Prophetic Imaginations, Past and Present

Yesterday afternoon, in the midst of news of the separation between Trump and Musk, I heard that the theologian Walter Brueggemann had died.  It wasn't exactly unexpected; he was 92 years old.  From what I've read, his death was peaceful.  And then I went to a picnic with the camp counselors for this summer--they're an inspiring group.

This morning, my thoughts turned to Brueggemann again, as I revised my Pentecost sermon.  I went back through some seminary papers; it's the rare theologian that I turned to again and again, the way I did Brueggemann's work, especially The Prophetic Imagination.  It has been especially interesting this morning, thinking about ancient prophets, thinking about Pentecost, thinking about our own time which is so full of nonsense and babble.  I tweeted this morning:  "Here for #5amwritersclub, here to work on my Pentecost sermon about God speaking in languages we each understand, while all around me, men spew nonsense and artificial intelligence hallucinates, and perhaps I'll also write a blog post about these juxtapositions."

I'm not sure I'm doing that, but I did think about the Brueggemann idea that I used most often across seminary papers:  the prophet shows us a world in which God can act and that God has a plan and a purpose (The Prophetic Imagination, p. 218).  And here's another Brueggemann quote that shows up periodically in my seminary papers:    “Clearly Jesus cannot be understood simply as prophet, for that designation, like every other, is inadequate for the historical reality of Jesus. Nonetheless, among his other functions it is clear that Jesus functioned as a prophet. In both his teaching and his very presence, Jesus of Nazareth presented the ultimate criticism of the royal consciousness. He has, in fact, dismantled the dominant culture and nullified its claims” (The Prophetic Imagination, 81-82).

Here's how I used these ideas in my Pentecost sermon:  We have the promise of the ancient prophets like Joel that if we can use our power to align ourselves and our societies to right relationship with God and with each other, we can turn ourselves and our societies in a new direction, one where we can discover a true path to flourishing.

Brueggemann's theology has inspired so many of us in so many ways.  I hope we can continue to inspire others with these ideas.

More Thoughts on Pope Francis

Since Monday, I've been thinking about Pope Francis, and there are better minds than mine who can explain his importance and where he fits historically.  I've particularly enjoyed a conversation with that appeared in The New York Times, and I've made it a gift article which you can access here.  David French, David Gibson, and Leah Libresco Sargeant do a great job of explaining what the Pope can do (not as much as many of us think) and what the Pope means in our current age.

I've been thinking about Pope Francis as the pope who prioritized the poor and the dispossessed.  That's one big reason why he mattered to me.  Of course I wish he had done more to move women into positions of leadership, but that was likely not reasonable of me to expect/wish.  The pope can't issue orders and force change in the way that we think.  The Pope can call a council and changes can come out of that.  But the Pope can't declare that women are now priests--as I understand it, that's outside of the Pope's power, which as David Gibson says, "The pope has supreme authority in the Catholic Church, and it’s supremely limited. There are certain things that the pope can’t do and he won’t do."

I find it fascinating that we live in such a secular age, and yet, the passing of the pope can make so many of us sad.  In some ways, that's the power that a pope has, that a president or prime minister is unlikely to ever have.

Francis provided a powerful model of how to live a faithful life, and his faithful priorities were often similar to mine.  I will miss him greatly.

April 24 update:  I also loved a conversation in The New York Times between Ross Douthat and Father James Martin, a gift article which you can access here.

Reweaving My Frazzled Threads

This morning is one of those mornings when I feel a bit frazzled and overextended.  Let me collect some threads and see what I can weave together.

--I have turned in midterm grades for Spartanburg Methodist College.  Hurrah!  I am trying something new this term, frontloading the more intensive assignments, the research assignments, to the front half of the class.  I think it's better for students, but it has meant a tiring few weeks for me.

--I go to an audiologist this morning.  I have had my hearing checked before, but it was around 2009 or so.  I have already found out that my health insurance doesn't cover hearing aids, but that wasn't a surprise to me.  I may make the investment.  After all, we've invested in vision aids and teeth--why not hearing?  These are the decisions that might mean we have a healthier old age.

--My audiologist appointment was for next week, when SMC is on spring break, but they called to offer me this morning's spot because someone had cancelled.  I am glad I was able to say yes--perhaps next Friday will now feel more spacious.

--For one of my seminary classes, we have to choose five weeks where we'll do a more intense thinking about the week's texts.  Tonight we study the non-canonical birth narratives.  I decided not to do the more intense engagement.  I am not likely to ever preach or teach on those texts, so I'll save my intense thinking for later.

--I was sad to hear of the death of Martin E. Marty, a prominent theologian and a Lutheran.  In recent years, I haven't read as much of his work, but there were times when I read his short articles on a regular basis and found his voice one of sanity and compassion. 

--I was sad, and yet the man was 97 years old, so I'm also happy that he lived a long and fruitful life.

--I was happy to read this article in The Washington Post about an unexpected benefit of drinking tea.  When I clicked on the link, I expected that the benefit would have something to do with vitamin absorption or hydration.  Lo and behold, steeping tea can lead to reducing toxins like lead that might be in the water.  The tea leaves attract the toxins and hold them, while releasing their own benefits.  Hurrah!

--I think about the years when I worried about my tea consumption, worried that the tannins might be doing something to my stomach, the way that they discolored tea pitchers.  But through the decades, we've found more and more benefits to tea drinking.

--I am also thinking of past years and my fabric buying.  This week, Joann Fabric announced it will close all stores.  That store used to be one I went to much more regularly, back in the days when they had cheaper alternatives to the fancier cloth/quilt shops, back when I was making more baby quilts.

--And then my brain went to the going out of business sales that they might have.  I probably have more fabric than I can use in the lifetime that I have left--but I do have some quilts that will need some backing fabric.  I wonder how much time is left for those stores and when the sales will start.

Well, let me shift gears and think about a sunrise walk.  Yesterday I even did a bit of jogging.  I am relieved to be getting out of my chair this week.  Last week was tough, with cold and ice and wind.

First Funeral of a Parishioner

Yesterday, after I finished banana bread baking and sermon writing, we got in the car and headed across the mountain to Faith Evangelical Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  One of Faith's parishioners died last week, and his funeral was yesterday at 1:00.  I was happy that the family wanted me to preside and relieved that the funeral was at a time that was easy for me.

Let me stress that even if it had been at a time that wasn't easy for me, I would have done it.  The parishioner had been such an important part of the faith community, and his brother and sister-in-law are part of the congregation.  It felt important to be there.

The service was relatively short; we didn't have communion.  My sermon seemed well received.  The eulogy after my sermon was the perfect counterpoint.  I've only been part of the community for 18 months, so I didn't have the personal stories that were shared during the eulogy.  I did the theological stuff that needs to be done, the assertion that we are resurrection people and death doesn't have the final word (to read the sermon, go here).  But I wouldn't be surprised or hurt if the eulogy gave people more comfort.

As we got in the cars to go to the cemetary, I thought, this is what the Church does well:  comforting the grieving.  I know that many people would say that it's not enough, that the Church needs to be on the front lines confronting the federal government, and that may be true.  But there are plenty of activists of all types who do that job better than the Church.

I was struck by how many motorists stopped or pulled to the side of the road as the procession went by.  I was touched by that measure of respect and happy that it still exists in the world.  We live in a world that seems increasingly angry and cruel.  None of that world was on display yesterday.

We returned to the church where church members had prepared an amazing meal:  roast beef at a carving station, salad, potatoes au gratin, and several desserts--all delicious.  We are lucky to have a member who had a past life as a chef, and he took charge of the meal.  We ate around 3, which seems a perfect way to minister to the family.  They could eat a lot or a little, and it meant that they didn't need to think about preparing a meal later.

We headed back across the mountains to our home in Arden.  I had a few bites of cheese and a glass of wine while doing my reading for seminary class tonight.  I went to bed early.  Of course, most nights I go to bed early, but last night I felt a level of tiredness that's unusual for me, a depletion of my reserves.  It was good to be able to crash.

I am feeling a bit discombobulated this morning, even as I am more rested.  I have the "What day is it?" feeling.  Happily, today is an easy teaching day, and my seminary class tonight is wonderful (as is my Monday class--I am so lucky!).  And tomorrow, it's Friday again.  It's a week-end with a lot to get done, but it will be good to have a bit of extra time.

Remembering Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter died yesterday, and far greater minds than mine will weigh in.  I was 11 years old when Carter was sworn in as president; I was roughly the same age as Amy Carter.  I was a kid who was interested in politics, so I paid attention to all sorts of news stories.  But of course, I was a kid, so I didn't understand everything I read or heard.  Throughout Carter's presidency, I head a lot of adults who were upset with Carter, the man, the president, and all the policies.

I am old enough to remember when people hated Carter, especially as he was leaving the White House and for a decade or two afterward.  By now, many of us know the good work that he did post presidency.  If you want an article that explains why Jimmy Carter was not a failure of a president, as you may have been taught, this one in The Washington Post by Stuart Eizenstat does a good job.  You should be able to read for free:  https://wapo.st/4gwS2JW

And again, I realize that many people, especially younger folks, are aware of the good work he did after his presidency--and so much good work, in human rights, in global health, in helping to protect natural resources, in building houses for those who had none, in continuing to be part of the community, on and on the list could go.  I was always astounded at reports of how he continued to teach a Sunday School class, for example.  I am grateful for how he showed us such variety in ways to live a life faithful to one's core values.

My favorite article of the morning reading, the most comprehensive assessment, an article in The Atlantic by James Fallows, has this quote, and I'll leave the spacing intact:  "Whatever his role, whatever the outside assessment of him, whether luck was running with him or against, Carter was the same. He was self-controlled and disciplined. He liked mordant, edgy humor. He was enormously intelligent—and aware of it—politically crafty, and deeply spiritual. And he was intelligent, crafty, and spiritual enough to recognize inevitable trade-offs between his ambitions and his ideals. People who knew him at one stage of his life would recognize him at another.

Jimmy Carter didn’t change. Luck and circumstances did."

Here's a great closing quote that I found in Heather Cox Richardson's post:  "President Carter said, 'When I was in the White House, I thought of human rights primarily in terms of political rights, such as rights to free speech and freedom from torture or unjust imprisonment. As I traveled around the world since I was president, I learned there was no way to separate the crucial rights to live in peace, to have adequate food and health care, and to have a voice in choosing one’s political leaders. These human needs and rights are inextricably linked.'"

As so many others have said, we were lucky to have a man like Jimmy Carter.  May we all find inspiration as we try to figure out way to live according to our values.

The Death of a Great Liberation Theologian

Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the great liberation theologians, has died.  It's really not a surprise--he lived into his 90's, after all.  Dr. Wingeier-Rayo, one of my seminary professors, contributed to an article in The Washington Post:  "Father Gutiérrez’s approach was 'substantially different from earlier church practice,' Wingeier-Rayo wrote in an email, 'because it took into account the local context and interpreted the Bible from the perspective of the poor and marginalized.' Among other tenets, it emphasized the 'preferential option for the poor,' a belief in giving priority to the powerless; and promoted a broad concept of sin, in which it is unjust not only to lie or steal but to participate in social structures that contribute to inequality."

As we read these words today, they may not seem so radical to us.  We've had 50 years of studying this type of theology, 50 years of hearing these basic ideas, 50 years of going deeper.  We've seen people like Archbishop Romero murdered for these ideas, and he has gone from being controversial to being made a saint.

Some people may reject these ideas for being too political, and liberation theologians come down on different political sides.  The Washington Post article notes:  "The central question of liberation theology, he [Gutierrez] said, was, 'How do you say to the poor, the oppressed, the insignificant person, ‘God loves you?’”

Gutierrez told us again and again that Christians must be in solidarity with the poor, and that solidarity went further than charity dollars and donations.  Liberation theology looks at structural issues that keep people in poverty.  Liberation theology calls us to dismantle these systems of oppression.

I have already seen some social media posts that remind us of how far we have to go in terms of this theology, and that is true.  Still, it is good to remember how far we have come--and how much of that progress is because of liberation theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez.  

A Week in Sticks and Snippets

It has been quite a week, and I don't mean just the assassination attempt and a Republican National Convention.  My week has been consumed by my volunteer work at Lutheridge, the church camp, where I was the C3ARE leader who does Bible study for the week. I had a co-leader, but it was still exhausting trying to engage 55 middle schoolers.  The campers were doing the Night Owls program, which lets them stay up very late at night, so it's been an adjustment for them.  Wednesday they were lethargic, but there was more energy yesterday.

Let me make a quick list of memorable moments from the past 4 days:

--Yesterday was a good day with the middle school campers.  We reviewed the stories we read, both the Bible stories and the illustrated books.  We went outside and had them create a response that represented their favorite story out of things they found outside (stressing that no destroying of nature could happen, no ripping of plants).  Two groups used sidewalk chalk that they found outside.  Several groups used a combination of sticks and rocks.  One group used the logs in the firewood storage bin.  Two groups did a skit.  It was great.  It built on what we did on Tuesday, and it reminded me that they are paying attention, even when they seem surly and/or lethargic.

--I've enjoyed the meals with other C3ARE leaders; it's been great, getting to know how others are living out their call.

--I've been thinking about camp and about the huge Lutheran youth gathering in New Orleans that is also happening this week.  I've been thinking about how we educate, train, and inspire the next generation, a topic that is so different when we talk about the theory and when we try out those theories with real humans.

--A lot of us work in schools during the school year, so we've had lots of discussions about classrooms too, which is both interesting, but after awhile, tiring.

--It's also been a week of reuniting with people I already knew but don't get to see often.  It's been wonderful, having something else to think about beside the political news and the folks I know with troubling health news, reminders that I am not getting younger.

--I'm also thinking of Biden contracting Covid-19 again.  Will this moment be a turning point when we look back?  Will he bounce back from this infection as he has the others?

--It's also been a week of deaths of famous people, some of whom were very important to me in my younger years, like Bernice Johnson Reagon and Bob Newhart, and some of whom were not as much, like Shelley Duval and Shannon Doherty.  There were very public people, like Dr. Ruth and Richard Simmons, who died this week.

--Yesterday was also the day of confirmation of a rumor that I heard earlier in the week:  my former school, City College (the Florida version, not the famous one in NYC) will close.  There's an announcement on the website about staying open for fall and winter quarter to help students finish, but they're also looking at other options.  I predict that students will be switched to online versions of programs, and that will be that.  I've been feeling a lot of emotions:  happiness that I'm no longer part of that school, sadness that yet another once-solid school has been run into the ground, wondering what the real story is (who buys a school to run it into the ground?  was there another scenario happening?  was it all a land grab?).

Today is likely to be another long day, so let me shift gears and get a walk in before the pace quickens.

My Year with Jurgen Moltmann, Who Just Died

While I was away on our long car trip to Arkansas for a family wedding, Jurgen Moltmann died.  A year ago, I did not know about him at all.  But I've spent the last year reading his work for Systematic Theology class, across nine months, so it seemed important to note his passing.  I am intrigued that the major newspapers have yet to report on his life and death, but maybe I'm just not entering the correct search words.

My Systematic Theology professor called Moltmann the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, as are many others who commented on his death.  I've now read several of his books, along with chunks of other books.  The material that I read didn't seem that profound, but that might be because much of it was 50 years old, and maybe it's impacted theology so deeply that what was once revolutionary is now taken as a normal approach to theology.

I think of all the great theologians of the twentieth century, people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Walter Wink and Walter Brueggemann and more feminist theologians than I can name.  Was Moltmann greater than those?  He may have been more wide ranging because he was a systematic theologian.  But nothing that I read over 9 months unsettled me to my core (or even to a lesser extent) or made me think about God differently.  I do realize that may be my fault, not Moltmann's.

Or maybe it's foolish to think in these terms at all.  Moltmann spent much of his life crafting a systematic theology that addressed essential questions, a task that most of us will never do.  For that reason alone, I stand in awe.  I think about my papers for Systematic Theology class, and I think about revising them into book length works, and I realize the scope of what Moltmann was able to do and the sadness of losing such a mind.

The Planning and Purposes of a Funeral

A week ago, we helped plan the funeral service for my spouse's younger brother, who died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack last week.  To be honest, we didn't do much.  The beauty of liturgy is that the framework is there.  We had been doing thinking about the Bible verses, and we all agreed:  an Old Testament justice prophet (Amos was the one we went with), Psalm 26, the Pastor's choice from Paul which he said was a standard at funerals, and a Gospel text about neighbors.  That last text turned out to be the Good Samaritan text, the one that talks about determining who our neighbor is.  Mr. Rogers was very important to my spouse's brother, and when we heard him preach last summer, on our way to Lutheridge, that was the text.

Choosing the hymns was more complicated.  The pastor wanted to open with "Lift High the Cross" and we knew of a justice hymn that was important to my brother-in-law.  For the last hymn, my spouse suggested "Canticle of the Turning," which has a great justice theme, along with the recognition that life is far from perfect right now.  It seemed like the perfect choice when my spouse suggested it at the planning meeting, and at the end of the service, it was.'

Unlike many funerals these days, the pastor actually knew the deceased.  The pastor was able to talk about his passion for justice and community, his volunteer activity, and how he had grown as a human during his internship at the church.  The pastor wove references to the hymns and readings into his sermon.

All of the elements worked together beautifully, which is how a worship service should function.  It was helped by having talented musicians and pastors and a sanctuary full of people who weren't afraid to sing.

I know that others might not have found it as beautiful as I did--we didn't have any eulogies, for example.  We did have greetings and condolences given from the lectern from groups of which my spouse's brother was part:  the diaconal association and the seminary.  The service was designed to be a function of the seminary community, since he had just graduated and was doing some post-MDiv work through them, and living in seminary housing.  I was touched by how many professors and students came, some of them from great distances.

One feature of both the service and the reception afterward is that we had a chance to hear about all the amazing thing our loved one had been doing, all the connections he had made.  It was an additional comfort, especially for his parents, who hadn't been aware of the scope of his activities.  For many years when we knew him, especially just after undergraduate school, he stayed in his room and watched old movies and played video games.  But he had grown, and I'm not sure any of us who knew him from childhood realized how much.

So in a way, we had eulogies, but in a more private and personal way.  I preferred that approach; it was less brutal, both for those doing the testifying and for us hearing it.

In short, last week was a master class in how and why to have a funeral.  As I said in a Facebook post, it's what Church does well, when Church does it well.

Funeral Week

People paying attention may have wondered what happened to me, the woman who usually writes a blog post a day, each and every day.  I haven't posted since last Wednesday.  Shortly after that posting, we got a phone call from my spouse's stepmom, who was crying.  I thought it would be bad news about my spouse's dad, but no, it was bad news about my spouse's youngest brother who had just learned that he could stay in his seminary apartment, as he did some post-MDiv work.  My spouse's stepmom and dad had driven through the night after days of not hearing from their son.  One or two days might be normal, but more than that meant that something horrible had happened.

We are only 2 hours away from Columbia, SC, so we threw some clothes and toiletries in the car and drove down, not knowing what had happened.  There was a brief moment where I hoped it would all be a terrible mistake, and that by the time we got there, we'd all go out to lunch and have a laugh about how we had all panicked.

Sadly, by the time we left our house, it was clear that the worst had happened; the coroner had arrived.  But we didn't know details.  By the time we arrived, we knew that it wasn't our worst fears:  a horrible crime.  Eventually we would find out that Stephen had a blocked left ventricle; he died suddenly, the way that men in their 40's and 50's so often die suddenly, by way of a massive heart attack that has no symptoms in advance.

The seminary took good care of the family.  By the time we arrived, several pastors had been there, including the bishop of the South Carolina synod and the pastor who had supervised Stephen's internship at his church, St. Andrew's in Columbia.  The seminary made reservations at a nearby hotel for us, and after eating a bit of the sandwiches that the seminary had ordered, we headed over to the hotel.  On Wednesday, we got settled, and they tried to sleep, while I logged on and attended my online class in the evening.

Thursday was a hard day, full of difficult meetings:  the funeral home, the pastor planning the memorial service, the first day we were allowed in the apartment.  But it also wasn't as gruesome as I feared.  I haven't had to deal with much death so far in my life, but I've been impressed with how kind and professional the people who deal with death are.  I was most grateful for the clean up that had happened before we were allowed in the apartment.

We still had considerable cleaning, sorting, and packing to do at the apartment.  Even a man living alone has a lot left behind.  A seminarian has papers and books to sort through.  Happily, the security guard found a great home for Stephen's large, energetic dog, the kind of dog that needs a yard and a dog friend with boundless energy; now she has those things, along with a loving new owner.

On Saturday, we had the funeral service, which celebrated a life well lived, even as it was cut short.  In some ways, it was unbearably sad, thinking of all that he had left to do; in fact, he had called all of us a night or two before he died to tell us all about the cool new job he had just gotten and was supposed to start the following week.

After the service, we went to the parlor, where there was a lovely reception that the church provided.  I wrote this Facebook post later:  "The funeral service for Carl's younger brother was beautiful and even more profound was hearing how many lives he touched. It's what Church can do well, when Church does things well."  

As I stood listening to people tell us how much Stephen had meant to them, I thought about that line from the funeral reception scene in The Big Chill:  "You'd never get this many people at my funeral."  Of course, Stephen would also likely be surprised to see the crowd at his funeral.

I thought of how many people assume that they aren't very important.  We live in a culture that likes to reinforce that feeling so that we'll buy whatever is being advertised or vote for whichever candidate needs our vote or pay money for more education/training/etc.  But a funeral is a good reminder that we touch more lives more deeply than we'll ever realize when we're alive.  It's also a good reminder that although we might feel that our efforts to make the world better are ineffectual, every bit counts and all the bits add up to quite a lot.

Library Love

Usually when we move to a new place, getting a library card is high on my list of priorities, along with getting a driver's license.  Last year, when we moved to North Carolina, we discovered that getting our driver's license would take much more effort than in any other location we had ever lived; I had a hint of that when I went online to make an appointment to avoid lines, and the nearest appointment was 5 months away.

So, I barely got my driver's license in time, and since I thought I'd be living in D.C. for the next several years, I didn't prioritize my library card.  But I've been yearning to read some books that I don't own, both light reading and some climate change texts, and the local library has them.  Yesterday I needed to escape some of the deconstruction noise at the house, so off I went to the nearest branch of the Buncombe county library.

Almost always, entering a library feels like coming home.  My earliest memories are of going to the library, and libraries haven't changed radically in appearance in my lifetime, so it makes sense.  Libraries have more stuff now--computers, meeting rooms, non-book media/items--but libraries still have books, shelves and shelves and shelves of books.

I got my card with no trouble, since I now have a North Carolina driver's license.  The librarian asked me if I'd ever had a Buncombe county library card before, and I said no.  Suddenly I realized that I've had a library card in almost every state south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River.  I have no particular desire to live in the missing states (Mississippi, for example), so this might be the end of my run.

I spent some time in the stacks, wondering what I'd like to read.  Yes, I keep a list, but that list is in a box somewhere.  I ended up with Living Resistance by Kaitlin B. Curtice and Sue Monk Kidd's The Book of Longings--not the light and fluffy reading I wanted, but maybe they'll hit the spot.  I came home and went online to request the climate change books I wanted--they are at a library far away, and I'm happy to wait for them to be delivered to the branch nearer to me.

One of the cool elements of this library system is that I have borrowing privileges at many other North Carolina counties.  It's hard to imagine that I'll get to many of them, but I do live just one mile away from Henderson county.  There are no overdue fees, but after 30 days, the item will be charged to the card.  But if you bring the item back, you're good; I know this, because I heard it explained to the young child and his dad who had brought items back.  If you're charged, and you bring a new copy of the book that you got from somewhere else, you don't have to pay what the library will charge you to replace that book.  Once I lost a book from the Broward county (FL) system, and not only had to pay an exorbitant cost to replace it, but also a service fee; I ended up paying almost $50.00 for a paperback that was widely available for a few dollars elsewhere.

One feature of this library card is that I can get Zoom passes, which gets me and my group admission into a variety of educational spaces (the NC Arboretum!  the WNC Nature Center!  the Asheville Art Museum!), with one pass per place per month.  Wow.  It requires some thinking ahead because I have to get the pass at the library, but I'm fine with that.

On my way home, I heard that Cormac McCarthy died; I was surprised that he was as old as he was when he died.  I only read The Road, which had some of the most gorgeous language I've ever read, which is particularly unusual in a dystopian novel.  My reading life is short, and I'm unlikely to read more of his work, although this appreciation made me want to read more.  NPR commentator Wade Goodwyn recorded it just before he died of cancer--he died in his 60's, much younger than anyone should.

I did not waste time with news coverage of the Trump appearance at a federal court room yesterday.  This story will drag on and on and on.  In some ways, it's much like a kitchen remodel.  I did get kitchen counters ordered yesterday.  

It will take 3-7 weeks for them to be made and installed.  Sigh.  

But at least the process is underway.  I also got the tin for the backsplash ordered; happily American Tin still had some of our old pattern in stock, which we're getting in hopes of duplicating what we've had before.

In the meantime, we have a temporary sink, and we'll keep making due.  Earlier this week, standing on the deck in the morning dark, looking through the sliding glass doors, I thought, if this was a picture that I saw in a magazine, I'd want to live here--even if the kitchen doesn't have counters yet.

The American Popular Song

Last night, my mom and dad took me to the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra--what a treat!  They have season tickets, and I happened to be visiting during the time of the last concert of the season, so they got me a ticket, even though it meant they had to shift seats.  Luckily, it wasn't a huge shift, since it was from one side of the balcony to the other.  I'd have felt bad if they had to give up front row seats for me.

Michael Butterman, the conductor/music director, put together works that went together exceptionally well from composers Alberto Ginastera, Maurice Ravel, Aaron Copland, and George Gershwin.  The Ginastera and Copland pieces were from dances, with four pieces each.  The Gershwin piece was "Rhapsody in Blue," which I'm guessing is a popular choice this year, as the piece approaches its 100th birthday.  It's a piece that is so popular that some have called it the most famous piece of classical music ever (see this episode of the 1A show for more information on the piece and the composer).

Much of it is familiar, in part because it's used in advertising, from airlines to beef (one of the Copland pieces was "Hoe-Down" which made me think of the "It's what's for dinner" campaign, which always made my mouth water, even when I was a vegetarian).  I also realize that this kind of program is aimed at people like me, people who grew up hearing classical music from a variety of sources, from my parents' collection, in church, and the background music of TV shows (cheaper than hiring a team to write original music).  The house was packed in part because it was the last offering of the season, but in part because people like me have heard of these composers (except for Ginastera perhaps) and knew that we'd have an enjoyable evening.

As if to prove my point, when the guest pianist Jon Nakamatsu came out to play an encore, he played "The Entertainer" from the 1970's movie The Sting.  Almost everyone in the audience was old enough to recognize it, and there was a laugh as he began.  As he played, I remembered learning the piece in elementary school, where we would have contests to see who could play it faster.  When we did that at church, we got some strange looks for playing such secular music on church pianos or perhaps it's because we played it at such breakneck speed to show off.

It was a marvelous evening, full of great music and interesting instruments, in a space small enough to see what was happening on the stage, but modern enough to have great acoustics.  It was also the day after Tina Turner died, and it was interesting to read retrospectives and tributes on the same day that we went to the symphony, interesting to think about the American popular song, how we've expanded the idea of American and song and popular, interesting to think about what makes good music accessible to a wide variety of people.

Gloomy Skies: Goodbye to Gordon Lightfoot

 I am listening to "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," which I only usually do "when the skies of November turn gloomy" (to borrow a phrase from the song).  But Gordon Lightfoot has died, and it's a gloomy May day, so the song fits my mood.

Of course, Lightfoot was 84 years old, and from what I can tell from the various news stories, he seemed to have lived a good life.  He wrote amazing songs and had a good run as a performer.  Lots of people will be reflecting on his life and appreciating him today, and plenty of us have been doing this for over 50 years.

His music is the background of my childhood, along with Neil Diamond, Simon and Garfunkle, and John Denver.  Yesterday on my drive back to my seminary apartment, I heard John Denver's live version of "Thank God I'm a Country Boy"--what a great song.

He also wrote songs that other people made more famous, like "Early Morning Rain."  I've been listening to some of those songs this morning.  At some point, when I don't have seminary papers to finish, I might do more reflecting on how this folk music formed my perception of what it would be like to be an adult--not because I listened to it as a child, but because I continued to listen to it in adolescence.

Well, we do have an early morning rain, but today is not a travel day for me.  I need to do my last revisions on my Queer Theology paper which is due at 5 p.m.; when I went to bed last night, I thought it was mostly finished.

And then it's on to my paper for my class on the Gospel of Luke:  looking at the Annunciation as a kind of call story, thinking about different kinds of call stories.  If you're like me, you think that a call means that you're leaving your home, going out with very little, and converting the ones you find along the way.  But what if Jesus has a different call?  One that has to do with hospitality?  

Harmonies

Yesterday, when I heard about the death of David Crosby, I thought about my dad and I on Saturday, listening to the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young album Deja Vu, pulling out the LP as we listened to the music on an old cassette tape, the kind that came in a pack of blank tapes so that a person could record whatever they wanted.  My dad used to record music shows on public radio channels, and listening to those again had this charm, perhaps a lo-fidelity charm, perhaps an artifact from the not-so-distant-but-very-gone past charm.

This morning, I thought about a conversation I had with a college friend, long ago, maybe 1985 or so.  It was that late night kind of conversation, the kind that seemed so essential then, like we were uncovering the secrets of the universe.  We talked about which groups did harmony the best.  I stayed solidly committed to Simon and Garfunkle.  My friend argued for much older folk groups like the Kingston Trio, and he shocked me by claiming those earlier groups were better than Peter, Paul, and Mary, better in every way.  

We didn't discuss any of the music that I now remember as important to me in the 1980's:  U2 or the Alarm or Bruce Springsteen.  There was interesting harmony in those groups, but it was between singer and instruments, not individuals singing to create a harmonic sound.

This morning, I'm thinking of how rare it is, still, to hear groups that can sing in harmony, to have groups that sing in harmony come to prominence.  Lately, when I shop in stores that have music in the background or scan the radio dial, I'm struck by how much modern music seems to be composed/created/collaged with the opposite effect in mind, to have components mash in ways that are not harmonic.

It's easy to have that kind of mashing, but much harder to achieve harmony.

This morning, I am also thinking of the death of Jeff Beck, who did so much to prepare the musical ground for the work I would love.  I am thinking of the deaths of Charles Simic and Russell Banks, authors I have not yet read.  Well, I tried to read a Russell Banks novel once, after seeing a movie made out of one of his books (which one?  can't remember), so I likely won't return to his work--life is short, and my reading time ever more in short supply.

I am wishing I had more conversations like the kind I had in college.  That may be one reason why I'm loving seminary so much.  We're not talking about the best harmonies of the 1960's, but we are talking about stuff that feels vital, but overlooked by much of the population.

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

Queen's Funeral Day Melancholia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas William Ruston

@thomaswruston

·

12h

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

Crafts for Christmas Retreat

I am back at my little house in the North Carolina mountains, rain pattering outside, peppermint mocha in my mug.  I made a quick trip back for a Crafts for Christmas retreat that's happening this week-end.  

I am remembering past autumns when I would make a quick trip to the mountains for a planning week-end for Create in Me.  I could never figure out how to come to both the planning week-end and the Crafts for Christmas week-end.  This year, my schedule is more flexible, there is no in-person planning week-end for Create in Me, the drive is shorter, and I have a house at Lutheridge with a spouse here doing work on the house.  In short, this year I have many more reasons to come.

Yesterday, I got up and was on the road by 4:15 a.m.  Even so, there was more traffic coming out of the city than I expected, and some road construction on I 66.  Eventually, the traffic thinned, and the fog rolled in, which made the merge onto I 81 feel harrowing in the dark.  The trip became much easier after 6:30, once I had more light to see by.

It is a lovely drive, mostly mountains, and yesterday, not too many big trucks barreling by.  I listened to various NPR shows, and marveled at the life of Queen Elizabeth, who died on Thursday.  On Thursday night, I made this Facebook post, which I want to preserve here:  "While many corners of the world discussed what the death of Queen Elizabeth would mean for the larger society, both in and out of England, I was in Church History class, learning about a much more ancient empire (first century Rome). And then I walked back across campus under a mostly full moon, which made me think about empires ancient and modern, how they come and then they go, and the moon shines on, oblivious."

I also loved Monica Hesse's article on Queen Elizabeth, with this insightful summary:  "Was it a fairy tale? Was it feminism? The highest-ranking woman in the world, and her power came not via her hard work or via a wedding ring on her finger but via a chaotic ladder of genealogy reaching through centuries: beheadings and infertility, abdications and overthrowings, all leading up to this singular woman holding the throne longer than anyone had before, or likely ever will again."

Back to yesterday's trip.  Soon enough, I was back home.  We talked about HVAC options, talked about what to have for lunch.  I took a shower while my spouse went to the grocery store. We ate lunch, cleaned up, and talked about a few more house renovation decisions that are coming up.  Then I wandered over to the retreat.

It's held in the big, ramshackle house where my family gathers for Thanksgiving and where my spouse and I stayed for Music Week this summer.  Yesterday, the tables were arranged in stations with a variety of supplies at each station.  As with the Create in Me retreat, there will be so many options to try.

Last night, I made a potholder, in the way that I made potholders as a child, with a loom and loops.  Why did I make a potholder?  I only have one at my seminary apartment, and I'd like to have more.  It was fun until the end, when I had to get the very tight loops off of the loom.  Even so, I marveled at how much progress I've made with my right hand.  Not too long ago, I wouldn't have been able to do this at all:

A few women joined me to make potholders of their own, and we talked about our memories of potholders.  I remembered my grandmother, who kept the potholders that I made for her when I was a child.  They were in her kitchen drawer when she died, even though she hadn't needed them in years.

Then we had pizza for dinner and more conversation, and I headed home to sleep in my own bed.  

Today will be another day of creating for me, while my spouse goes to a church choir retreat to work on music that they will sing from now until Christmas.  I look forward to seeing what we all create today.  What a gift to be able to be here for this time.

RIP, Frederick Buechner

I was sad to hear of the death of Frederick Buechner earlier this week, although he did live to be in his 90's, so it wasn't the kind of sadness that I would have of one lost too young.  Buechner was a Presbyterian minister and theologian--but that's a simplification, really. He wrote more than thirty books, and who knows how many sermons. The scope of his writing is breathtaking: novels, devotional items, sermons, autobiography, theology.

But here's what's most intriguing to me: he's the kind of writer whom readers of all types adore. I've met atheists who like his writing. Christians of all stripes love him. He achieves a kind of universality achieved by few; Henri Nouwen comes to mind as someone with similar writing achievements. Buechner writes the kind of theology that's insightful and full of surprises, but so solid that he doesn't inspire controversy. It's not an easy feat to pull off.

Years ago in this post on my creativity blog, I wrote:

"I want to get back to thinking about the future in these terms: what would I do, if I believed that anything was possible? What do I enjoy doing? To put it in theological terms I want to structure my future in the way that Frederick Buechner would advise in his book Wishful Thinking: 'The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.'"

Theologian Barbara Brown Taylor says: "From [Buechner] I've learned that the only limit to the revelation going on all around me is my willingness to turn aside and look."

Here are some more Buechner quotes:

"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. ... You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next." Beyond Words

"Martin Luther said once, 'If I were God, I'd kick the world to pieces.' But Martin Luther wasn't God. God is God, and God has never kicked the world to pieces. He keeps re-entering the world. He keeps offering himself to the world by grace, keeps somehow blessing the world, making possible a kind of life which we all, in our deepest being, hunger for." From discussion with reporter Kim Lawton on Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly

"The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt." The Hungering Dark [59]


"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." Now and Then

Sea of Tranquility, World of Turmoil

During my April travels, I heard this interview with Emily St. John Mandel on the NPR show 1A. The interviewer and the author discussed the new book Sea of Tranquility, which sounded interesting. I first read Station Eleven and enjoyed it thoroughly, so I was predisposed to like this book.

In fact, I loved this book. I’d go so far as to say it's one of the best I've read in a long time. I started it Friday afternoon and got up early Saturday morning to finish it. I don't want to say too much about it because I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't read it, so let me just say that it was satisfying in so many ways, particularly in ways that pleased me as a writer. I was so impressed with what she managed to pull off.

This interview on the Ezra Klein podcast also inspired me to want to read this book. This morning I went back and listened to both interviews again. Emily St. John Mandel is a wonderful guest with a wide range of knowledge.  I’m glad that she’s younger, that we might have many more books from her to enjoy.

I was sad yesterday when I learned that Rosemary Radford Ruether had died. She, too, had a wide range of knowledge. She was one of the feminist theologians who helped change how we talk about God. She did groundbreaking, revolutionary work on gender issues and God talk. She's not one of the theologians whose work I go back to reread, but her work forms a foundation for many of the works of theology that have sustained me.

I wish I could say that her work was done, that it seems part of an earlier age and no longer relevant.  Sadly, that is not the case. Just last month I was part of an interesting conversation about changing references to God as a father. We talked about translation issues and gender issues and whether or not it was appropriate to have a more expansive language when talking about the creator.

The person who was most opposed to changing God the Father language was not in his 90s. I looked him up later to be sure. He's roughly my age, at the far side of mid life. I thought that most people in more liberal church denominations had accepted the need for careful language when it comes to the creator, a need to move beyond tradition. I was surprised by the ferocity of the conversation.

I held my own, while at the same time thinking of the decades of work that had been done on this issue of the language of God talk. It's also interesting to think of these issues in a week where the Southern Baptist Convention has had revelations of all sorts of horrible abuse. It reminded me of one of my undergraduate friends who went on to seminary in the late 80’s, right at the time at the Southern Baptists decided to stop ordaining women. I felt sad that the church world would lose her gifts.  I feel that sadness still.

We live in a time when the church world is losing the gifts of all sorts of people who turn away for all sorts of reasons. Some people scoff at the idea of language making a difference, but theologians like Ruether knew that change doesn't happen at the larger macro level without change happening at the micro language level. Maybe we need to return to some of those revelations.

This morning I took delight in reading this tribute to Ruether. Come to find out, the academic dean at Wesley Theological Seminary, where I am a student, studied under Ruether, and she directed his MA thesis. I have been so pleased this past year to be at this seminary, and discovering that the seminary has connections back to Ruether makes me even more happy to have made this choice.

Farewell Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh died yesterday.  Dave Bonta made this interesting observation on Facebook:  "Centuries from now, when the French and US wars in Indochina merit little more than a footnote in history textbooks, Thich Nhat Hanh will be remembered as one of the great teachers of the 20th century."

Many people who are posting tributes to him today are commenting on his practice of mindfulness, a skill most of us sorely need.  For my certificate in spiritual direction program, we read his book Silence, which was one of the better books of the program.  As I recall, it's a book that explores all the inner voices that can make us miserable.  Hanh says, “If you’re like most people, you probably have a notion that there’s some as yet unrealized condition that has to be attained before you can be happy” (p. 71). He goes on to talk about analyzing where we got these ideas of happiness and what would make us happy—and more importantly he goes on to talk about how we need to let go of those ideas of what would make us happy and just focus on what we have in our life, focus on what’s there.

I realize how I approach so much of my life as a giant self-improvement project, a self-improvement project that I’m failing all the time. What a relief it would be to let go of that and just focus on what is.  I imagine that many of us would find it a relief.

In this book, Hanh reminds us again and again that there are many kinds of non-silence, and a meditative mindset is the only way to silence. That doesn’t mean we never talk or that we never go online. It means that if we’re eating, we’re eating and focused on truly experiencing the food and the sensations of eating. If we want to talk, we focus on that. We don’t walk and think. We walk and focus on the sensations of walking, along with noticing and appreciating our surroundings.

For people who feel that all of this silence can slip into a solipsistic mindset, Hanh reminds us :  “Your thoughts can make you and the world around you suffer more or suffer less” (p. 54).  Maybe we would be more mindful of our thoughts if we truly believed we could repair the world by doing so.

Of course, most of us have trouble mastering mindfulness even when the goal is simply to heal ourselves.  It's a spiritual practice that requires more of most of us.

But Hanh never stopped reminding us of how important it is.  And it's only one of the principles and commitments that he advocated.  Truly, one of our important spiritual minds is gone, at least in the human flesh format.