Life/Spiritual Lessons at the Dermatologist's Office

Yesterday, I went to the dermatologist.  I came home and made this Facebook post:  "The intense heat and sun of today takes me back to a high school time, similar weather, when high school Kristin said, "Hey, if I start now, maybe I'll have a good tan by the time we go back to school" -- which is why later life Kristin had to have another spot biopsied today. Happily, it's on my shoulder, not my face, so even if it needs more cutting, it's bearable."

I am supposed to go to the dermatologist every 3 months because of my melanoma diagnosis in December.  Because of that diagnosis, because we missed the significance of that spot for 18 months when we thought it was a weird bug bite, my dermatologist PA now biopsies more than she might otherwise, a mindset that I encourage.

She's a very kind PA.  I apologized for being sweaty.  She told me about the people who ride their bikes to the dermatologist and thus, are more sweaty than I will ever be.  I apologized for being fat, and she said, "You're in great shape," while the MA nodded enthusiastically.  I do realize that plenty of people are fatter than I am, but it still feels strange to have enough flesh in places that the very professional PA needs to move aside to inspect.

Well, that's likely too much information for the multitudes  one or two people still reading this blog.

But I also want to add that she also said I have great skin.  In some ways, she's correct--for a woman who is about to be 61, I do have great skin.  For a woman who has spent a lot of time in the sun with no protection of any kind, I do have great skin.

I am working on feeling the same thing about my extra weight--some days are easier than others.  When I'm out every day, walking and eating berries and appreciating the world in other ways, I feel fine about my body.  When I don't compare my current body to past years, I'm better than when I think about how many miles I could once run/jog.

As a wise yoga teacher once said to me:  "Quit comparing yourself to everyone else.  It won't help."  It's not solely yoga teachers who know this, of course.  Most world religions contain this wisdom somewhere.

It's a life lesson I'll continue to say to myself, probably on a daily basis.

Notes from an Off-Season Beach

We are at the beach in a slightly off season, here in mid-May.  It's warm enough to work up a summer-like sweat in the late afternoon.  But my morning walk today had a chilly enough wind that it was almost unpleasant.  Let me record a few other observations.

--Being here in mid-May means that the only children who are here are younger than elementary school age, which translates into lots of cute toddlers.

--We are also here with lots of older people, the ones with either very flexible vacation times or retired people.

--I am likely in the same age category as many of these older women, yet I am working from a different jewelry sensibility:  a nice way of saying that I love colorful glass beads that aren't very valuable, and I'm surrounded by precious gems and metals that are.  I am not wearing jewelry on vacation, and I'm in the minority.

--I have started judging restaurants by their playlists.  High marks go to Poseidon for having 3 Queen songs, including the more obscure "Hammer to Fall," which I am listening to in my earbuds right now.  What a great song--and it still feels very relevant.

--I do realize that "Hammer to Fall" was released as a single and went up the charts.  When I say it's more obscure, I mean that it no longer gets much airplay.  We're much more likely to hear "Somebody to Love," when we're out and about.

--A different musician performs by the pool each day.  Yesterday the musician could play steel pan drums, guitar, and saxaphone, but he didn't always know the song lyrics.  Strange to hear his version of Sting's "Englishman in New York," which didn't sound very English-y, and we're far, far away from both England and New York.

--Yesterday was my last Lutheran Confessions class.  It was a good class, and I learned a lot, although I'm not sure that much of it will be useful in my future life.  I love the idea that the creeds are not like a pledge of allegiance, but more like a love song of the early Church, more like a hymn than a confession of faith.  It seems counterintuitive--we say we confess our faith using the words of the _____Creed.

--It's been a good week, both bittersweet and tiring and inspiring.

The Feast Days of Anna and Simeon

Today we celebrate the lives of Simeon and Anna. Yesterday was the feast day that celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple 40 days after his birth. Simeon was the priest at the temple that day. God had promised Simeon that he would not die without seeing the Messiah, and at the end of Simeon's life, God fulfills the promise.

When he held Jesus, he said the words that many of us still use as part of our liturgies: "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."

On this day, we also celebrate Anna the Prophetess, who was also there for the presentation. Like Simeon, she's at the end of her life, and she's spent much of her life in the temple, doing the support work that keeps religious work running smoothly. It's interesting that I assume she did the support work--the text says she spent her days worshiping God and fasting and praying. My brain filled in the rest: that she did the sweeping and the care of the candles/lamps and the feeding of everyone.

We have the song of Simeon; I wonder if Anna sang a song? I wonder what it would be?

I am fairly new to this pair of feast days; in fact, I only realized a few years ago that Anna and Simeon share the same feast day. I love feast days that celebrate humans at the end of life, humans who haven't done anything particularly remarkable--although staying faithful for a lifetime is fairly remarkable.

The churches of my childhood didn't spend much time on the old people in any story. The lectionary readings focus on Jesus and the disciples, who are often presented as men in the youthful prime of their lives.

I'm forever grateful to feminist scholars who have returned to these texts and given them a new spin as they imagined what would happen if we moved women to the center of the narratives--or, if not the center, at least out of the marginal shadows.

I feel a need to do something similar with the stories of the old folks. Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna are great places to start.

Today, let us remember that God makes us a similar promise to the one that Simeon receives. We need but open our eyes to see the presence of the Divine. And if we're faithful to the best of our abilities, we may find out we've been holding the Divine in our hands all along.

The Feast Day of the Visitation in Sketches and Storytelling

Today is the feast day of the Visitation, the day when we celebrate the time that Mary, pregnant with Jesus, goes to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  Elizabeth's story, though rare, isn't completely original; scholars point out that the barren/old woman miraculously pregnant wouldn't be unfamiliar to ancient audiences.  Mary's story is much more unusual.  I've written about this feast day numerous times:  this post is a good example.

For my Biblical Storytelling class that I took in Fall of 2024, when I had to choose a passage to memorize to go with the first one I chose, the bleeding woman, I returned to Luke 1:  39-45.  I recorded it, and overall, I was pleased.  It won't win any awards, but that's fine.  You can view this effort here on my YouTube channel.

Lately I've started sketching this scene more.  I made the above and the below sketch as my Christmas and Easter seminary class discussed the passage.  

I decided not to write about the passage for my longer essay.  Instead, I wrote about Anna, the prophetess who gets much less space, but may be more important.  Here are two paragraphs that explain my approach:

"If we go back to take a closer look at Luke, we’ll see that older people and women have a starring role in many parts of the birth narrative. The main star, of course, is Mary, the woman who will incubate salvation in her womb and nurture the second part of the Trinity until he is able to move into the ministry activities for which he was born. Her story has been studied from many angles, and often it is the only one offered to those of us who want a vision of Jesus and the disciples that is more inclusive.

But what about women who aren’t young, women who don’t see the appeal in motherhood, women who don’t have a Joseph who will love them? Elizabeth might seem like an answer, but she, too, is finding fulfillment in a very patriarchal approved way, through pregnancy and motherhood. The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1: 5-25 and 39-80) might be the one most of us think of when we look for the presence of elders in the Nativity story or we might think of Simeon, a chapter later. Anna’s appearance, near the end of the second chapter of Luke, is much shorter, but also packed with meaning when we work on discerning the meaning of the incarnation."

Earlier this month, I started sketching, and I thought I'd do another sketch of Mary and Elizabeth.  But I didn't like the initial sketch, so I started rounding out the figures that began as the two women and ended up as chrysalises.  I love the sketch because it works on multiple levels.  The middle green part is both leaf and Holy Spirit.

It's not a traditional approach to the two women, but it's been one that has been delighting me, as I've worked on it during the month of May

Thinking about Anna the Prophetess on Mother's Day

It's interesting to arrive at Mother's Day after I've spent time this semester thinking about the depictions of women in the birth narratives of Jesus.  I took a seminary class on Christmas and Easter, and I knew I would need to write a paper.  I thought about Elizabeth, who has been interesting to me for years, as I got older, and I started to realize how few older women are in the narratives of Jesus and how rarely we focus on older people at all.

So, I decided to write about Anna.  Here's what I wrote in part of my final project:

When I think of Anna, I compare her to Elizabeth, who is also very old. For many years, I looked to Elizabeth as a model of a way to be a post-menopausal woman in society. As you know, I think that the Church needs to do more to minister to the spiritual needs of people at midlife, particularly at the far side of midlife, the side that is closer to old age than adolescence. In some ways, Elizabeth is a great example. Finally her deferred dreams come true—how glorious! 

But her story offers a particularly patriarchal fulfillment, in the form of a baby. I do understand the kind of currency that a baby represents in the first century. But it is a vision of wish fulfillment that may not speak to twenty-first century Christians of any gender or age, particularly for those of us who are older. If offered a baby in my old age, a baby that I had to grow in my previously empty womb, I would say no thank you.

----

Back to me, writing this blog post.  It seems strange to be sounding anti-mother, on this Mother's Day.  We'll likely hear/read lots of rah-rah posts/sermons/articles on mothers today, and I have nothing against that.  I also suspect we'll hear lots of folks reminding us of how painful the topic of motherhood is and reminding us how many people around us might have tried to have children without success and might have been silent about the subject.  We'll also see/hear plenty about how so many of us nurture, even without biological connection.

But there are plenty of women who don't have much connection with this nurturing angle.  And there are plenty of men who might wonder why we're still so gendered when it comes to this subject.

Let me finish with the conclusion to my seminary project.  It seems a good way of thinking about all these angles:

As you can see, Anna’s story is full of important reminders for us today. If we’re feeling old and washed up, God still has a place for us. If we’re feeling young and insignificant, God has opportunities that the rest of our culture may not offer. No matter how many ways we feel barren, new growth is possible. God’s good news is more inclusive than we dared imagine. And we are at a hinge point of history where it is more important than ever to deliver that good news to a world that is so hungry to hear it.

Incarnation and Aging Wombs

Before I went to bed last night, I worked on my homework for my seminary class that looks at Christmas and Easter texts and considers what they mean when looked at without the middle part of the story.  For our homework, we look at the Bible text and come up with 10 questions or observations.  Then we write two paragraphs that respond to the secondary reading and come up with two questions for class discussion.

Our text this week was Luke 1:  5-56, which includes the story of Elizabeth.  I had written a bit about why it was so important to be clear that Joseph had nothing to do with the creation of the baby Jesus and wondered what it would have been like had we not worried about proving the paternity of Jesus.

That thought led me to this question:  "If Elizabeth had been the one to give birth to Jesus, if Jesus had come from a barren womb, from an elderly female body, would the shape of Christianity be different?"  I had never thought about this question, and now I can't stop.

The Feast Day of Anna and Simeon

Today we celebrate the lives of Simeon and Anna. Yesterday was the feast day that celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple 40 days after his birth. Simeon was the priest at the temple that day. God had promised Simeon that he would not die without seeing the Messiah, and at the end of Simeon's life, God fulfills the promise.

When he held Jesus, he said the words that many of us still use as part of our liturgies: "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."

On this day, we also celebrate Anna the Prophetess, who was also there for the presentation. Like Simeon, she's at the end of her life, and she's spent much of her life in the temple, doing the support work that keeps religious work running smoothly. It's interesting that I assume she did the support work--the text says she spent her days worshiping God and fasting and praying. My brain filled in the rest: that she did the sweeping and the care of the candles/lamps and the feeding of everyone.

We have the song of Simeon; I wonder if Anna sang a song? I wonder what it would be?

I am fairly new to this pair of feast days; in fact, I only realized a few years ago that Anna and Simeon share the same feast day. I love feast days that celebrate humans at the end of life, humans who haven't done anything particularly remarkable--although staying faithful for a lifetime is fairly remarkable.

The churches of my childhood didn't spend much time on the old people in any story. The lectionary readings focus on Jesus and the disciples, who are often presented as men in the youthful prime of their lives.

I'm forever grateful to feminist scholars who have returned to these texts and given them a new spin as they imagined what would happen if we moved women to the center of the narratives--or, if not the center, at least out of the marginal shadows.

I feel a need to do something similar with the stories of the old folks. Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna are great places to start.

Today, let us remember that God makes us a similar promise to the one that Simeon receives. We need but open our eyes to see the presence of the Divine. And if we're faithful to the best of our abilities, we may find out we've been holding the Divine in our hands all along.

Marian Feast Days

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

I will state the obvious from the beginning.  We don't really know very much about the historic life of Mary.  That's both a blessing and a problem.  Because we don't know much about her, our imaginations can fill in all the blanks.  That can be wonderful, but we can make Mary into the person we need her to be. We could spend a lot of time trying to decide if this is a problem or as a benefit.

Did Mary know that she was headed for a chosen status before the angel Gabriel showed up?  I picture her as a young girl, having interesting dreams, having flashes of insight as she was taught to do daily tasks and how those tasks might be transformed into something more transcendent (bread baking, for example).  And then she takes that insight and teaches Jesus.

I might have a different version of Mary next year.  And I have no way of knowing whether or not any of it is true.

Likewise with her assumption into heaven--could this have actually happened?  Unlike some theologians, it doesn't seem very important to me.  I'm much more interested in the ways that God shows up for each of us with offers of potential and promises kept.

Throughout history, Mary has been used to show how all of us are somehow less worthy.  But most of us don't have the benefit of the angel Gabriel showing up to paint a picture of God's idea of what we could be and what the world could be.

Mary's response is worth remembering, especially as she hearkens back to Abraham and Sarah in praising God, who has kept the promises made to the ancestors.

Here we are, on the Feast Day of the Assumption, hearkening back to the Feast of the Annunciation.  If I had a favorite Marian holiday, it would be this one, or maybe the Visitation, which celebrates both Mary and her older kinswoman, Elizabeth.  These days, I'm yearning for more models of healthy aging, and perversely, Elizabeth speaks to me more often than the other elders in the Bible.

I am grateful for these shreds of information and insight from our spiritual ancestors.  While I wish we had more, I'm happy that we have enough for my imagination to take the reigns.

The Wisdom of the Quilt Group

Yesterday was a great day of quilting at Lutheran Church of the Nativity.  A group of us meets every Wednesday to make quilts for Lutheran World Relief.  I love the opportunity to do good in the world, and we have so many bins of fabrics that it's like being in fabric heaven.  But most of all, I love the chance to be with other women who have so much wisdom:

--We all know a lot about fabrics, quilting, and sewing machines.  We quilt in other parts of our lives too, so it's wonderful to hear about all the projects we're doing.

--Two of the members were there when decisions were made about the original building.  It's cool to hear about how the church was formed and how the land use decisions were made.

--Occasionally we have birthday cakes and salad lunches to celebrate each other.

--At yesterday's birthday celebration, we talked about how our younger selves and older selves are different, or not.  We talked about how we once saw older people as having different brains from the people they were when they were younger people, but now that we're older, our brains seem the same.

--I talked about how I am more willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, now that I am older.  Now I tend to believe that everyone is doing the best they can, that they are giving 100% or more of what they have.  Once, I viewed many people's efforts through a veil of suspicion.  That change is one of the major ways I'm less stressed.  Of course, it has also made higher ups mad at me, since many people who make it to positions of authority do not believe that everyone is doing their best.

We had less attendance in December, so we did more quilt top assembling, and I went through the bins to put fabrics together, which not everyone likes to do, but I love it.  Yesterday I got to see a lot of those choices as put together quilts--sweet!

Pangs at the First Sign of Fall

Yesterday as we drove across the mountain to Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee where I preach every Sunday, I saw a very small maple tree with most of its leaves that glorious scarlet color that says autumn to me, not July 30.

I thought that maybe the tree had something wrong with it, but as I looked at all the trees, I noticed that many of them have shifted a bit.  I saw lots of browns and bronzes, rusty shades, the kind of color that I first read as too much spraying of herbicide.  But I saw the color on tree after tree, county after county, across state lines, so I think I'm seeing the first signs of autumn, signs so subtle that I would have missed them, had I not seen the scarlet maple tree.

I feel the pang that I remember from summers from a distant past, that pre-emptive mourning.  I know that my pace of life increases in just a few weeks, and I'm enjoying this more relaxed pace that I have now.  I know that come October, I'll be missing these summer days that have less structure.  And this year, I'm lucky to have summer days that have warmth, but not the blazing heat that make me yearn for summer to just be over and done with.

This week is the last week of camp at Lutheridge, and it's the week I'm volunteering as a Bible study (C3ARE) leader for middle schoolers.  I thought I'd be doing it by myself, but much to my surprise, we're in teams this week--and my teammate is a Create in Me friend.  Hurrah!

We are both teachers and have been for decades.  We have the kind of background where we could create an entire curriculum with not much prep time, so I don't feel much stress about it.  Plus, she's been a C3ARE leader with middle schoolers for years now, so she knows what to expect.  The campers will be off site for 2 of our 3 mornings, and camp ends on Friday this week, not Saturday, so it's a reduced load of a week.

Next week is my last week of summer, and it's not even a complete time off--my online classes end on Monday, which means I'll have grading to do.  I am taking advantage of this time of less responsibility and getting in a trip to see my parents in Williamsburg.  When I thought about moving to seminary, I knew that I wanted to see my parents more often, and even though I've moved further away, I still want to do that.  Even though I'm in a bit of denial about my own age, I'm not in denial about their age; I know that we don't have decades of time together.

But this morning, a different kind of time transport awaits--breakfast in the dining hall!  Let me get ready.

The Feast Day of the Visitation and the Reminder that So Much More Is Possible

Today is the Feast Day of the Visitation, the feast day that celebrates Mary, pregnant with Jesus, going to be with Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  We could celebrate this feast day in any number of ways:  we could celebrate intergenerational support for each other, the ways that God doesn't abandon women who are on the margins of society, the ways that improbable situations can be harnessed for hope, and the hospitality that is evident on so many levels (the wombs of the women, Elizabeth welcoming Mary).

The story in Luke leaves questions, of course.  Did Mary travel alone?  How did she stay safe?  What did Mary and Elizabeth talk about in the month (months?) that she was there?  Why did she leave before Elizabeth gave birth?  What did Joseph think about all of this?  Was Joseph even part of this narrative?

We get more of Joseph's perspective in the gospel of Matthew.  What I love about this feast day, however, is that it's focused on the women.  We don't have much celebration of women in the Christian tradition.  We should hold on to what's here, in addition to looking for ways to add more women to our celebrations.

I love this story because it reminds us that God doesn't choose those who are already ready and waiting for the call.  Imagine how many lives could have been changed if the earliest Church had emphasized this aspect of a call, this being worthy in God’s eyes even if one is not worthy in the world’s eyes. Imagine if we had centuries of the message that God loves us before we’ve done anything special at all, and even if we never live into our full potential in the eye’s of our society, God will see our value. 

Imagine if the church had given emphasis to Elizabeth, along with Mary.  I love the message that we're not too old, that our hopes and dreams might be answered after all.  We're not cast away if we're not a young woman, like Mary, with years ahead of her to be of service to God.  The definition of fertility enlarges.  

On Sunday, we heard that God doesn't call the equipped, but God equips those that God calls.  There's a bit of troubling theology here.  I believe we're all called, over and over again, a wide variety of calls.  God offers us invitations, and even if we say no, God will return with more invitations.  And when we say yes, God has resources, even if we don't.  We might even discover that we have all that we need.  God may not need to equip us at all.  Our weaknesses might turn out to be strengths.

It's a great day to celebrate those possibilities.  And even if we've been feeling like our time is passed, that it's too late for us, it's great to remember that God doesn't see us that way.  If we feel like we're too inexperienced, that we don't know what we're doing, it's great to remember that God doesn't see us that way.

It's great to remember Elizabeth's blessing:  "Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill the Lord's promises to her!” (Luke 1:  45, NIV, gendered language corrected).  Elizabeth gave Mary this blessing, but I believe it extends to us all, if we're open to the idea that with God and community, so much more can be possible than if we rely on our solitary selves.

Camp Counselors, the Young and the Old

On this past Sunday of interesting juxtapositions, our regular church service was a celebration of Pentecost and a blessing of/introduction to counselors from the nearby camp, Lutheridge, where I have a house in the residential section.  

The church sanctuary was full, even fuller than it had been the week before, when we celebrated 60 years of the church's existence.  Part of that was the presence of all of the counselors, about 60 in all.  Some of the people at church seemed to be visiting--it is a holiday week-end, after all, the 3 day week-end kind of holiday.

Some of us in the congregation had worked at Lutheridge, and many of us have supported Lutheridge in a number of ways.  Given that, I was surprised by how many people in attendance on Sunday hadn't been involved with Lutheridge, even though the entrance to the camp is less than a mile than the entrance to the church.  Not for the first time have I thought about how all the various types of church work live in siloes that never interact and how sad that is, how those siloes never communicate except for asking for money.  Sigh.

But today, let me not unpack that idea further.  No, today, let me celebrate these camp counselors.  I am awed that there are still people who make the decision to spend a summer at camp, living in such very different circumstances than their peers (eating camp food, sleeping in tents, hiking all day, going up and down and up and down the hill, working/living with children).  When I was young, my dream was to work at Lutheridge--back then, there weren't enough counselor spots for all the people who had those dreams.  Now the situation is different.

I found a counselor job at a Girl Scout camp, Camp Congaree, which gave me similar but different opportunities.  I got to be a backpacking counselor.  I spent the summer with mostly women and girls, which is a kind of community that works for me, although I didn't realize it then in the way that I do now--and to be fair, we weren't living in that community in the best ways that we could, not living it in the ways I idealize now.  

Maybe no community is living its best self--that's probably the lesson I should remember from all of my years of studying and creating intentional community.

But camp counselors have a head start, in that they're a self-selected group.  And the group that we blessed on Sunday has an additional motive--they're here at Lutheridge to help with the spiritual formation of children, in addition to all the other kinds of formation that they will do.

They look so young to me, and yet, at the same time, in my head, I'm closer to their age than my own.  In real life, I am the same age as their parents, many of whom were also camp counselors.  Those camp counselors are just starting life as adult selves (adult-ish?).  I am having a hard time believing I am as old as I am, but I am much closer to my senior years than my childhood years.  Time in my head wrinkles and crunches and has a few rips here and there.

This summer, I will do more at summer camp than attend a week as an adult or a camper.  I'll deliver mail, lead middle schoolers in a week of Bible study, and perhaps assist in the camp store.  It's going to be an interesting summer, a mix of a seminary class that I'm taking, online classes that I'm teaching, and camp life.  It will be the first summer where I won't be suffocating in the intense heat.  Hopefully, it will be the first of many magnificent mountain summers.

Incarnation and Other Rules of the Universe

Once I am done with today's seminary classes, I will have completed my third week of the semester.  It feels like I've been enrolled in Spring 2023 semester much longer.  Let me record a few thoughts.

--As always, I do wonder if I could get almost the same intellectual growth if I just read the books on my own.  But I also have weekly writing assignments in most classes that force me to engage with the books in a different way than just reading.  Sure, I could do that on my own.  But I'm happy to report that interacting with my classmates, whether in class or on discussion boards, also helps me learn.  I have insights that I'm convinced I would not have had without that interaction.

--Could I have found that interaction outside of graduate classes?  Theoretically yes.  In practical terms, no.  In the non-seminary world, it's hard to find people with similar interests, with reading time, who will make time for deep discussion of books on a weekly basis.

--I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about incarnation, God taking on human flesh, which is not a common trait across religions.  I had been reading Queer Theory and Queer Theology, and the texts we have been reading want to celebrate bodies and sex and carnal pleasure and fluidity.  We've come across startling ideas, like God as Divine Orgy (a metaphor used to describe both the Trinity and the relationships that this Trinitarian God has with creation).

--But so far, we haven't read any Queer Theory or Queer Theology that wrestles with the ways that aging impacts our theory, thoughts, and theology.  Does it exist?  Perhaps we haven't read it because everyone in the class is much younger.  Perhaps we haven't read it because it doesn't exist.

--What if we've gotten incarnation all wrong?  What if God didn't take on human flesh to show us how to be a human or to redeem us, but for some other reason that has been lost to us through the ages?

--And now I'm wondering if there's a theology of aging (regardless of gender, sexual desire, relationship status) that I don't know about.

On to other subjects:

--I went back and looked at the birth narratives of both Luke and Matthew.  I'm struck by the fact that Matthew has the Divine plan revealed in dreams, while Luke has angels, both individual appearances by Gabriel and the angel choir that appears to shepherds.

--In last night's Luke class, we talked about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.  Our professor pointed us to a text for class that I had read, but I had missed the importance of a nugget as I read quickly to get ready for class.  Jesus is on earth, not all powerful, but hemmed in by rules established by God--and here I am back at Trinitarian theory, wondering how/if that conversation happened.  And then I thought about that eternal question;  why does God allow bad stuff to happen?  Maybe there are rules that God has to obey.  And if there are rules that God must obey, for whatever reasons, can we really say that God is all powerful? 

--I have become comfortable with the idea that God is not all powerful, for whatever reason.  But I know that I will meet people who are not comfortable with that idea, and I wonder if presenting it as a rules-based universe that limits what God is allowed to do--would that idea be easier?

--During our visit to the mosque, one of the leaders of the mosque talked about the separate worship space for women.  It's a space without walls, but it is behind the men.  The leader explained that the placement was out of respect.  They don't want men looking at the women as they bend and kneel.  They don't want women to feel exposed.  My younger self might have been outraged by this approach.  My older self wishes I had more space where I didn't feel exposed as a woman or as a human.

--In our Women in the Preaching Life, we began with a ceremony.  Our teacher made an altar out of a table:  with a cloth, a statue, some candles, and a bowl of small rocks.  We went around the room describing a woman (or two or three or more) who had been important in helping us discern our call to the preaching life.  Many of us talked about our mothers.  But we also talked about teachers.  And a few of us talked about a fellow worshipper who made time to listen.  It reminded me never to doubt that there are many ways to be a force for good in the world.  We took a rock to remind us of the people who have believed in us.

The Feast Day of Anna and the Feast Day of Simeon

Today we celebrate the lives of Simeon and Anna.  Yesterday was the feast day that celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple 40 days after his birth.  Simeon was the priest at the temple that day.  God had promised Simeon that he would not die without seeing the Messiah, and at the end of Simeon's life, God fulfills the promise.

When he held Jesus, he said the words that many of us still use as part of our liturgies: "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."

On this day, we also celebrate Anna the Prophetess, who was also there for the presentation.  Like Simeon, she's at the end of her life, and she's spent much of her life in the temple, doing the support work that keeps religious work running smoothly.  It's interesting that I assume she did the support work--the text says she spent her days worshiping God and fasting and praying.  My brain filled in the rest:  that she did the sweeping and the care of the candles/lamps and the feeding of everyone.

We have the song of Simeon; I wonder if Anna sang a song?  I wonder what it would be?

I am fairly new to this pair of feast days; in fact, I only realized a few years ago that Anna and Simeon share the same feast day.  I love feast days that celebrate humans at the end of life, humans who haven't done anything particularly remarkable--although staying faithful for a lifetime is fairly remarkable.

The churches of my childhood didn't spend much time on the old people in any story. The lectionary readings focus on Jesus and the disciples, who are often presented as men in the youthful prime of their lives.

I'm forever grateful to feminist scholars who have returned to these texts and given them a new spin as they imagined what would happen if we moved women to the center of the narratives--or, if not the center, at least out of the marginal shadows.

I feel a need to do something similar with the stories of the old folks. Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna are great places to start.

Today, let us remember that God makes us a similar promise to the one that Simeon receives. We need but open our eyes to see the presence of the Divine.  And if we're faithful to the best of our abilities, we may find out we've been holding the Divine in our hands all along.

Women in Late Mid-Life: The Future of the Church

I was with a group of seminary students on Thursday night, along with 2 of our faculty members, and the subject of why young people aren't going to church and what should we do about it.  One of our students who is from the Democratic Republic of Congo posed the question, in the context of what surprised him about the U.S.  

I decided to listen, even though I have opinions.  I should have opinions, since I've been hearing people talk about this issue for much of my life.  The answer never really changes, but the specifics do.  Clearly, we're not offering what young people want, since they're making other choices.  On Thursday night, some people talked about what church represents (homophobia, racism, sexism) and why young people reject that.

If we had had more time, I might have asked if young people had ever been interested in the institution of church--or the practice of church.  Outsiders might ask why we care so much, and the standard answer would be something along the lines of young people being the future of the church.

Demographically perhaps they are--they have more years to be alive than I do, after all.  But lately, I've been wondering if we're asking the wrong question.  Maybe young people aren't the future of the church--maybe the people who will take church into the future, maybe those folks belong to a different demographic.

Before I go further, let me say that I realize I have some biases; I have some dogs in this fight.  I don't have children, so I don't spend time agonizing over why they don't want to go to church.  When I was younger, I didn't want to go to church either.  As an adult, I sometimes don't want to go to church.  Maybe the problem is church--but that's a different blog post.

When I think of The Future of the Church, I think of women in late middle age.  I know that I've probably written something similar here before; I decided not to bring it into Thursday night's conversation.  I'm fairly sure I was the oldest person in the room.  The one faculty member is having a 40th birthday party, which he invited us to, which is how I know how old he is.  The other faculty member talked about her experience being part of a focus group of people who were 18-35 years in age.

So many women in my circle are headed to seminary right now, at a time when we might be more likely to be settling in our last few working years before retirement or grandmotherhood (am I really that old?  Yes, it's quite possible for me to be a grandmother now, if I had had children right away who then didn't delay in having children).  When we talk about The Future of the Church, that's the change that comes to my mind.

What changes will we be able to make?  I have no idea just yet.  And a darker question:  will we be allowed to make changes?  I am sure that we will have to force some changes, and I don't know that it will be a bad thing.

The fact that younger people aren't interested in church makes me think that the changes that older women will make might be the ones that younger people have been waiting for.  They will certainly be the changes that I've been waiting for. 

The Feast of the Visitation

 Today we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation, the day when Mary goes to her cousin Elizabeth. Both are miraculously pregnant, Mary with Jesus, Elizabeth with John the Baptist. As they approach each other, they recognize each other, as mothers, as miracles--even the babies in their wombs understand what's happening.

I'm a good Lutheran girl, so growing up, we never celebrated these feast days. As I've gotten older and explored monasticism, and to be honest, as I've blogged more and needed more to write about, I've been doing all sorts of research into feast days.

Some feast days leave me shaking my head and wondering what modern folks are to do with them. Some feast days, like today's, make me wish I'd known about them earlier. I think about my younger self who was enraged that so much femaleness seemed to be erased from Christianity. What would my raging feminist self have done with this festival?

I'm not sure she'd have been appeased. I was also in the process of trying to assert that biology isn't destiny, while also acknowledging that I was one of the first generations to be able to assert that idea.

My middle-aged self is willing to admit that biology is often destiny, although not in the womb-centric way that the phrase is often bandied about. I'm seeing too many people at the mercy of bodies that they have increasingly less control over.

I love this story of new life being held in unlikely wombs.  I love this message that biology is not destiny, that our bodies can do all sorts of wondrous things, like heal, generate new life, or learning new ways of being in the world.

There are other aspects of this story that aren't immediately apparent.  I love the intergenerational care that's present in this story.  I am fondly remembering female members of my own extended family and offering thanks for their support. I remember the family stories they told and the ways they included me in family gatherings. I remember the rides to the airport, and memorably, one time that my cousin Barbara (my mom's first cousin) came to Augusta, 60 miles away, at night, to help me out of a jam caused by the breakdown of a car. I remember that she treated it as a grand adventure. No castigating, no lecturing.

This year, I'm thinking about the elements of discernment, call, and retreat.  God calls both Mary and Elizabeth, and both say yes to a radical change of direction to what they might have planned.  And it's a change that will have an impact on the rest of their lives, not just a year or two.  I love the idea of taking some time away to support each other and to prepare.

On this feast day of the Visitation, let's take a few minutes to listen for God's call.  What new life waits to be born?  What new project of God's can only proceed if we say yes?  And how can we nourish ourselves so that we're ready?


Here are the readings for today:

First Reading: 1 Samuel 2:1-10

Psalm: Psalm 113

Second Reading: Romans 12:9-16b

Gospel: Luke 1:39-57

Here's a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, today we offer thanks for Elizabeth and Mary, women who were willing to follow your invitation into adventures that must have seemed impossible.  Open our hearts so that we hear the invitations you offer to us.  Give us the courage to say yes to you.  Plant in us the gifts that the world needs.

Younger Student, Older Student

We are almost at the one year anniversary of the day I discovered Wesley Theological Seminary's track on Theology and the Arts.  I spent much of the rest of that week-end exploring the school and the track, and I was so inspired by that week-end that I started all the processes that led me to being a seminary student.  

And last night, I started my first class in that track:  Speaking of God in a Secular Age.  We began by introducing ourselves, then we had an introductory lecture, and then our professor highlighted aspects of the syllabus to keep in mind.  Wow--we are in for quite an exploration!  We will be looking at language itself, and the limits of language as we try to describe the Divine.

I chose the class in part because it fit with my schedule, in part because my advisor recommended it, and in part because I really wanted a class in my specialty track.   It also seems like a class that will be a good fit with the virtual synchronous delivery format.  While I would love to take a class in Chapel Visuals, that seems like a better in person class (and it is being held in person, if the seminary shifts back to in person meetings this term).

This week, as I've written out my introductions for each class, I've reflected on my seminary journey thus far.  In August when I wrote my introductions, I talked about going to the University of South Carolina for graduate work, but I didn't say that I earned a Ph.D.  I left that out for a variety of reasons: because I didn't want to brag and because I didn't want to sound pretentious and because I didn't want anyone else to feel intimidated (go ahead and laugh, but I really did think about that) and because when people find out I'm an English major, they often comment about how they better watch their grammar around me.

But as I made my way through my first term in seminary, I have realized how many students are here after earning a different set of advanced degrees and having had at least one non-pastor career.  At least two of my fellow students have Ph.D.s in Linguistics, and many of them have advanced degrees in some variation of Psychology.  Many of us are coming from education fields, which are likely pastor adjacent for most of us, meaning that we are living our faith in similar ways as a teacher as we would as a pastor.

Part way through last term, I thought about the older students I had met in my grad work in English.  Most of my fellow grad students were my age, in our 20's, most of us fresh out of undergraduate school.  But there were a few who were older.  I think of one woman, we'll call her LH, who returned to grad school after she had done the bulk of the work of raising her children; she seemed easy going and full of wisdom.  When my spouse got his first motorcycle, one of my friends hopped on, but said he couldn't actually operate it because he had hand injuries; come to find out, he was a Vietnam era vet, who had gotten injured as he trained to go to Vietnam in 1975, back when I was in 5th grade.  He is the reason I understand the difference between a Vietnam vet and a Vietnam era vet.  

As I think about my years at USC, I wonder how many of my fellow students were older, but they just didn't let the rest of us know.  I think of a creative writing guy who seemed young because of the age of the women he pursued, but come to find out, he was in his 40's or maybe older.

I thought of my USC grad school years again last night during the first class lecture, which covered ideas about language that I once might have found intimidating and baffling.  Now, even though I'm aware of all that I don't know during a lecture like that one, I have faith that I will figure it out.  When I was in my 20's, I didn't have that faith while at the same time feeling that I should already know what I didn't know, which would have made me feel even more insecure.

While I miss some aspects of my 20's, like my ability to run long distances on non-arthritic feet, I feel lucky to be able to see this time of my life, my mid-50's, when I feel secure in my intellectual abilities and mostly secure in my emotional abilities (more prone to anxiety than I would like to be, but better able to soothe myself).

Sermon Notes: December 5 Sermon on Mary and Elizabeth

Before we get too much further away from Sunday, let me write up my sermon notes.  We're using Dr. Wilda Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church.  On Sunday, the Gospel reading gave us Mary's visit to Elizabeth.  Here are some of the points I made.

I began by saying that thought about bringing Mary from the creche to serve as a focal point--but what if she breaks?  Of course, a broken Mary also fits into a certain approach, about how God can use us in all of our brokenness.

I talked about this time of year as being one of the only times in the traditional church that we hear about women at all.  Mary has a starring role, often the only starring role for women throughout the church year.  I talked about my experience of church Christmas pageants when I was a child, when every girl wanted to be Mary.  As a tall, blonde girl, I never got to be Mary.  But at least I got to be an angel.  Less lucky children had to be animals in difficult costumes.

Mary and Elizabeth are marginalized in all sorts of ways.  They are women in a patriarchal society, they are Jewish in a Roman society that would see Jews as lesser.  They live far from the center of power.

Mary and Elizabeth are constricted by biology:  biology of being female, biology of being older.

Who would be the best bearer of the message that God wants to get out into the world?  The Roman emperor would be the likely choice:  rich, powerful, a way to spread the message.  But no, God doesn't go with the obvious choice.  In fact, God chooses one of the least obvious choices.

Look at creche Mary:  look how clean and pretty she is.  She would have been much dirtier and raggedy.  Think about Elizabeth, who has failed at the one thing she was supposed to do, which is bear a child.

I talked about my difficulty with the text:  women as incubators.  But it was the first century and the text was written by men.

I talked about this Women's Lectionary project written by Wilda Gafney who tried to correct the male focus of centuries of Christianity:  what would a lectionary with women at the center look like?

Mary and Elizabeth have a longer conversation than the conversation with the angels.  Intergenerational support!  In past years, that aspect of the story would have been the part that spoke to me.

What is speaking to me this year?  God issues invitation to Mary and Elizabeth, and they say "Yes."  And here we are in the 3rd year of the pandemic.  It is a good time to hear this message, of God's invitation.  God appears over and over again, with an invitation to be part of God's creative plan, to be bearers of the miracle.  Often in the most difficult circumstances, God appears with an invitation.

No matter how broken we are, God can create something beautiful.  Even though we're not in the blazing good health of our youth, God invites us to be part of the work of creation.  God asks, and if we say no, God will reappear with an invitation.

I concluded the sermon this way:

Stop listening to the part of your brain that tells you that you're inadequate.  Scripture tells us again and again of God choosing the most unlikely person and doing something miraculous.

I am here today to encourage us--because so many of us are tired, so many of us are thinking of all the opportunities we missed, all the ways we've screwed up, all the things that are left undone--we have declared ourselves barren, and God comes to us to say, "I am doing a new thing.  Come and be part of this new thing I am doing."

I encourage us to use the words of Mary to say yes:  let it be with me according to what you have described.

Divine Arms, Divine Assistance

For the past few weeks, I occasionally see a man walking his dog.  He's walking two dogs, in a way.  He holds an older dog cradled in one arm, while holding the leash of the other dog.  When he gets to a patch of grass, he puts the older dog down so that she go to the bathroom, and then he picks her back up again.  

I spoke to him briefly one morning, which is how I know the dog is female and 18 years old.  I told that man that it made me happy to see him taking such good care of his dog, and he shrugged off my praise.  

As I've watched the man care for his two dogs, I've thought of that care as a way of understanding how God cares for creation.  While I want to believe in a God that gives us everything we want and need, if we just pray hard enough or do the right kind of visioning exercises, I can't really make that idea work and still believe in free will.  While I want to believe in a God that can swoop in and make things right, erase years/decades of bad behavior/choices, I really have a hard time making a case for the existence of that kind of God.

Do I believe that God can undo the rules that God made for this creation?  It depends on the day that you ask me.

I do believe in a God who does not abandon us, no matter the bad choices we've made or the toll that the years have taken.  I believe in a God who will hold us in Divine arms, when we are old and/or broken.  I believe in a God who cleans up after us.

And of course, God is also there when we're not broken.  God is there when we're vigorous.  But sadly, my experience has shown that many of us can't let God hold us or assist us until we're in desperate need of that assistance.

Imagine how our lives would be if we sought that Divine partnership earlier.

The Feast Days of Simeon and Anna

Today we celebrate the lives of Simeon and Anna.  Yesterday was the feast day that celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple 40 days after his birth.  Simeon was the priest at the temple that day.  God had promised Simeon that he would not die without seeing the Messiah, and at the end of Simeon's life, God fulfills the promise.

When he held Jesus, he said the words that many of us still use as part of our liturgies: "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."

On this day, we also celebrate Anna the Prophetess, who was also there for the presentation.  Like Simeon, she's at the end of her life, and she's spent much of her life in the temple, doing the support work that keeps religious work running smoothly.  It's interesting that I assume she did the support work--the text says she spent her days worshiping God and fasting and praying.  My brain filled in the rest:  that she did the sweeping and the care of the candles/lamps and the feeding of everyone.

We have the song of Simeon; I wonder if Anna sang a song?  I wonder what it would be?

I am fairly new to this pair of feast days; in fact, I only realized this morning that Anna's feast day is today too.  I love feast days that celebrate humans at the end of life, humans who haven't done anything particularly remarkable--although staying faithful for a lifetime is fairly remarkable.

The churches of my childhood didn't spend much time on the old people in any story. The lectionary readings focus on Jesus and the disciples, who are often presented as men in the youthful prime of their lives.

I'm forever grateful to feminist scholars who have returned to these texts and given them a new spin as they imagined what would happen if we moved women to the center of the narratives--or, if not the center, at least out of the marginal shadows.

I feel a need to do something similar with the stories of the old folks. Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna are great places to start.

Today, let us remember that God makes us a similar promise to the one that Simeon receives. We need but open our eyes to see the presence of the Divine.  And if we're faithful to the best of our abilities, we may find out we've been holding the Divine in our hands all along.