where were the birds?  Why so much traffic on Highway 1 which circles the park?    What would the founder of the city think about all these tall condo buildings that now ring the park that has a dedication to him?

The creative writing part of my brain wanted to make poems and stories.  The good girl part of my brain wondered if anyone wondered what this middle-aged white woman was doing as she walked the park and took notes.

I thought of Harriet the Spy and all the characters, both fictional and real, who have spent so much time keeping a field journal.  When I was a child, reading about those characters, it seemed so easy.  In a way, it is.  In other ways, it is not.

The Feast Day of Saint Valentine

Here's one of those strange feast days, a feast day that's more popular in the general culture than it is in the church culture that pays attention to saints and their days. Those of us in religious circles might spend some time thinking about this feast day and the ways we celebrate it, both within our religious cultures and in popular culture. 

I've often thought that marriage at its best is sacramental: it demonstrates to me in a way that few other things can how deeply God loves me. If my spouse's love for me is but a pale shadow of the way God loves me, then I am rich in love indeed.  I use the word marriage cautiously. I don't mean it the way that some Christians do. I mean simply a love relationship between adults that is covenantal and permanent in nature.

To me, this feast day has morphed into a festival that is essentially a manufactured holiday, yet another one, designed to make us feel like we must spend gobs and gobs of money to demonstrate our love.

Every day, ideally, should be Valentine's Day, a day in which we try to remind our loved ones how much we care--and not by buying flowers, dinners out, candy, and jewelry. We show that we love by our actions: our care, our putting our own needs in the backseat, our concern, our gentle touch, our loving remarks.

And sustained by the love that sustains in our homes, we can go out to give this love to the world which so desperately needs it, to be a beacon that shows evidence of God's love.

On this Valentine's Day, let us go out into the world, living sacraments, to be Valentines to one another, to show a weary world the wonders of God's love.

Visio Divina in Seminary Class

One of the cool things about being in a seminary class is that we can actually engage in spiritual practices and not just talk about them.  On Wednesday, in my Spiritual Formation for Ministry class, we did a session of Visio Divina, after reading Henri Nouwen who talked about this practice.

I reached for my sketchbook, but it wasn't going to be that kind of Visio Divina. It's a class conducted via Zoom, so our teacher pulled up this image, "Emmaus," by Emmanuel Garibay:

On Wednesday, we looked at this image, while our teacher led us through the meditation.  "I invite you to . . ."--much of what our teacher offered was preceded by this phrase.  She invited us to focus on different parts of the image.  She invited us to close our eyes.  She invited us to consider where we see God in this image.  She invited us to consider what God was saying to us in this image.

Then we broke into small groups.  My group was me, another woman, and a man who is also in my CD group, so I knew him.  He's a Seventh Day Adventist, so I wasn't surprised to hear him say that he found the image too disturbing to even have it on his screen.  I talked about how it was hard for me to meditate on the image because I wanted to analyze it, especially the background, which reminded me of both depictions of Hell and Pentecost.

We came back together as a group to discuss.  Not surprisingly, we had a wide range of experiences.  Our teacher reminded us that "God will reveal Godself in any image."  She suggested we try it with images out of the news.  Interesting!

I'd like to try this again, only this time with a less unsettling image.  I found it hard to shut up my analytical brain long enough to let God, or anyone else, speak to me through the image that we used on Wednesday night.  But I'm not unhappy to have had the experience--or to have found the work of an artist whom I hadn't heard of before Wednesday night.

If your brain is like mine and wants more insight into both the artist and the art, this essay by Rob Pattendon in Image is a great place to start.

Singing and Saying The Lord's Prayer

Back when I had my full-time job, I told my pastor that I couldn't do sermons for our February online services because they take too much time for me to pull together, and I was having trouble staying on top of my seminary classes.  So my pastor asked me to do the Lord's Prayer for this Sunday. 

I said yes, because I knew I could get that done fairly quickly.  Then I was severed from my full-time job, so I thought about doing something more complicated than just reading the Lord's Prayer.  I asked my spouse if he wanted to play violin in the background.

He was less interested in that, but he did come up with a cool idea.  He would hum Malotte's version of The Lord's Prayer, while I read a newer version.  We have used the New Zealand Anglican version, so I chose that. I'll put that version at the end of this post.

Here's the video we made:

It's not exactly what I had in mind--I didn't think the plug would be so visible.  But in a way, it works as a symbol.  I'm not sure everyone will know what my spouse is humming, but that's OK too.

We thought about doing multiple takes, but we knew that we don't have to tools to create something that much better--we don't have a recording studio or soundproofing or the know how to edit and improve a clip of video.  Plus, the building where we rent our condo is conducting fire alarm testing all week, so I wanted to complete the recording before it got noisy.

At the end of the day, we went to the rooftop parking garage to see the sunset.  It was stunning, and we stood on the roof, singing the Malotte Lord's Prayer.  I watched people 6 stories below us, parking their cars for a night on the town, getting into their cars at the end of the work day.  Did they hear us?  No one looked up, so I'm guessing that they didn't.  But I liked the idea that they might.  I did wonder how our voices might transform as it moved through the air.  Would we sound more or less in tune?   Would people wonder who was singing?  We also sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" as the sunset shifted to drizzling twilight.  It was a great way to end the day.

We may do it again.  Maybe it will become our evensong practice.

The New Zealand Anglican Lord's Prayer

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.
Amen.

Possible Pilgrimage

Yesterday, I made this Facebook post:

"One of my seminary requirements requires credits in intercultural immersion, either done overseas or in the U.S. I just found out that in May of 2023, 2 of my professors will be leading an intercultural immersion trip to France where we will spend some time in Paris to recover from jet lag and then continue on to spend a week being part of the Taize community. The flyer says, 'Immerse yourself in monastic life at one of the world's most iconic sites of Christian pilgrimage.' Yes please!"

Immediately, many of my friends wrote to make sure that I knew that I should go.  Here is one of my favorites, from a friend I made through an online journaling class, a friend who had a similar seminary journey at midlife:  "I jumped on every chance to go somewhere as ‘intercultural’ work. I learned so much and met cool people. And i asked for credit for a trip to language school in Guatemala, and got it by journaling and reading some interesting books. Did you ever imagine what time and doors could open to you as you set out on this journey? Enjoy."

I found out about the opportunity because one of my seminary professors sent an e-mail of invitation to the whole class.  My first thought was that I couldn't go in May--and then I realized it's May of 2023.  Now, I could go in May of 2022, as I think about it; there's no full-time job keeping me here.  But it's easier to plan for May of 2023.

I hope to get class credit, but even if that's not possible, the trip itself seems reasonable in terms of anticipated cost:  $3,200 (Includes airfare, ground transport to/from Taize, meals, 3 nights stay in Paris, and the stay in Taize).  Even if I have to pay more to get class credit, it still seems reasonable.  I realize that I'm lucky; it seems reasonable because I have resources.  We've sold our house, so I have resources and fewer responsibilities.

I am also lucky in that I really love all of my seminary professors so far.  I completely trust their ability to lead this kind of trip and to make it even more worthwhile than it would be if I went on my own.  And I also feel lucky in that I really think that one of them meant it when she wrote to me, "I hope you can come!"

I hope so too.

The Three Year Plan? The 5-7 Year Plan? No Plan?

I find it interesting how many people say they believe in free will, but they also believe that God has a plan, and often they believe that God will engineer life circumstances to get a person to where God wants them to be.  Some people believe that God is moving them towards a wonderful vision of the future, and I understand why we want to believe in that kind of God.  

Last night, my small CD group (for my seminary Spiritual Formation class) met.  We had a devotional that talked about God breaking us to get us to the point where we will accept growth.  I resisted my first impulse, which was to proclaim, "This is bad, bad theology."  I do believe it's bad theology, but I also understand the religious tradition that embraces it.  I am trying not to be the seminarian that offends people from conservative traditions and shuts down conversation.

I did work my way around to expressing my discomfort with that idea of God.  Several other group members also had some problems with believing in that kind of God.  I also understand why someone who is going through some tough times would find it attractive to believe that there's a larger purpose.  I do believe in a God who can help us make the most out of bad situations, but I don't believe in a God who sends us difficult situations to break us, even if it's what helps us become better people.

I also wonder if the devotional had used a different verb than "break," would we have seen the concept a different way?

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of how God gets involved in our lives.  I do believe in free will, and I do understand that one of the natural outcomes of believing in free will means that I have to give up the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent God; if I have truly free will, God can't know how I will respond, and God can't interfere no matter how God might want to.  God might be able to intervene if I use my free will to ask for assistance, but if it involves someone else who hasn't asked for Divine assistance, God can't intervene.

When I was severed from my job last week, it was two days after my spouse and I had had a conversation about our future and how long it would take me to get through seminary given various scenarios.  I said, "If I'm working full-time, it will take me at least 5 to 7 years to finish seminary."  When I was severed two days later, I thought, maybe God is trying to tell me something; maybe God is saying, "I need you on the 3 year plan."

I don't really think that God put the idea to sever me in the minds of my former bosses.  But the events of the past several weeks could lead me to think that God had a plan to protect me.  Just 2 weeks earlier, we had sold our house, which might seem like part of a Divine plan.  Of course, we made the decision to put the house on the market back in May, when we saw how quickly the housing market was rising and we knew my job was likely to end either in September or December.

I interpret these events not as part of God's plan, since I don't believe God has a plan with that kind of specificity.  But someone who wanted to believe in that kind of God with a monthly plan for each and every one of us, I could spin the events of the past year to support that.

I wish I had some pithy way to wrap up all these threads to result in a beautiful weaving, but I don't.  After all, Christians have been discussing/arguing about the theology of free will for centuries.  If I was the kind of person who believed in a God who opens windows when doors slam shut, I'd conclude by saying that I'm interested to see what windows and doors open now.

Instead, I'll just say that I'm interested in what visions seem more possible, now that other visions have ended.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The reading for Sunday, February 13, 2022:


First reading
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm
Psalm 1
Second reading
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Gospel
Luke 6:17-26

We may feel that this Gospel is familiar; careful readers may see a difference between what we read this week in Luke, and the more common version of the Beatitudes we usually read in Matthew.

Luke begins similarly enough with 4 Blesseds: "Blessed are you who are _______." It sounds much more familiar than the way that Matthew says it: "Blessed are the ______."

Unlike the Beatitudes that we read in Matthew, in Luke, 4 blessings are followed by 4 woes: Woe to you who are rich, full, laughing, spoken highly of.

Is Jesus really cursing those of us who are wealthy and well-fed, those of us who are in a good place in our lives? That would not be the Jesus that I know. I don't usually wish I had a knowledge of Greek and a gospel written in Greek, but here I do. I wonder if there's a better interpretation of "woe."

One of the traditional approaches to this version of the Beatitudes is to say that this text shows Jesus upending the traditional order. Everything our culture teaches us about who is a winner and the vast lot of us who are losers--Jesus comes to tell us that in the Kingdom of God, we can look forward to a new social order.

That idea can lead us to lots of new questions: is this Kingdom of God Heaven? Is it an earthly Kingdom? Did it come when Jesus came to us 2000 years ago or is it still in the process of evolving?

And if we're more honest, those of us who are in a less-distressed/more comfortable part of our lives might wonder where our place will be. Do we need to give up all our money? Are our happy days numbered? Is Jesus reminding us that all is cyclical? What does Jesus really want from us?

These are the questions that have kept theologians busy for centuries. Some have said that if you were choosing the most important passages of the Gospels, we'd do well to choose this text. Some have called it a guidebook to the proper behavior of Christians. Is this text an updating of the Ten Commandments or the replacing? Or something else altogether?

For those of us who see the Bible as a guidebook for moral behavior, we might see ourselves challenged to approach the text in a new way. For those who see moral behavior as our ticket to Heaven, we might also be challenged to think differently.

Christ came to announce that God's plan for redeeming the world had begun. That plan involves our pre-death world, which is not just a place where we wait around until it's our turn to go to Heaven. No, this world is the one that God wants to redeem. Christ comes to invite us to be part of the redemptive plan.