The Feast Day of Saint James

Today we celebrate the life of James, one of the 12 disciples, the first to be martyred (Acts 12:1 tells us by Herod's sword). He's known as James the Greater (to distinguish him from James the Lesser, James the son of Alphaeus). He's the brother of John. He was one of the first to join Jesus, and Jesus chose him to go up the mountain to witness the Transfiguration. He is the patron saint of veterinarians and pharmacists, among others.

Lately, I've heard more about St. James, as more people become aware of the pilgrimage that involves walking to his shrine in Santiago de Campostela in Spain from a variety of starting points. Walkers who cover 100 km or cyclists who cover 200 km get a compostela, a certificate, and a blessing.

St. James is associated with scallops, and if you look at a map, you'll see that the pilgrims arriving from a variety of beginning points to the same end point does look like a scallop shell. There are now travel agencies that will help pilgrims, but I've been told that it's not hard to set up one's own journey. There are all sorts of lodgings along the way, all sorts of support.

In 2023, I finally saw the Martin Sheen/Emilio Estevez movie, The Way, which features this pilgrim's path. I'd love to actually walk part of it, but it seems increasingly unlikely. But life has taught me never to say never. If I could go on the Santiago or Iona, I'd probably choose Iona, but who says I would have to choose.

I'm not the only one who finds the idea intriguing. In 1985, only 690 pilgrims made it to the end point, the Cathedral of Santiago de Campostela; recently, 179,919 pilgrims completed the journey. The most hardcore pilgrims walk barefoot. I would not be one of those pilgrims.

A few years ago, one of my good church friends figured out how to walk part of the Santiago de Campostela, how to make sure her pets and children were taken care of for 2 weeks, and off she went with her husband. I found her journey so inspiring. She kept a blog while walking and has continued to keep writing posts in her "regular" life.

Let us remember that we're all on a variety of pilgrimages, even if we're not leaving the house. Let us remember that God is with us.

All the Battles Worth Watching, One after Another

We spent a long chunk of time yesterday watching One Battle After Another.  It's a movie that's been out for awhile, but only recently free to stream on Amazon Prime.  I had forgotten how long it was, but happily, we started it in the late afternoon, not at 7:30 at night.

It wasn't until the later part of the movie, during one of the long (LONG) car chases that I became aware of how long it was taking to finish the movie.  It was compelling from the beginning until close to the end, compelling in ways that surprised me.

I was impressed with all the chunks of narrative that did manage to come together.  Paul Thomas Anderson deserved those Oscars for best director and best adapted screenplay.  There were moments when I did some math to try to figure out the revolutionary aspect of it all--if the daughter is 16 or 17, then the revolutionaries were active in 2008 or 2009?  The planting of bombs in government buildings and calling in bomb threats from a pay phone seemed so 1972 to me, but clearly, that timeline wouldn't work.  It was a nebulous revolutionary movement in the movie, so I was willing to suspend my initial disbelief.

There's another revolutionary movement in the movie, and it's the "Latino Harriet Tubman situation."  This movie has a lot to say about a great many issues, and one of the disadvantages of a vast movie is that some issues get short shrift.  I'd have liked more about all the Latino issues, especially the nods to the sanctuary movement that are hiding there in plain sight for those of us with eyes to see.  It's in the storylines about migration where we see revolutionaries who are working for social justice and working against a government that's against the flourishing of all people--unlike the other revolutionaries, the main characters who seem to be just blowing things up for the thrill of it all.

I try very hard not to fault movies or books or TV shows for not being the story that I wish they could have been.  In the end, I was happy to have a well-made movie to watch, a movie with much to mull over, a movie worth re-watching, as so few things are deserving of a second look these days.

Watching "Chariots of Fire" on New Years Day

 Yesterday was a great beginning to 2026.  It was a cold day, so we weren't interested in some of the outdoors things we might have done on a milder day.  My parents had been planning to watch Chariots of Fire, and I like that movie, so we decided to have a movie day.

We've all seen the movie before, and we were all surprised by how much we've forgotten.  I thought I had seen it in the years since it came out, and I saw it in the movie theatre.  But now I wonder.

I did remember the main characters, of course.  But I had forgotten how principled both men are.  Eric Liddle stands out, of course--his decision not to run on a Sunday, even though it means he won't actually get to participate in the Olympics, is the part of the movie that many people remember.  The other main character is also making a principled stand by working with a coach to get even faster, even though he's already one of the fastest students ever.

I had forgotten how wonderful the other aspects of the movie are.  What amazing costumes!  What wonderful settings!  And that soundtrack--I hadn't forgotten how wonderful the soundtrack is.

As always, the movie made me think about trying to run again.  Or maybe it's just the soundtrack that has that effect on me.  The running I want to do is not the 100 or 400 yard sprint.  I want long, rambling runs, and I've always run at a very slow pace.

For now, I just need to get back to walking, which I will do, once we get back to more of a semblance of regular life.  My arm is healing nicely from the melanoma surgery, so I can soon return to some weight/strength work.  Let me use the movie as inspiration for 2026, as I look for ways to regain good health.  I'm not far off from good health now, but I am carrying some extra weight--probably another pound or two since early December, but what a wonderful holiday we've had!

Epiphany 2025

I am one of those people who always checks the weather.  In part, it's because I want to make sure I'm dressed for whatever is coming, and in part, because I want to be prepared in other ways.  On Saturday, the church council president texted me to ask if I was concerned about the weather.  On Saturday, the weather service for Bristol, TN was forecasting the wintery mix to begin falling in the middle of the afternoon.  I thought we had plenty of time to clear out of town before that happened, and I wasn't too worried about travel across the mountains.  Plus I knew that the forecast for our side of the mountains didn't call for any moisture at all.

I had a great Sunday planned, and the energy in the church was wonderful.  The church was still decorated for Christmas, and during the children's sermon, I gave them each a fabric angel.  

We talked about how God speaks to us, through angel choirs and stars, and that the most important thing to remember is that if you hear a voice telling you that you're worthless, it's not God talking, but someone else.  If they remember nothing else from our time together, I hope they remember that one message that I bring up periodically.

Then I had the youth help pass out the Epiphany stars:

My sermon talked about our Christmas to Epiphany journey, how God spoke to people then and how God still speaks to people now.  I thought it went well.  You can view it for yourself and decide; it's posted here on my YouTube channel; you can also read a version in this post on this blog.

As we processed out to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," I looked out the plate glass door to the church and realized it was snowing.  I wasn't really concerned, since it had just started.  

We had planned to take communion to a parishioner in the hospital on our way back, but I became more and more concerned about how rapidly the weather conditions were deteriorating.  So we decided to just keep pressing ahead.  We got onto I 81, and then I got really concerned about how the conditions were deteriorating, how much slush there was on the interstate, which had been treated with a de-icing agent, but was still slick in places, with icy rain/sleet/snow falling from the sky.

Happily, we were headed south, so even though we climbed in elevation to get across the mountain range, the wintry mix changed to rain.  We stopped at the welcome center on the NC/TN border to chip away at the ice that had formed on the windshield and wipers.  The whole front of the car was cased in ice, something neither one of us had ever seen before (and my spouse grew up in Indiana in the snowy 70's).

It took much longer than our usual commute home, but we made it home safely.  We made a stir fry and settled in to watch Street Gang:  How We Got to Sesame Street.  The documentary of the early days of Sesame Street was just what we needed for Epiphany Eve.  It was wonderful to be reminded of the magic that can happen when people are set free to experiment, to try something new, to see what happens.

And here we are, another Epiphany.  It makes me sad that for many people, this date will be associated with violent domestic attack on the U.S. Capitol, instead of a day of thinking about insights and new information.  Of course, the Epiphany story has always had a shadow side, a jealous ruler (Herod) and insecurity that leads to a bloodbath.

Today and every day, we would be wise to think of our own power, our own feelings of inadequacy, how we attempt to control the elements of our lives or how we don't.  We would be wise to think about all the strangers who show up to tell us of a different way, a different paradigm.  We would be wise to keep our eyes trained to larger vistas.

Saturday Snippets from the Last Week in July

What a week it has been!  Let me collect some snippets before it's time to go to the farmer's market to get some more of the wonderful tomatoes and peaches I got last week.

--It was Christmas in July week at camp, which meant Christmas decorations, Christmas music, Christmas cookies, but in small doses.  I will miss these small doses of holiday cheer.  But I also realize that before I know it, the Christmas in December season will be upon us.

--We delivered mail this week, which I've written about in earlier posts.  I was amazed at the amount of mail, and the mail delivery tasks took longer than I was expecting.  Yesterday I delivered the last few pieces of mail once the U.S. mail delivery finally got to us.  I told one of the Pioneer A counselors that I had a few pieces of mail, and some of the nearby campers lit up with hope.  It made me happy that they are still happy to get mail, and it made me wish I had more mail to give them.

--Every time we deliver mail, I wonder if we should get a golf cart of our own.  It seems to lift our spirits, zipping across camp.  Would that be worth the money?  Would the lift last?

--We have had so much rain here that trees have started falling over.  Not just one tree, but several trees on camp property have fallen down.  One fell into a power line, which kept part of Lutheridge in the dark for the better part of the evening and night, and the main entrance road into the upper part of camp is still closed.

--I am trying not to feel anxious about the trees in my own yard.

--It's been a week of wonderful baking.  Yesterday, I decided that I wanted a mug of Earl Gray tea with milk to go with my afternoon cookies.  And I made it, and it was wonderful.

--Last night, while the rest of the world watched the opening of the Summer Olympics, we finally watched Oppenheimer.  At first I thought I was bored, and now I want to watch it again to see what I missed.

--The movie took me back to the summer of 1985 or 86, when I read a lot about the development of the atomic bomb, in an attempt to try to understand how we got here.  Before I did that reading, I thought that the bomb was immoral, and that the U.S. shouldn't have created it.  After reading all those books, I realized that many countries were working on that achievement, and it could have been even worse.

--There are times when I feel sad about how much I don't read anymore, but I remind myself that I still immerse myself in topics, but I research differently now.

--I've been using my car as extra storage, and this week, I finally brought all my cloth in from the car.  My goodness, how have I gone from having no cloth in 2022 to having so much?  Part of me is delighted, and part of me wants to borrow one of the good sewing machines from the LWR quilt group at Lutheran Church of the Nativity and put some quilt tops together.

--One of the reasons that I have a slight desire to watch Oppenheimer again is that I was sewing something special for the Blessings of the Backpacks tomorrow, and I wasn't paying enough attention to the movie to make sense of which man in which suit was who and where we were in time in the movie.  I'll make a separate post on what I was sewing later, after giving them to the youth of the church.

--Realizing that I was running out of time on my mini project kept me focused on sewing, and I didn't eat or drink much last night.  I slept so much better.

--Of course, it might have been because it was finally cool enough and dry enough to open the windows.  Beautiful weather overnight! 

--Lots of political twists and turns this past week:  Biden withdrawing, Kamala Harris becoming the next Democratic candidate, barring more surprises.  I want to note this history, while not getting bogged down in it.

And now it is time to get my shower and head to the farmer's market.  These seasonal treats won't be in season forever!

The Feast Day of Saint James

Today we celebrate the life of James, one of the 12 disciples, the first to be martyred (Acts 12:1 tells us by Herod's sword). He's known as James the Greater (to distinguish him from James the Lesser, James the son of Alphaeus). He's the brother of John. He was one of the first to join Jesus, and Jesus chose him to go up the mountain to witness the Transfiguration. He is the patron saint of veterinarians and pharmacists, among others.

Lately, I've heard more about St. James, as more people become aware of the pilgrimage that involves walking to his shrine in Santiago de Campostela in Spain from a variety of starting points. Walkers who cover 100 km or cyclists who cover 200 km get a compostela, a certificate, and a blessing.

St. James is associated with scallops, and if you look at a map, you'll see that the pilgrims arriving from a variety of beginning points to the same end point does look like a scallop shell. There are now travel agencies that will help pilgrims, but I've been told that it's not hard to set up one's own journey. There are all sorts of lodgings along the way, all sorts of support.

In 2023, I finally saw the Martin Sheen/Emilio Estevez movie, The Way, which features this pilgrim's path. I'd love to actually walk part of it, but it seems increasingly unlikely. But life has taught me never to say never. If I could go on the Santiago or Iona, I'd probably choose Iona, but who says I would have to choose.

I'm not the only one who finds the idea intriguing. In 1985, only 690 pilgrims made it to the end point, the Cathedral of Santiago de Campostela; last year 179,919 pilgrims completed the journey. The most hardcore pilgrims walk barefoot. I would not be one of those pilgrims.

A few years ago, one of my good church friends figured out how to walk part of the Santiago de Campostela, how to make sure her pets and children were taken care of for 2 weeks, and off she went with her husband. I found her journey so inspiring. She kept a blog while walking and has continued to keep writing posts in her "regular" life.

Let us remember that we're all on a variety of pilgrimages, even if we're not leaving the house. Let us remember that God is with us.

Thinking about Bonhoeffer and Our Current World

 Last night, we watched the 2003 documentary Bonhoeffer.  I needed to watch it for Systematic Theology class on Thursday, and I wanted us to watch something other than the Court TV kinds of shows that have consumed my spouse lately.  I found it riveting, although it wasn't unfamiliar material to me.  Let me collect some thoughts that might not have cohered into a focused essay:

--I wrote this Facebook post:  "Watching a Bonhoeffer documentary for my Systematic Theology class, wondering about New Hampshire primary results, about past being prologue, about history not repeating but rhyming, -- and feeling really intrigued by this new seminary community that Bonhoeffer was creating before the Nazis shut it down. It's not new info to me, but feels newly pertinent."

--I know that I'm predisposed to focus on this topic, but I was surprised by how often Bonhoeffer thinks about how to create/protect community.  I know, I know, he wrote a whole book called Life Together.  It made me wonder what advice he would have to give us now as our communities seem to be torn into bloody tatters.

--Long ago, I read Life Together, but it wasn't what I expected or wanted.  I should revisit it.

--I used to be very judgmental about the churches who tried to keep themselves safe by signing agreements with Hitler or by living in ways that deflected attention.  I now have more sympathy for those impulses, that idea that if we can just survive, that is not something to discount.  I don't get the idea that all of those churches/pastors/leaders were antisemitic, so much as I think they wanted to save their skins and live until the danger was past.  I am not sure that all of those people knew what was going on, but I am no longer as sure of that.

--I had either forgotten or had never known that Bonhoeffer's group tried to kill Hitler more than once.  I thought that there was a botched attempt, which exposed them all and sent them to concentration camps.

--Before they were arrested the family had devised a way of communicating with themselves in prison.  They were allowed to have books, so the person sending a message would put a small dot under a letter every few pages.  With these messages, they could keep track of what they were telling officials.

--They were tortured/interrogated, which Bonhoeffer's father said he feared more than death.

--I am also intrigued by the seminary that Bonhoeffer created.  Did he do something radically different?

--I was struck by how much Bonhoeffer traveled, especially as war efforts amped up.

--I thought about my college years, in 1983 and 1984 where I first heard about Bonhoeffer.  He seemed like one of the fathers of the Church, like Luther and Calvin, and it's sobering to realize that he hadn't been gone very long, 40 years, when I first heard about him.

--His theology seems much more severe, which makes sense, given what he was facing.  My thoughts circle back to the question of evil, and how evil moves in the world.  Those historic films of all the people cheering Hitler--so sobering, even when they're not unfamiliar.

--I'll be interested to see how we use Bonhoeffer's work in Systematic Theology.  Much of the course focuses on Jurgen Moltmann, who my professor says is the most important theologian of the 20th century.  Will the works speak to each other? 

Seeing "The Way" on the Big Screen

On Sunday May 7, I drove from seminary housing to our Lutheridge house, and I listened to Rick Steves' radio program that airs on NPR.  When I first heard the episode, I thought it was an old one--why else would they be talking about the movie, The Way?  I was delighted to learn that the movie was being re-released.

It was only for one day, May 16, one show at my local movie theatre, only being shown at about 1,000 movie theatres across the country.  I made myself a note, but I didn't buy a ticket, because much can happen.  Happily, I was able to get to the theatre and see the movie:  I showed up at 6:20 p.m. and bought one of the last 5 remaining tickets.  I also treated myself to a large popcorn and a large soda, because I so rarely go to see a movie in a theatre, and I wanted the full treatment.

I hadn't seen the movie before, but I had meant to.  And these days, it seems unlikely I will get to Spain and hike the Camino de Santiago, so experiencing it this way had enormous appeal.  It was just what I hoped, and also not exactly what I expected.

There were lovely views of villages and landscapes.  It gave me a sense of how it feels to walk the Camino, although I did notice that no one sweated much and no one had bloody feet.  While the pilgrims didn't always get along, I didn't have the kind of worry I might have had with a more traditional Hollywood treatment of people on a hike, fears of violence and rape.

I was waiting for epiphanies, for wailing and weeping, and happily, this movie also avoided those kinds of typical Hollywood elements.  While there was character growth, the main character (played by Martin Sheen) was never going to transform into someone who spews emotions and tears in a typical way.  There was not deep conversation, but the pilgrims grow closer, simply through walking.

There wasn't as much in spiritual terms as I was expecting.  Not one of the main characters walks the Camino for the spiritual reasons one might expect.  But that was fine with me.  There was a bit of spirituality here and there.  I do wonder if a viewer had no understanding of the Camino or of pilgrimage or of Christianity if the spiritual/religious/Christian bits would make sense.

One of the characters was a writer, walking because of writer's block, and he becomes unblocked.  The movie had a bit more about creative/journaling process than I was expecting, not much, but a bit.

As I watched them walk, I thought about my own backpacking days.  I thought about this Facebook post that I made on Saturday:  " The air this morning (rain coming, heat coming) takes me back to Girl Scout camp, that summer when I was a backpacking counselor, back before cell phones, where we were dropped off at one point of the Appalachian Trail, and 22 rugged miles later, we'd be picked up at a different point later in the week. Three young women, including me, in charge of a group of younger women, carrying everything we needed on our backs. Why have I ever been scared of anything since then? I should feel more invincible."  That summer was 1984--wow.  

After the movie, there was a 30 minute conversation between Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, and Rick Steves.  It repeated some of the material from their interview on the NPR program, but it was also different enough to keep me there.  I so appreciate the themes that these 3 men embraced and discussed, themes of family, religion/spirituality/Christianity, what it means to be a man, travel, and community.

I feel lucky to have had a chance to have this experience and lucky that I didn't have to travel far to do it.  If the movie had been showing at a theatre at the far side of Asheville, I would have probably wimped out.  And even though it was near to me, in a new commercial development designed to make us all feel like we're in some village, I did have trouble finding my way back to the main road.  This development has been there at least 10 years--why is there not more signage?  How did I get turned around?  It was dark and rainy.

But happily, I saw the very small sign marked "private road," turned around and followed a car which got me back to the main road.  I did have my cell phone, which could have gotten me back to the main road, maybe.  I didn't feel scared or aggravated, so much as bemused.

Perhaps it was knowing that I wasn't too far away from regular civilization--the roads were paved, after all, if not well marked, and there were streetlights, which led me to think that I would eventually find a main road.

Or perhaps it was a left over bit of movie magic.  Perhaps I kept a sense of perspective because I had just spent 2.5 hours thinking about pilgrimage.

Reviving History

I stayed up later than I meant to last night.  I started watching The Chosen a week ago, and I thought I'd just watch another episode last night before turning in--yep, three episodes later, I was still up.  I'm fascinated by this show:  by its approach to the familiar story of Jesus, by its production values, by the ways it leaves the Gospels yet stays true to them, by the way it shows us the larger context of Roman Palestine in a way that seems unique, by the way we see the differences among the followers.  What I'm trying to say is that the men look dirty when they would have been dirty in real life, that their clothes are raggedy, that they come from a variety of ethnicities, that the show feels real to me.  The background music is starting to annoy me, however, that mystical keening whenever there's a long shot of people on the move or a single person musing.

It's interesting to watch this show in the context of a religious revival that may or may not stay localized to a small school in Kentucky, Asbury University.  Two weeks ago, a friend wrote to tell me that she hoped that the revival happening at Asbury would spread to my campus, and that was the first that I had heard of it.  That small undergraduate school is very different from my seminary.  I'm pretty sure we would not be met with leniency by our professors if we decided to stay in chapel for two weeks instead of going to class and turning in work.  But perhaps I am jaded.

One of my fellow students went to Asbury.  I don't know her well enough to have a deep conversation about what she experienced.  By the time she went, thousands of others were there too, which would have changed the dynamic.

In the past week, I've noticed that more people are writing about the revival.  Nadia Bolz-Weber kept tuning into the live stream from the assembly:  

"But there is something in my soul which longs for what I am seeing on these live-streams. Or what I feel I am seeing.

So rather than make big stroke proclamations about what the Asbury Revival is or is not, I’m trying to just pay attention to what longing inside of me is being drawn up in buckets each time I tune in."

In an Opinion piece in The New York Times, Ross Douthat writes about revivals throughout the history of Christianity and concludes:  "And if you’re imagining a renewal for American Christianity, all the best laid plans — the pastoral strategies, theological debates and long-term trendlines — may matter less than something happening in some obscure place or to some obscure individual, in whose visions an entirely unexpected future might be taking shape."

Much like what happened to that original band of people who followed Jesus, the experience that The Chosen captures in such a captivating way.

Returning to the East Coast

Here I am, back on Eastern Standard Time, except that I'm really not.  I'm still at the point of jet lag where I have to stop to think about what day it is.  On Saturday, December 31, we began our long trek back from our very strange vacation in Hawaii.

We had to check out of our resort villa at 10 a.m., but our flight didn't leave until 5 p.m.  So we ate a last Hawaii meal at the better restaurant that's part of the resort, and then my spouse waited with me and my parents, while the other half of the family vacationers  made their way to the airport.  Then we went to the airport, spent some time at the airport lounge that's a perk of the resort, where we were the only ones.  It's not the kind of lounge where there's free food and alcohol, but it was a relief to be away from the huge crowds of people in the airport.

The flight back was easier than the flight to Hawaii.  We didn't sit at the gate for several hours for one thing, and the trip back took two hours less than the flight there--both direct flights.  The in-flight dinner was strange.  We were asked if we wanted vegetarian pasta or chicken.  I chose the pasta, which was not awful, as far as airplane food goes.

I thought back to my earliest flying days, the mid-80's, where even on short flights, we often got a meal, if the flight happened over a meal time.  I would call ahead to secure a vegetarian meal, which was often a baked potato with a cheese topping or a pasta with a tomato sauce.  Saturday's meal was pasta with a white triangle that seemed to be tofu, not cheese.  There was a bit of salad on the side, and everything had some sort of vinaigrette.  There was a hard roll and butter.  The highlight of the meal was the packet of chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

I did get some sleep on the overnight flight.  I also watched 2 movies, one at the beginning of the flight, and one at the end.  I started with Top Gun Maverick, which I wanted to see when it came out.  It was about what I expected.  Then I went back to the original Top Gun, which has not aged well at all--I couldn't finish it.  

After several hours of restless sleeping, I watched Reality Bites, another movie which hasn't aged well.  At one point, I thought it perfectly captured my life, but now, I'm not so sure.  At one point, I thought it was witty and smart, but now I'm not so sure.  It is an interesting time capsule, a society without smart phones, a young woman making a documentary with a bulky camera instead of her phone, AIDS as a death sentence.

The plane landed, we got our luggage, and off we went to retrieve our car.  My spouse and I returned to my seminary apartment, where he'll stay until tomorrow when he catches a plane back to North Carolina, where we hope our little house has withstood the challenges of last week's deep freeze.  It may have been a great time for him to be away, with power and water disruptions.  Hopefully the pipes didn't freeze and the new HVAC system will still be just fine.

We went for a late afternoon walk around my favorite streets of the neighborhood.  I am happy to see that many of the holiday decorations and lights are still up, and in fact a few more have been added.  We napped, read a bit, drank some wine, ate some cheese and crackers.

Today we'll try to map out a schedule for the remaining home repairs/improvements.  We'll take a walk to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather.  We'll do more of what brings us joy before getting back to the work that must be done.

New Year's Eve Gratitudes

Here it is, the last day of 2022, the year I will think of as the year of whiplash or the slightly more positive pivoting.  It was a year of thinking we were headed in one direction, then being yanked in another, in all the ways I don't want to list right now.  It was also a year of considerable blessings, especially when considering how much worse it could have been.

I am thinking of this end of the week news of those who have died, the famous ones, just in these final days of 2022 alone:  Barbara Walters, Pope Benedict, Pele.  I keep looking at these 3 names, seeing connections and distinctions, the ways they broke boundaries or established them, and the ways that various parts of society would use them, shape them and be shaped by them.

I will have a very unusual New Year's Eve--at 5:00 Hawaii time, if all goes well, our plane will depart the Honolulu airport, and we will fly and fly and fly, east to DC.  It's a direct flight, and we land at 7 a.m., so it will be unlike some other New Year's Eve flights we've had.  I'm remembering one flight that took off from Las Vegas, where the people in the seat behind us had already been partying hard while on the ground.  Happily, although they were loud drunks, they weren't combative or vomitous.  I expect tonight's flight to be quieter.

I always say that I can't sleep on planes, but perhaps I will be able to sleep tonight.  If not, if the United in-air entertainment system is working, we should be able to get good movies.  Coming here, while the plane was at the gate for 3 hours, I watched When Harry Met Sally again, and later I watched Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (a bit baffling, a bit intriguing, a lot tiring).  I watched part of Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, which I might return to, but I found the characters tiresome, so I probably won't.

I will peek out the window from time to time, watching the ground below, the sky above, the boundaries dark, the blinking.  I will think about stars and navigation, both the Polynesians following the Southern Cross in their impossibly small canoes, the wise men following a new star (Epiphany approaches), the book lists for my seminary classes that bring me joy.  I am returning from a resort vacation for the first time in a long time not dreading what lies ahead:  no soul-draining job awaiting my input (my ongoing online teaching is not soul-draining), no physical therapy (last May's vacation--so grateful for healing from my wrist surgery, so glad I'm not facing that kind of body repair right now). 

I am a lucky woman

Screen Time

My sister wrote me to say that if the temperature had been a bit colder yesterday, we'd have gotten a ton of snow.  Indeed--something was falling out of the sky all day, literally, yesterday.  It was mostly rain, with a bit of sleet and ice.

Happily, I didn't need to leave my seminary apartment, so I didn't, except to go downstairs to the laundry room to do one load of clothes.  I was surprised at the end of the day to find out how tired I was.  Of course, sitting in front of the computer screen all day is not exactly renewing.

You may wonder why I was in front of the computer screen.  My spouse and I had a consult with Anderson windows in the morning.  My spouse met the Anderson rep in person at our North Carolina house, and I was able to join them by way of a Facebook video call.

In the afternoon, I went to my last class of Creative Process, Spiritual Practice class, which had to be converted to a Zoom call.  While I was happy to be able to have the class, it would have been better to meet in real life.  It was the day we were presenting our final projects, and I'd have liked to have seen the projects and my classmates in person.  But a Zoom call is better than nothing.

In between I was watching a movie.  In the morning, I felt a bit tired, so I started watching Ammonite, another bout of staring at the computer screen.  I finished watching it in the afternoon.  I had thought about watching Little Women in the evening, but I was tired, and opted for an early bedtime.

Ammonite is a great movie.  Kate Winslet is amazing--and has been for decades.  She is our Emma Thompson, our Judy Dench.  I loved the depiction of 19th century life--made me more deeply appreciative of our 21st century.

In the late afternoon, I tried to study for my Church History I final exam.  That's how I discovered how fried my brain felt.  I'll do studying both this morning and afternoon, and a bit more tomorrow morning before I take the exam.  I've got until 11:59 p.m. tomorrow, but of course I'm not going to wait that long.

A Look Back at Moving and First Mornings

 Tomorrow, I will puzzle out the best approach to daily walking; today I will write a blog post about the last several days, and then I'll get ready to go to the 8:45 bluegrass service at the local Lutheran church.  Yesterday, before the internet installation happened, I sat on the back deck watching the light change as the sun rose, and the light made its way across the mountains.

Of course, I can't actually see the mountains from my deck, but I know that they are there.  I can't see them because of the trees, but I get a sense of the view we will have when the trees drop their leaves.  By then, my primary residence will be student housing at Wesley Theological Seminary.

Before we get too far away from moving day, let me write a blog post about that.  It went very smoothly, which was more of a relief than I have words to express.  The moving team showed up right at 9 and went right to work wrapping all of our furniture in blankets and packing tape.  They were done by 11:30, and then there was paperwork to sign.  We did a quick cleaning of all the places we couldn't clean when the moving team was there, and then we went to the car, which was already packed.

It was almost anticlimactic.  It felt like there should be some sort of closing ceremony.  Instead, we drove 10 hours north.  Back when we thought there was a chance that the moving van would be at our new house the next day, we wanted to be close.

I usually make a long drive by getting up very early in the morning to get ahead of traffic.  It was very strange to get on the road by 12:30 p.m.  We had a surprisingly easy trip to our grad school friend's house in Columbia.  I felt a subdued euphoria as I felt my worries about the logistics of moving out of a condo evaporate.

The next day, we had a leisurely breakfast after I called the moving company just to make sure there wasn't a chance that the moving van was already in Arden, North Carolina wondering where we were.  My spouse did the kind of toilet repair that's simple if you know how to do it, but mystifying/terrifying if you don't--much more useful to our grad school friend than taking her out for a meal to say thank you for her hospitality.  Since I didn't know for sure when we'd have internet connectivity in our new house, I got some grading done while they did the toilet repair.

We headed to Arden after an early lunch.  We got the car unloaded and did some organizing.  Our grad school friend loaned us an air mattress, but we needed a place to sit.  After an early dinner at a local brewery, 12 Bones, we got two durable lawn chairs and some groceries.  We sat out on the back deck watching the sun set.  

We continued to sit on the back deck, sipping wine and listening to all the insects sing in the dark.  We saw the occasional firefly.

Saturday morning, my spouse slept, and I returned to the deck to watch the light change as the sun rose.  I drank coffee, ate granola bars, and read Melissa Studdard's Dear Search Committee--what an engaging and delightful book of poems.  It was a great way to start the day.

The internet tech showed up right on schedule at 10 a.m., and the installation went smoothly.  I had worried about it a bit--this house was built in the mid 70's, and it hasn't been wired for anything, not even a landline phone.  But by noon, we had internet, and even better, both laptops can access it.  Yesterday we allowed ourselves a slower day, with grocery shopping and watching The Big Year, the birding movie with the great cast. We saw it when it first was available on Netflix, but that was several houses ago (meaning at least 2012 or earlier), so it felt new.

I am fascinated watching my brain work, going from anxiety to anxiety.  I don't think I need medication, although I have wondered.  I have a variety of self-soothing techniques that I've picked up from years of worry.  These past few days will be part of those techniques, as I remind myself how often I worry about things that end up going smoothly.

Demonstrations of Love and Mercy

I have been trying to read poetry books in one big gulp.  Ideally, I'd then go back and reread, but I don't always get to that part.  I love seeing how lines and symbols and themes wind their way through a single volume.

Yesterday I read American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes--wow what a book!

I read it in the hour while my spouse was at choir rehearsal, the hour before church starts.  How strange to sit in the sanctuary and come across these lines:

Christianity is a religion built around a father

Who does not rescue his son. It is the story

of a son whose father is a ghost

In a way, it's true--but it's a different understanding of the crucifixion than the one I have and a different idea of God.  I don't necessarily believe in a God that can swoop in and save us--where does free will fit into that view of God.  And yet, just the way that humans can sometimes intervene in each other's lives and change a trajectory, perhaps God can too.

It's a powerful collection of poems, full of interesting lines and twists and plays on words, like this one "failed landlord with a people of color/Complex."  The book explores politics, race, parental relationships, the difficulties of U.S. history.

After church, we watched Love and Mercy, the film about two periods of Brian Wilson's life.  It was fascinating to watch the music making process of both Wilson alone and with the Beach Boys.  And I loved the story line of the later Wilson, the one where love can save a person.

Let me see if I can tie this back to the crucifixion place.  I believe that Jesus was crucified because the empire of Rome found him threatening; crucifixion was reserved for enemies of the state.  It's an interesting idea, that Christ's message of God's transforming love was so threatening to the empire of the day that they decided to get rid of him.

Could anyone have saved Jesus once he was on that collision course with Rome?  We could spend lifetimes debating that.  But I don't believe that God required Jesus be crucified as a blood sacrifice to get rid of humanity's sin.  I don't believe in that kind of God or in the theology of substitutionary atonement.

But I do believe in the power of love to save us.  Yesterday gave me some great examples, from the book of poems to the story of Brian Wilson to the gospel declared in church to singing with my spouse at the end of the day.

Now, to get the day old bread from Publix--another way of showing love to students who need that kind of grace.

A Movie Drenched in Grace

I have finally been to see the movie, A Wrinkle in Time.  I say finally, even though the movie hasn't been out very long.  But it's felt like a struggle to find time to see it, even though I've been looking forward to it--albeit with a certain amount of dread--since plans for it were first announced.

Yesterday I wrote a general review of my experience in this blog post.  But I've also been thinking of the movie in theological terms.  I'd been hearing reviews from people who were disappointed that L'Engle's Christian theology was taken from the story.

I contend that it's there, but you have to be alert.  The most obvious way that the Christian message is still there comes from the plot:  the idea of love as a saving force is very Christian.

Yesterday I wrote this Facebook message:  "I thought that my belief in the saving power of love came from sappy pop songs. Upon further reflection, I am now sure that it came from Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time." Or perhaps my solid Lutheran upbringing. Probably both."

But the more powerful message in the movie is one of grace, even if it's not discussed in that specific theological term.  I found myself weeping at the idea that there's only one Meg Murray--and by extension, only one of any of us.  But more than that, I was weeping at the improbability that any of us would be born exactly the way we are--but it happened.

And then what do most of us do?  We spend much of our lives resisting what makes us wonderful.  We try to change what we perceive as weakness.  We go through our days judging ourselves and everyone around us and we all come up as wanting.

But think of how the world would change if we saw ourselves as perfect, exactly the way we are.  Or to take that idea further--what if what we think of as our imperfections are actually our gifts?

The plot shows Meg again and again that she is more powerful than she knows, that she has strengths that she has yet to perceive, that she is a gift to the world, and that it is her ability to love that is the greatest gift of all.

If that's not a Christian message, then I don't know what is.

Everything Old Is New Again

I continue to think about the latest Star Wars movie and what it's saying about our current lives.  I found this post to have an interesting view of the political aspect of the whole series:  "In the original trilogy in the 1970s and early 80s, it was The Man– an evil establishment that needed to be purified by a younger generation. In the prequels of the 90s, it was evil corporations secretly colluding with a corrupt government to create endless war."

In the current movie, we get a main character, an "unstable young white man has this horrific ideology, access to far too many weapons, and the desperate desire to demolish anything that he perceives as a threat– or is told to perceive as a threat."

The author sees the new generation of Star Wars movies as anxious to announce that the old is out and the new generation is ascendant.  She doesn't address the question of the spiritual aspect of it all.  Is the movie saying anything about the ways that generations move through church?  What does it mean that this next generation, which may or may not have vastly different ideas about the society that should emerge from the ashes, has been taught by the best of the Jedi masters of the past generation?

I find the female main character much more interesting than the conflicted young man.  Rey, perhaps because of her orphaned status, has more respect for the past generation--in fact, she saves the books (I confess that I missed this detail, but I read about it in reviews).

It's an interesting meditation, too, on how we pass on knowledge--do we need to write down the important ideas of our generations or will those ideas be preserved if they're important enough?  As an English major and an admirer of the monastic tradition, I vote for preserving our ideas on paper and a back-up medium.

My brain keeps coming back to one of the main temptation scenes, where Rey is invited to join a different resistance--or is it a resistance?  Could she and Kylo Ren build something new or are they both too corrupted by the old to do it effectively?

It's a question that every generation must answer:  what is worth keeping and what must be discarded?  And what happens if we accidentally discard the essential?

But perhaps I'm making the mistake that many theologians warn us against:  maybe it's all essential.

Or maybe God can use whatever direction we decide to go.  Some of us despair at the way that some parts of Christendom condemn same-sex marriage, while others see the embracing of same-sex marriage as essential.  In the end, these arguments and conversations will lead us all to a different world than we'd have otherwise inhabited, and history tells us that it won't be exactly like what either side would have predicted or preferred.

And then another generation will come along to point out what we've been overlooking and perhaps to smash what we've spent so long creating.

Messiahs, Last Jedis, and Christmas Connections

On our recent trip to San Diego, we went to a beautiful Lutheran church downtown for Christmas Eve service.  We sang almost every Christmas carol possible, and we had communion.  We took our lit candles out into the chilly patio--we sang "Go Tell It on the Mountain," after singing "Silent Night" as we lit the candles; it was that kind of service.

And then we walked the 6 or so blocks back to our swanky downtown hotel.  We saw people sleeping on the ground, and I thought about the Gospel and what it means when there's no room at the inn.  On every block, people settled down to sleep on sidewalks and huddled beside buildings as Christmas Eve moved to Christmas morning.

I prayed for them as we walked past; the act of praying made me realize how many San Diego residents sleep/live out in the open.  I wanted to do more.  I had a vision of passing out Christmas cookies, but I had left them in my freezer a continent away.

I wish I could do more, like providing affordable housing.  But I know that homelessness is a complex issue.  If everyone had a house, we'd need a source of funding to care for the house.  Not everyone can hold down a job.  Not everyone is mentally stable enough to live in a house alone or with family members.  Not everyone wants to stay put.

On Christmas day, we hiked back down the hill to the Gaslamp district to see the latest Star Wars movie.  I'm a different kind of geek, the kind that sees the Jungian architecture, the one who sees everything through my English major lens, the one who can find a theological reading for every pop culture product that comes my way.

How interesting to see The Last Jedi less than 24 hours after Christmas Eve service and after an Advent month of longing--and after a political season that has included shifts I never would have forecast or believed.  I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of theology the movie presents.  It's an interesting blend of ancient religions and modern spirituality, as always.  I don't believe that the movie tells us that the destiny of humans is pre-ordained--and how interesting that twist is to me.

I love the message of the movie, at least the take-away message for me:  we don't fight evil by adopting the tools of the evil regime, we fight evil by saving what we love.  A parallel message is that we don't have to be part of a spiritual dynasty to join the fight for the future--the Force is available to us all.

I thought of our cultural desire for a Messiah, for someone who will save us.  But we're often doomed by our insistence on being the Messiah--it was interesting to watch this movie with the words of John the Baptist ringing in my head:  "I am not the Messiah."  I'm still thinking about these parallel ideas--how to respond to a world with so much need for a Messiah?  We can't be the Messiah, but people need more than just the promise that a Messiah will come.  I worry that I'm transposing my theological ideas on the movie, but here it is:  the Force (which I've always understood to be God) operates much more effectively in the world when there are spiritually attuned people to help.  Those light sabers and rocks won't move themselves. 

The idea that the Force can be used for good or for evil (or for profoundly mixed motives) isn't one that Christianity traditionally presents to believers, but it makes sense to me.  I don't see God as a parent, but as a partner, albeit a partner who knows more and has more resources than I do.

We left the movie and walked back through the ritzy dining establishments that were open on Christmas day.  We left the Gaslamp district and walked by all the people setting up camp for the night by the city's sidewalks.  We exchanged Christmas greetings.

And again, I prayed for us all.

"Hidden Figures" and the Aspects of Religion

Yesterday we went to see Hidden Figures--what a great movie!

I know that some people might see this kind of movie as homework--but it's not, despite its rootedness in history, in recovering a history that's been lost.  I've heard it referred to as a movie made the way that movies used to be made, and that's a compliment:  there are fully formed characters (more than one!), attention to detail, a narrative arc, and oddly, a lot of suspense, even though I knew how it all turned out.

For a traditional movie review, see this blog post on my creativity blog.  Here I want to think about the religious aspects of the movie.  Let me specify that the religious aspects are quiet--but they're there.

Early in the movie, we see a scene set in church.  A different viewer might see this scene as one that explains a romance that we see played out in the movie.  How many viewers have lost or never knew the idea that religious practices were a major part of people's lives not too long ago?

Because the characters are religious, we don't see them wrestle with sexual issues--or maybe it's because it's the early 60's.  Or maybe because there are children.  I found it refreshing.  There's an idea that the kisses that come early in a relationship are a big deal--not something done on the first date.

We see characters say grace--I found this as refreshing a change as seeing women do math and make the computers work.

Like I said, it's a quiet aspect of the movie--not quite hidden, but quiet.  But it's there, and if I had more time, I might explore how the religious aspects help keep the characters rooted--and civilized--and ready to stand up for themselves--if, indeed, we can give religion the credit.  Maybe it's the friendship of the women.  It's not an aspect we see in the movie, that idea that religion keeps us ready for fights for social justice, or at least it's not there openly, the way it is in Selma, for example.

Perhaps the quiet aspect is more realistic, in the way that so much of the movie is realistic--and refreshing.

Music with Strangers, Music with Friends

Last night, we went to see The Music of Strangers, a movie about Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road project.  I expected it to be a sort of travelogue:  on the road with Yo Yo Ma.  Or perhaps it would be an introduction to new instruments, which it was.  But it was so much more.

The movie focuses on a few of the musicians, and we get enough of their stories to understand their journeys.  On the way home, I commented about how many of them have been impacted by revolutions in their countries.  My spouse pointed out that this experience of disruption, dislocation, and the resulting losses is probably more common than not. 

I was also struck by one comment in the film, "Yo Yo Ma is always working for change, and over half the time, he just happens to have a cello in his hand."  Throughout the film, we see these musicians working to make connections--not just with each other, but with various populations.  Along the way, they take their music to the dispossessed, giving lessons, giving instruments, and trying to bring peace through music.

It was a powerful reminder that we can work for social justice through a variety of venues, across a range of mediums, by doing what we love to do and sharing it with others.

It was the kind of movie that both made me want to go home and practice on an instrument, and at the same time, to abandon all thoughts of playing.  Those musicians were so magnificent.  But again, I remember the words of a yoga teacher who gave me great advice long ago, to stop comparing myself to others because it won't help me perfect a pose or hold my balance.  That advice seems applicable here too.

Throughout the movie, I thought of our fledgling ukulele group at church.  Could we become an agent of transformational change?

I also loved this movie for its depiction of artists practicing their craft.  I like that the movie reminds us that each artist works alone, but the group comes together in certain places to become something greater than the sum of its parts.  The movie focuses mostly on musicians, but there's a fascinating segment on a Chinese group that also makes puppets--they look like delicate paper creations which are operated behind a screen and the shadow is magnified on the screen. 

But it's not all hopeful--the Chinese puppet maker said that no one wants to know how create that art form any more:  it's too intricate, and there's no money in it, especially not for the amount of time that it takes.

The film addresses an important point from many angles:  why create art in the first place?  Do we create art to change the world?  to make money?  to preserve our culture?  to make new culture?

The film did not address the spiritual aspect of making art, at least not overtly.  But spiritual aspects undergirded the whole film.

We went to see the film with friends from church, and I feel lucky to have friends who say, "There's this movie we should see.  Can you come on Monday?"  When I told them how lucky I felt, one of them said, "There aren't many friends who would be interested in this kind of movie."  I'm glad to have some friends who are interested in this kind of documentary, friends who would meet us on a Monday night to have some time together.

Thinking about the Theology of "Star Wars" on Christmas Eve

I have seen the new Star Wars movie, and I will write a post that contains no spoilers.  I will also assume that we're familiar with the older movies, and that I'm not spoiling anything if I say that the new movie carries on with the familiar themes of light and dark, of duty, of right and wrong, of forces in the universe that surround us all.

Before I saw the movie, a friend and I were corresponding via Facebook about the themes of the movies.  I wrote, "The Force is always with you, even unto the ends of the earth."  I'm not sure she caught my Biblical allusion.  I was intrigued to see how much the new movie continues the idea of the Force as a variation of God.

I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of God as something humans can channel for our own selfish, or even selfless, gains.  I have been impressed with the way that the movie engages this issue.

This movie paints its view of right and wrong in bold colors with little subtlety.  But there is the acknowledgement that we're all temptable.  The movie, while not subtle, does more with the idea that we're none of us fully formed than past movies have done--as I would expect, these forty years later.

It's  an interesting movie to see as Christmas approaches, with Advent texts ringing in my head.  The movie does interesting things with light and dark--nothing unexpected for me, nothing that surprised me--but it did delight me.

Because I am an English major and an amateur theologian, I found all the symbolic stuff irresistible.  As I always do, I think about the larger message.  Is it a movie about God?  Do we see a Christ figure?  I love the intersections of pop culture and religion.

If you do too, don't miss this series at the Sojourners site.  There's a great piece on Han Solo, the Han Solo of the original movie.  I love this insight:

"The Bible is full of stories of people being given honors and responsibilities they don’t think they deserve (and to our eyes, definitely don’t): The ascendant king David welcomes Mephibosheth, the grandson of his deposed enemy, to dine at his table. Paul, a violent oppressor of the Christian faith, becomes a leader of the oppressed church. And in the Christmas story, an entire planet full of people who have learned to be content living in the dark get shown God’s wondrous light — at great expense to the light-giver himself.

It’s in God’s character to want more for people than they want for themselves. This shows up again and again in the ways God interacts with our world. And we are made in God’s image — when we see this kind of story told well, we respond to it.

The original version of Star Wars tells this kind of story about Han Solo. At the outset, Han is living moment-to-moment with no check on what he is or isn’t willing to do. The only guideposts he lives by are whether the options before him are enjoyable and beneficial to him. When he says he isn’t a freedom fighter, he’s not just saying that he’s too busy to take part in a revolution — he’s also saying that he believes himself to be too much of a scoundrel to be trusted or relied on for anything morally upright. He doesn’t deserve to be part of the club. But over the course of the movie, he is shown grace by the other characters, and offered a seat at their table just as he is. That offer moves him and changes him."

Do we see these elements in the new movie?  I haven't had enough time to process it all yet, and truth be told, I will need another viewing before I can be sure.  As I always tell my students, the first reading/viewing of a text has us all figuring out the basics, like plot and character.  It takes additional readings/viewings to discover the more subtle aspects, like the symbolism and the deeper themes.

That's one way I teach students to determine the difference between works that will stand the test of time and fluff that we don't need to spend much time with.  Good texts bear that revisiting and reward us.

And I suspect that the new Star Wars movie would hold those sorts of rewards.