Music Week Ends

A week ago, I'd be doing the last tasks to get ready for Music Week:  the cleaning, the final shopping, he laundry, some cooking.  I was grateful to have so much in place--food in the fridge, clean clothes--because the pace of Music Week feels more jam-packed every year.

Yesterday was a day of final rehearsals and then concerts and worship.  I went to the kid's concert--I am amazed at how the director is able to take a group of very young children, all under the age of 8, and get them focused and making good music.

I was able to record the Adult Choir during worship--they had 4 pieces for the prelude part of the service and 1 piece for the response to the Confession, 1 piece as a response to the Bible reading, and 1 piece for the Offertory.  If you'd like to hear them, I posted each one separately on my YouTube channel.

I was the Communion assistant, which went well for the most part.  Closing worship was held at the Chapel, which has no HVAC system, so we were all sweaty.  I was briefly worried about the chalices slipping out of my sweaty hands, but happily, that didn't happen.  As I walked back to the altar, some of the grape juice in the very full chalice sloshed and dripped on the floor.

The other team communed the choir, while the chaplain and I communed everyone else--including the bishop of the NC Synod.  I always find it profoundly moving to commune my mom and dad.  I'll get another chance to do that tomorrow--they're coming to Bristol on their way home.

We spent the afternoon helping our friends staying with us get on the road and then straightening a bit.  Mom and Dad came back in the late afternoon for dinner--delicious hamburgers, which we got cooked on the grill just before a thunderstorm came through.

After a week of late-ish nights, it was good to have an early bedtime.  Today we will head a different direction on I 26.  We're going down to Spartanburg to see our fixer-upper house and to see the campus of Spartanburg Methodist College.  We'll have some lunch at some point, and then we'll head back.

It's wonderful to have a slower ending to Music Week, otherwise yesterday afternoon could have been a crashing come down.

The Feast Day of Saint Valentine

Here's one of those strange feast days, a feast day that's more popular in the general culture than it is in the church culture that pays attention to saints and their days. 

Those of us in religious circles might spend some time thinking about this feast day and the ways we celebrate it, both within our religious cultures and in popular culture.  I've often thought that marriage at its best is sacramental:  it demonstrates to me in a way that few other things can how deeply God loves me.  If my spouse's love for me is but a pale shadow of the way God loves me, then I am rich in love indeed.

I use the word marriage cautiously.  I don't mean it the way that some Christians do.  I mean simply a love relationship between adults that is covenantal and permanent in nature, as permanent as humans are capable of being.

I realize that this day is fraught with sadness and frustration for many people. I went to elementary school in the 1970's, before we worried about children's self esteem. If you wanted to bring Valentines for only your favorite five fellow students, you were allowed to do that. So, some people wound up with a shoebox/mailbox full of greetings and treats, and some wound up with very little.  I was in the middle, but instead of focusing on how lucky I was to have love notes at all, I compared my haul to those of my prettier friends.  I'm still working on remembering the wisdom a yoga teacher told me once:  "Don't compare yourself to others.  It won't help your balance."

I still worry about how this day might make people feel excluded.  I worry that as with baptism, we don't support people in their covenantal relationships in all the ways that we could.  I worry that a day that celebrates love in this way makes people who don't have a romantic relationship feel doomed.

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

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

And sustained by the love that sustains in our homes, we can go out to be a light that shines evidence of God's love to the dark corners of the world.  Every week, we are reminded of the darkness, and some weeks it intrudes more than others.  We must be the light that beats back the darkness.

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

A Wonderful Advent 4 Sunday

Yesterday was the kind of Sunday where I found myself wishing that I was already ordained, that I could stay at Faith Lutheran Church to be their pastor.  Of course, being their permanent pastor might change things, and it's important to remember that.  If they called me as their full-time pastor, I would need to move.  I would be held to different standards.

It doesn't really matter.  I am not ordained, and ordination is realistically years away.  But let me delight in the ways that yesterday was wonderful:

--Last year, Christmas Eve fell on the 4th Sunday of Advent, so we didn't do a morning service.  We did a 2 p.m. Christmas Eve service.  I was happy to have the 4th Sunday in Advent to luxuriate in the season a bit longer.

--I loved the music yesterday:  a chance to sing both "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel" and "Soon and Very Soon."

--I felt like both my children's sermon and adult sermon went well.  What a treat to focus my message on Elizabeth and Mary and their babies in their wombs.

--We got home to find out that our tech person had figured out a way to record the sermon and posted it to the church's Facebook page.  I can't figure out a way to download it to my YouTube channel, but if you're on Facebook, you can view it here.

--I finally did figure out how to post it to my YouTube channel!  It's here.  And of course, if you'd prefer to read my sermon, I turned it into a blog post.

--We had more children in church yesterday:  2 toddlers home to visit Grandma and Great Grandma.  They were interested in everything we did, including communion.  Delightful!

--One of our members got a Christmas present for everyone, so we stayed seated after worship so that the older youth could assist in handing out Christmas gift bags.  

--Then we all did the final decorating for Christmas, which involved tall metal candleholders attached to every other pew and gold ribbons around them.

--On our way out of town, we took communion to a parishioner who is too unsteady to make it to church.  We will likely start doing this every Sunday.  I was really happy to be able to do this.  

I even discovered that the church had a kit stashed away in the sacristy, so transporting the wine was easier than I thought it might be.

--The drive across the mountains was so beautiful, with parts of the mountains frosted with snow.  In some spots, it reminded me of that flocking snow that people used to spray on indoor Christmas trees.

--We finished by watching Civil War, not a Christmas movie, and not as compelling as I thought it would be.  But it did make me think about what would happen if one paired it with Salvador, two movies about photojournalists.  I am not likely to have a class where I would have time to do that, but let me record it.

--It was an early night to bed--a good day can leave one worn out that way.

Baptizing Two Babies on One Sunday

I feel like the sermon that I delivered on Sunday was one of my most powerful yet:  well written and delivered without having to consult my manuscript too frequently, delivered with the right amount of intensity.

But most people who were there on Sunday will be more likely to remember it as the Sunday that we had two baptisms:

I, too, am likely to remember the baptisms more than the sermon.  I did ask each mother if they wanted to have their babies baptized on the same day.  They assured me that they did.

It's a small community, both the church and the town, so it makes sense to me.  When I invited family members who wanted a better view to come take some of the front row seats, half the church moved forward.  I was a little worried about the logistics of having everyone in the baptismal party close to the font, but it worked out.

The first time I did a baptism at this church, back in November, I poured the water on the baby who was sitting up against his parent's chest, which is not the best position if one wants to keep water off the baby's face.  This time, I gave directions about how to hold the baby close to the font.  I don't think I will ever be the person who holds a baby while I'm baptizing the baby.

The babies were good natured, and so was everyone who moved forward.  The picture taking wasn't intrusive, but these days, I'm not likely to find picture taking intrusive.  I understand the desire to capture these moments.  I understand how quickly they will be gone, the little babies all grown up.

The mom above posted a picture of her own baptism.

Note that the baptismal banner is still the same one.  So is the dress worn by the mom at her baptism--now both of her children have worn it as their baptisms.

When I took this position as a Synod Authorized Minister, I expected to feel awe each week at the consecrating of the bread and wine, which I do.  But baptizing babies has been an unexpected joy.  There's a feeling of being part of a sacrament that is both in and out of time, a sense of connection to centuries of past Christians, and a sense that the Heavens might open up, and we might hear a voice declaring us to be loved and chosen.  

And if we listen, we will hear that voice, both during baptisms and communion, and in many other ways, throughout all of our days.

Pumpkin Bread as Communion Bread: Success!

On Sunday, we concluded our 6 week study of bread that the Revised Common Lectionary gave us.  I have said often that I have no problem with a 6 week study of any part of the life of Jesus, but if we're going to focus on something like bread, we could have expanded our vision and included a parable or two.  That chunk of John doesn't lend itself as nicely to a 6 week study.  Or maybe it's me.

Still, we persevered, and by Sunday, I wanted to remind us that Jesus doesn't call us to a life of drudgery, a dry bread consumed while traipsing through the wilderness kind of life.  No, Jesus calls us to a festive life.  I wanted bread to match.

I thought about some of the special yeast bread that I make at Christmas, but it looks like the bread I usually make.  It might have almond paste or something special, but from a distance, you can't really tell.  Up close, you might not be able to tell.  I decided to use pumpkin bread, which looks and tastes very different from our usual weekly communion bread.

We worshipped outside in the pavilion, which meant we communed by intinction, dipping the bread into the common cup.  I wondered what pumpkin bread dipped in wine tasted like, but I needn't have worried.  A few parishioners commented on how delicious it was.

As I handed the bread to people, about 5 of them said, "Yum" or "It smells so good."  Many people seemed more engaged than usual, perhaps because it was so unusual to have pumpkin bread at communion.  I tried to hand everyone a piece of bread with the outside crust on it, so that it wouldn't all fall apart into the chalice.

It's an interesting idea, using different breads for communion, thinking about what insight these breads might give us into how to live a Christian life, how these breads are like Jesus.  It's been a fun few weeks, but I'm ready for something new to chew on.

More on Infographics

I don't have much writing time this morning.  I need to leave even earlier than usual for a morning of meetings in Spartanburg.  Let me return to the idea of infographics, which I first wrote about in this blog post.  Now that my baptism infographic has been graded, I can share it:

As I was looking at my pictures, I came across the black and white version, which I took in case I messed up the infographic when I added color.  I wouldn't have had a way to undo the color, but I could have turned in the black and white version.  Happily, I liked the color version better.

I still find this concept of an infographic intriguing.  I'm still looking for ways to incorporate it into my writing classes.  Of course, this is the time of year when I find myself yearning for a different way to do the research paper.  Or wishing that I didn't have to do a research paper at all.  

Let me record this here:  as much as I'm enjoying teaching, I do find myself yearning to do more creative things in class and not having to do some of the traditional stuff, like the research essay.  I find myself wishing I could teach less English writing classes and more creativity class.  Not so much creative writing, but a class exploring creativity.

Maybe I just want to play with art supplies.

Baptism Infographic without the Info

I am working on an infographic on baptism for my Foundations of Worship class.  I'm not going to post it until it's graded--I don't want antiplagiarism software to find a blog post and think that I'm cheating.

But what I really want to use for an infographic is this picture:

Yep, that's me, with the first baby I ever baptized.  It was such a joyful experience.  

Of course, I can't use it for my school work.  There's really no information about baptism with this picture.  But it brings a smile to my face every time I see it.  I should get a frame for it.

Creating First Communion Curriculum

Yesterday was the last day of the 3 week First Communion class that I created.  I think that it went well; next week, we will celebrate the first communion of 3-4 children.

When I first started as the Synod Appointed Minister at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN, I noticed that one child wasn't taking part in communion, but other children of all ages were.  I asked his mom if there was a reason, and she said she wanted him to have first communion instruction before participating fully.  I could respect that, but I wasn't sure that it should be me.  Still, I started thinking about how we would do that.

I assumed that there are resources out there for people like me who are leading such a class for the first time.  As much as I can tell, there are not.  There are lots of books explaining communion on a level that small children can understand, but there isn't any curriculum that I've been able to find.  And more important, I haven't been able to find any sort of teacher's guide.  I wanted something that said:  On day one, do this, discuss this, and here are some Bible passages.  On day two, do this, discuss this, and here are some Bible passages.

I am part of a Facebook group of ELCA clergy, and a few months ago, they had a thread that talked about getting children ready for first communion.  The people who contributed to the thread had some great ideas, so I cut and pasted them into a document.  I started thinking about how I'd adapt them to my context.  And thus, I came up with an idea for a shorter kind of program, just a few weeks, to help children understand what we're doing.

I've been taking notes about what I said and did, and I'll polish it, and give it to my contact at the Synod, which will be part of my internship.  My internship director will post it to several website resources.  Even if it's not useful to any other person, it will be useful to me, should I need to remember what I did and why.

I do realize that many churches have moved away from this kind of instruction.  It makes me wonder about how we do Confirmation in the larger church--and how very small churches like Faith Lutheran can do Confirmation well.  I know that there's a lot more in the way of curriculum out there--or is there?  I used to think that we had lots of First Communion resources.

I think parents have a hunger for better instruction, and they should be able to expect the leaders of their church to do that.  I also realize that church leaders are expected to do lots and lots, especially if it's a small church with no real staff.  I am in a weird position, a clearly temporary position where many of the activities I'd be doing as a full-time, permanent person are not expected of me.  Creating curriculum makes me happy, and I'm glad to have time to do it.

First Baptism

Yesterday was my first baptism as a minister.  I've assisted with baptisms before, but I've never been the one who put water on the baby's head.  I felt a bit nervous, but I reminded myself that it wasn't a funeral or a wedding, both of which come with many more hopes and expectations.  In short, it seemed there wasn't much that could go wrong.

In retrospect, I was lucky.  I baptized one of the happier babies I've ever met.  When water went down his head onto his face, he smiled.  When water dripped off my hand onto the baptismal font as I moved my hand to his head, he reached for the water drops on the font.

I had planned to meet with the parents before the service to strategize about how to hold the baby, but they weren't there when the service started.  I did have them move the baby closer to the font, but the father held the baby upright, which is why the water dribbled down his face.  I tried to catch some of it with a baptismal cloth, but it wasn't very absorbent.  Happily, the baby didn't mind.

If there's another baptism, I'll do more to practice with the baptismal font and the water.  Or maybe it's always going to be messy, and I should embrace the idea of water going everywhere.

The baby being baptized never cried, but his older brother did.  I didn't realize that the wailing child in the narthex was part of the baptismal family; if I had, I'd have had the child join us earlier.  As it was, the relative who had been trying to console the wailing child brought the child forward to the mom.  Something to remember to ask for next time.

The baby was the grandchild and great grandchild of members of the little country church where I am a Synod Appointed Minister.  The family lives in Nashville.  I had a phone conversation in advance, but in retrospect, I should have covered more; I shouldn't have assumed we would have time before the service.

The baby smiled throughout the rest of the baptism ceremony, and I suggested that the family walk with the baby so that we could all greet our new sibling in Christ.  That baby has a future in politics or movies or some other arena that needs friendly charisma.

Afterwards, we went downstairs to the fellowship hall, where the family had invited us all to stay for a barbecue lunch, another treat especially in a week where we're all getting tired of Thanksgiving leftovers.

I'm calling my first baptism a success, while at the same time thinking about ways I could be better, if there's a next time.  I found myself wishing we could do a baptism once a week, the way we do the eucharist once a week.  But then it wouldn't feel as special and holy--and yes, I do realize that's an argument for having once a month eucharist than once a week.

Here's the Facebook post I made:

"The baptism went well--the baby was the happiest baby I've ever met, and baptismal water got all over the place (the baby, me, the font), and the baby put his little hands on the water drops and made happy noises, and everyone was smiling and laughing. I halfway expected a dove to descend and a voice telling us how beloved we all are (there was that voice, but it was my voice, never losing an opportunity to tell us all how much God loves us)."

Earlier, I made a pre-baptism post that said I was both nervous and joyous.  One of my pastor friends gave me this encouragement, which is worth preserving:  "Know this…you are a child of God, dripping wet in the same promise as the one who will be baptized today. We celebrate the promise that holds us all!"

Bread Baking Process for Large Groups

 Last night I had a classic anxiety dream--I was in a class, and something was due, but I thought it was due the following week.  I woke up and made a list in my head to make sure I'm not missing something.  I'm still feeling anxious this morning, even though I haven't missed anything.

I am in that time of the term where I'm thinking of all the balls I'm juggling and trying not to think about it.  If I just keep going, I'm less likely to drop a ball.  If I look down, I may drop all the balls.  So, in an effort to calm my jittery self, let me reflect a bit on bread baking with a huge group of easily distracted middle school confirmands.  I accidentally created a successful approach that I want to remember.

I wanted to talk about yeast and bread in general, but I also wanted to make quick breads for our Communion bread.  So I decided to do both.  The first thing we did as a group was to look at yeast.  I walked in front of each child and held out a spoonful, commenting on the small grains.  

Then I sprinkled 5 spoonfuls in a bowl of water and showed the bowl to each person.  I commented on how it looked like lake water with algae in it.  I set it aside.

I had the bread making supplies on two tables, and my vision was that one group would make quick bread with regular flour and one would make it with gluten free flour.  

That part of the process went fairly well.  Each table had 8-10 children, and we dumped the ingredients in the big bowl, stirred and stirred, and then made the dough into rounds.  

At a certain point, restlessness happened, so I had everyone line up against the back wall to look at the bowl of yeast and water.  It was bubbly, and we talked about what yeast does, and why Jesus had the parable about the yeast.  What does it mean to be leaven in the loaf?  Why does Jesus call himself bread?  We talked about how lots of people have sustained themselves with not much else but bread.  We talked about the other types of food we know that ancient people ate, olives and lamb and small birds.  Bread is much more affordable and sustainable.

We came back to the table to finish up the quick bread and to add ingredients to the yeast bread bowl.  We added oil and honey, along with milk and more flour.   The confirmands had a chance to mix and knead with their hands (not required, since I know not everyone likes to get their hands messy).  The first group even got a ball of dough to shape.

 

The first group, a smaller group, did a good job of sharing the tasks, but the larger group was not skilled that way.  So I changed course.   I had everyone line up to take a turn at the bowl.  I said, "Mix, mix, move aside."  So everyone stirred 3-6 times and stepped aside.  Every so often, I dumped some flour or milk in the bowl.  I did the same thing with kneading.  The quick pace kept people focused.  They seemed to have fun, but more important, everyone got a chance to participate.

I didn't give the second group a chance to shape their own ball of dough.  They needed to get cleaned up and back to the main group.  But I also didn't want to risk what might happen if they had much more than a quick encounter with the dough:  dough in hair, dough flung across the room, not enough dough for bread to bake.  Once the confirmands went back to the main group, I washed my hands and took the trays in to the large group.

I said, "Look how much your bread dough has risen in the last half hour.  This is what it means to be leaven in the loaf.  This is your task, to be leaven in the loaf of your community."  I said it in my loud booming voice, and it got everyone's attention.

Then I went back and finished shaping the loaves and watching over the baking of them.  The kitchen staff and some of the grown ups helped me clean up.  

Once the bread cooled, I decided it was wise to slice the loaves in advance.  We were giving people a chance to taste the breads with their dinner, and I didn't want everyone waiting while I sliced bread.

I was pleased that everyone had a chance to try whichever kinds of bread they wanted and even to come back for seconds.  

It was very neat to worship the next day with the bread that we had created as part of communion.  I didn't have a chance to see if the confirmands found it as moving as I did.  

What I'd really like to be able to do is to check with them in 20 years to see if they remember, or who remembers what.  But most of us don't get to do that.  We do the work and we hope that some of it takes.

A February Wedding

I was expecting something a bit more wintry when I woke up this morning, but so far we have rain.  Actually, we have a break in the rain, although the radar shows unsettled weather all around us.  There was talk in the winter weather warning/advisory of gusty winds, but so far, they have not arrived.  The upside:  we still have power, heat, and internet.  The downside:  still none of the winter weather that warms my heart (the kind that doesn't linger but looks pretty as it drifts by the window).

Because I knew of the threat of wintry weather and potential outages, I finished my seminary work that is due over the next few days, and I've done the weekly reminder e-mail to my online students.  Whether or not we go to church may depend on what kind of wintry mix arrives in the next few hours.  I don't want to risk icy roads, and I can't really tell what's happened overnight.

Happily, we were able to get to the wedding of a dear Create in Me friend yesterday.  Her wedding was at 4, which is a perfect time.  The reception was a delicious meal of tacos, followed with cupcakes.  We had a variety of wines from Michigan, where the bride and groom lived originally.

Long ago, they went to high school together, although they weren't together then.  They reconnected at a 45 year high school reunion, and relationship has deepened in the last 5+ years.  I didn't know the bride, my Create in Me friend, when she was married to her first husband, but I do remember a conversation before she reconnected with the man who is now her husband, a conversation where she despaired of ever finding love.

As I watched them make their vows, I thought about what a different station in life I'm in now.  Once, I went to several weddings a year, but now it's a much more rare occasion.  In some ways, that made yesterday even more joyous.

I will say that this wedding is the first where we have celebrated communion, and the bride and groom did the pouring of the wine from the chalice into each person's tiny up.  I was impressed with their compusure.

In fact, one reason, apart from the weather, that I'm not as worried about going to church this morning is that the wedding service yesterday had the important parts of worship, along with joining of two lives together.  In some ways, it seems a fitting metaphor for what worship should do every time we participate:  join lives together in a larger, deeper mystery.

Gathering Fragments from Last Week's Onground Intensive

  A week ago, I’d be getting ready for the onground intensive for the spiritual direction certificate program at LTSS, Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC.  Alert readers will say, “Didn’t you finish that program earlier?”  Yes, I did.  But alumni were welcomed back to participate, since the pandemic disrupted the program for so many of us.  Let me collect a few last fragments and photos, before I forget these nuggets.

--We began our first session with consenting prayer.  Our leader took us through a meditation which asked us where God invites us to be open, in a space of hospitality, around these issues:  security, approval, control, and change.

--Writer Barbara Peacock had interesting insights about what/how the Middle Passage taught the ancestors how to minister to each other and how spiritual direction practices emerged from this time.

--In our last session, we did lectio divina, and at the end, we all shouted the word or phrase that spoke to us, all of us at the same time.  It was an interesting variation.

--I went back and forth to the Chapel. I love the way the light streams through the stained glass lending various colors to the white marble. Stunning!

--I walked the labyrinth each morning, which I enjoyed, even though I didn't receive stunning insights.

--In my small group, conversation came back to the idea of God and bodies. One speaker had tried to connect Eros with God, and I think this speaker was trying to make some connections with alternate sexualities but I wasn't sure. In my small group, we talked about how an embodied God is difficult if one lives in a body that is not approved of by one’s larger society.

--It was good for me to talk about these ideas with other people outside of my small group, people who were not as discomfited as I was.  We talked about Eros and the Holy Spirit, which seemed a bit better than Eros and God the Father. We talked about Eros not as a sexual energy, but an energy that was embodied in multiple ways.

--I do wonder what it would mean if we took seriously this notion that all are created in the image of God. We would have to expand our vision of God. What would it mean if we worshipped a God who is disabled, in ways that so many of us are disabled? It would certainly challenge our idea of God as all powerful, which is fine with me, but I realize it would be a tough sell for others. Throughout the week I tried to straighten my fingers as I continue to heal from my wrist injury. Some days I was more successful than others. The idea of a disabled God makes sense to me.

--Should I be using the term differently abled to God? But I do mean disabled, a God without full ability, a God who may have developed other capabilities in the absence of full capability.

--We had more free time scheduled into this intensive than in the past so I reached out to an old college friend who lives in Charlotte, and happily she was free on Friday afternoon and willing to drive down.  We met at a coffee shop staffed by people who wore T shirts of the bands of our youth. The guy who took our order had a patch on his leather vest that was a replication of The Smiths’ album, The Queen Is Dead. I said, “I paid $5 for that album back in the day.” He told me he had paid $35 for his vinyl copy. Maybe I should take a closer look at the records that are in the box of records that need to be sorted. Of course I have no idea how to find the people who would pay $35 for my old vinyl.

--It was great to drink coffee with my friend on the hottest day of the year so far, as REM's “Don't Go Back to Rockville” played softly in the background. As with the best of friends, it was like no time had passed at all. Throughout the week I had the feeling of falling through a hole in time. Time has felt more fluid.

--We ended with a commissioning service and the singing of  “I the Lord of Sea and Sky” with its refrain of being willing to go where God sends us.

--Take a good look at this picture:

 

 

I am sure that I’ve never been at a  communion service presided over by two female African-American ordained clergy.  Wow!

I went forth, fed and nourished in so many ways.

 

A Week Thinking about Eucharistic Practices/Supper Clubs of Resistance

I have spent this week thinking about Eucharist practices, which may not be unusual for a seminary student.  In my Thursday night class, we talked about language and ritual and how they are linked to time.  We talked about Eucharist practices.  Some of my classmates talked about how they liked knowing that Christians across the world were celebrating communion the same way.  Because the class was almost over, I didn't raise my hand to point out that we probably assumed more similarity than was actually there--or maybe they just meant that we would all be using bread and wine/grape juice.  As a Lutheran who has spent a lot of time thinking about issues of transubstantiation and symbolism and food and liturgy, I know that we are not all celebrating communion the exact same way, and some Christian practices won't be recognized by other Christians.

Early in the Thursday night conversation at the end of class, I raised my hand to say that I appreciated the words of the Eucharist ritual because I felt it linked me to past generations, although I had spent part of the week writing a paper about Paul's view of the eucharist in 1 Corinthians, so I know that from the beginning, there's been disagreement about how to celebrate the Eucharist.

I want to preserve a Twitter thread that I found as I was finishing that exegesis paper on 1 Corinthians 11:  17-34.  Tuesday morning, March 22, I read these tweets from Diana Butler Bass, which she wrote on March 21: “So far my Lent reading has convinced me: 1) Maundy Thurs and not Good Friday is the point of the Gospels, and 2) there’s actually no “Christianity” until the 3rd century. How’s your Lent reading going?” and “Also, the early gatherings of Jesus people were basically supper clubs of resistance to Empire. (I’m so on board with this).”  Bass is reading Holy Thursday Revolution by Beatrice Bruteau and After Jesus / Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements by Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott, and Hal Taussig.

I love the phrasing Bass uses:  supper club of resistance to Empire--yes!

And now, it's time to get ready to celebrate Eucharist--time to start shifting into getting ready for church mode.  I wish our church service was more of a supper club of resistance.

The Feast Day of Saint Valentine

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lenny Duncan's Words of Institution and Prayer

Yesterday I came across this Facebook post made by Lenny Duncan.  I loved the poetic version that he created for the part of the liturgy where the eucharistic elements are consecrated and prayers offered. I wanted both to preserve it for myself and to offer it to others.

Lenny Duncan's post:

"Every year I get asked to preach somewhere on this weekend. If they are Lutheran, and I am presiding at the table, this is the version of the of what I use as words of adoration, institution, etc every year based on an ELW setting. I change them slightly every year. Please use freely:

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,

you have brought us this far along the way.

In times of bitterness you do not abandon us,

but guided us into the path of love and light.

In every age you sent prophets

to make known your loving will for all humanity, like the Rev. Dr King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, bell hooks, and the millions who responded to the cry of George Floyd for his mama:

The cry of the poor and the oppressed has become your own cry;

our hunger and thirst for justice is your own desire.

In the fullness of time, you sent your chosen servant

to preach good news to the afflicted,

to break bread with the outcast and despised,

and to ransom those in bondage to white supremacy and sin.

In the night in which he was betrayed,

our friend and protector Jesus took bread, and gave thanks;

broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:

Take and eat; this is my brown body, given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

Again, after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks,

and gave it for all to drink, saying:

This cup is the new covenant in my brown blood,

shed for you and all people for the forgiveness of sin.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

For as often as we eat of this bread and drink from this cup

we proclaim the Rebel's death until he comes.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

Remembering, therefore, his death and resurrection,

we await the day when Jesus shall return

to free all the earth from the bonds of slavery and death.

Come, power of Jesus! And let the church say, Amen

Amen.

Send your Holy Spirit, our advocate,

to fill the hearts of all who share this bread and cup ( for online: for those who have bread and cup today)

with courage and wisdom to pursue love and justice in all the world.

Come, Spirit of freedom! And let the church say, Amen

Amen.

Join our prayers and praise with your prophets, rebels, oddballs, poor, displaced, and martyrs of every age, that, rejoicing in the hope of the resurrection,

we might live in the freedom and hope of your Son.

Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Holy Parent, now and forever.

Amen.

I Will Call, and Fish Will Answer

I want to remember a moment of wonder from the past week, an incident which if it appeared in a movie, viewers would say, "That would never happen in real life."  Yet it did.

One of the advantages of walking very early in the morning, before the sun is up, is that I can sing if I feel like it.  One of the other advantages is that I get to the small lake near my house in time to see the beautiful colors of sunrise.  Sometimes, the two happen at the same time.

A few days ago, I had the song "I Will Call Upon the Lord" in my head, and I sang it a bit.  At the bank of the lake, I sang the first line, "I will call upon the Lord."

And then, a group of small fish jumped out of the lake, in a perfect circle, as if they were doing a performance for a synchronized swimming contest.  I thought about the fact that they were fish, an important symbol in the Christian faith.  I thought that I was at the side of the lake just before sunrise, when the light sent color not only across the sky, but also across the water.  I thought about the water, another supreme symbol in the Christian faith.

I thought about putting it all in a poem, but no one would believe it, or people would find it trite and overdone.

But experiencing it in the moment, in real life, was a form of living poetry, and in many ways a sacrament:  a tangible symbol of God's grace and presence in the world.

Sacraments in Our Hair

Yesterday morning, I made this Facebook post:

"With bread dough in my hair*, I'm headed to church to offer drive through communion. If you're in SE Florida, come on by! (Trinity Lutheran, corner of Pines and 72nd, across from Broward College.

*yes, literal bread dough--I've been baking and the morning has zoomed ahead of me--the sacraments don't need me to take another shower, and I like the symbolism of bread dough in my hair, sacraments in my hand.

I've been baking bread for personal use, not for communion. No one need worry about finding my hair in their sacrament."

I spent the rest of the day thinking about these images--bread dough, sacrament, the way that sacrament becomes flesh, flesh becomes sacrament, sacrament becomes indwelling presence, indwelling presence becomes sacred, sacred becomes word, word becomes flesh, round and round and round.

I was also thinking about a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva, but I couldn't remember the name of it or much about it, except for one line about having stars in our hair.  I first encountered that poem in a workshop at a conference in a South Carolina state park, a conference on bringing international/global elements to first year classes.  I loved this poem, and for about a year, I took it with me everywhere I went.  I wrote poems in response to it.

And now, I might again.

This morning I decided I wanted to read the original, and I did some Google searching.  There are many more Tsvataeva poems than one could once find.  But I couldn't find that one.  One search led me to another search, and I began to remember the other line, about avoiding, evading, or escaping death, and finally, I got to the correct poem.  

Some readers may already know that I was Googling the wrong line and the wrong image, but the correct author name, which led me to some interesting places, and I began to despair of ever finding the poem.

Now that I have found it, let me paste it here.  And let my poet theologian brain keep thinking about stars in our hair and bread dough in our hair and the meaning of sacrament.

We shall not escape Hell


by Marina Tsvetaeva

We shall not escape Hell, my passionate
sisters, we shall drink black resins––
we who sang our praises to the Lord
with every one of our sinews, even the finest,

we did not lean over cradles or
spinning wheels at night, and now we are
carried off by an unsteady boat
under the skirts of a sleeveless cloak,

we dressed every morning in
fine Chinese silk, and we would
sing our paradisal songs at
the fire of the robbers’camp,

slovenly needlewomen, (all
our sewing came apart), dancers,
players upon pipes: we have been
the queens of the whole world!

first scarcely covered by rags,
then with constellations in our hair, in
gaol and at feasts we have
bartered away heaven,

in starry nights, in the apple
orchards of Paradise
––Gentle girls, my beloved sisters,
we shall certainly find ourselves in Hell!

Communion in a Time of Pandemic

Yesterday I was in charge of drive through communion for the third time.  If you're interested in the logistics of how it works, see this blog post.  Today I want to think about what I've observed after 3 episodes.

--There's a core group of people who come every time.  They're not the same people who used to come to church every Sunday.

--We have at least one congregation member who zips over during a break from work.  She works at Publix, the local grocery store.  She wasn't able to do this during times of regular Sunday worship.

--There's a car with 2 women who weren't attending our church during pre-pandemic days, and I'm not sure how they came to find drive through communion.  They're our most faithful ones for drive through communion.  They are an elderly mother and a mid-life daughter, and the mother speaks no English, only Spanish.

--Yesterday, a car with 2 young men pulled up, both African-American with beards.  I didn't recognize them, but I give communion to anyone who comes.  Unlike some, they seemed familiar with the sacrament.  They did take a picture of the church sign that says, "Go in peace, serve the Lord" before they pulled away, which made me wonder if they're related to anyone in the congregation or if they found us on their own.

--One week, a woman on a bicycle rode up.  She stopped and looked at me expectantly.  I asked if she was here for communion, and she nodded.  As I handed her the elements, she looked confused.  I'm still not sure she was really there for communion, but she didn't speak much English that I could tell, so I wasn't sure what she wanted or needed.

--I like distributing communion, but it is a tough gig in the summer.  It doesn't seem worth it to turn on the AC for the whole sanctuary, so by the end, I'm feeling overheated and irritable.  I wish it wasn't such a sweaty endeavor for me, but at least I'm not doing any laying on of hands in this time of pandemic.

Drive Through Communion

Yesterday, I was the person in charge of drive through communion, so that my pastor could get a brief vacation.  My pastor left pre-consecrated wafers in individual plastic bags, along with plastic cups of wine.  I followed his approach.  Here's how it worked:

A car pulled up, and with the driver watching, I put hand sanitizer on my hands.  I handed the person a wafer and asked if they preferred wine or grape juice.  I went back and got the cup for them, instead of bringing the tray of cups to the car.  The empty wine cup could go into the empty wafer bag.

I then said a form of this blessing:  "May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May the Lord's face smile on you and be gracious to you.  May the Lord look upon you with favor and grant you peace."

We had about 20 people during the 2 hours.  My spouse practiced his violin and took care of the money counting duties.  I had plenty of time to read the next book on my reading list for my spiritual direction certificate program.  It was a pleasant way to spend the time.

I was surprised by how happy I was to see everyone, even when I didn't recognize them; many of them wore masks, which made it hard for me to tell who they were.  Each car of people seemed profoundly happy to receive the sacrament and the blessing.

And I was profoundly happy to be doing it, even though it was a bit odd.  By the end of the day, I couldn't get the smell of hand sanitizer off of my hands, but even that was O.K. (I do not like the smell of any hand sanitizer that I've tried).

I've always thought that one of the things I would like best about being a pastor would be the weekly communion duties.  Even with drive through communion, I still think so.

Breaking Our Eucharistic Fast

On Sunday, those of us who gather to help with the livestream of our church communed together before our pastor went out front to do drive through communion.  I hadn't had communion since March 20, when I decided to pop by the last time our pastor did drive through communion; I had been out buying sketchbooks before everything closed down, and it was on the way.  I didn't think it would be my last time having communion for several months.

There have been months of arguing, at least in some circles, about the best approach to communion.  Can we have Zoom communion?  Do we need to be assembled as a people of faith to make the consecration of the elements possible?  Do we need to have a pastor there?

Books have been written to answer these questions.  Indeed, wars have been fought over these questions--literal wars, if we go back far enough.  So I won't wade into these waters.

Have I missed communion?  Yes.  But I try to have a larger sacramental view.  Where can we see God in the every day elements of our lives?  How can God be revealed in every day ways?

But I am a Lutheran, so it's been strange not to have one of the two sacraments of my church.  We also have not had baptism, but that's never been a weekly sacrament, so I haven't noticed its absence as much.

I wish I could say that I felt infused with grace and that I radiated love since breaking our eucharistic fast on Sunday, but no I didn't experience the sacrament that way.  I usually don't experience the sacrament that way.

Some might say, "Why bother?"  I would say, "Why close off a pathway to be reminded of God's grace?"  Or perhaps I would say, "I don't understand how electricity works or the internal combustion engine works, but I don't want to reject them just because I can't explain them."

I also don't want to close myself off to mystery.  Let me always remain open to mystery.