Dream Job: Program Director at a Retreat Center?

One of my Create in Me friends has gotten a job as Program Director at Lutheranch.  Create in Me is a retreat at Lutheridge, and Novus Way is the larger group that oversees 4 retreat centers:  Lutheridge and Lutherock in North Carolina, Luther Springs in Florida, and Lutheranch in Georgia.

I am genuinely happy for my Create in Me friend.  I am always intrigued by people's paths, especially when the path leads to a retreat center.  Once I assumed that one needed to be ordained to be a program director--the few program directors I knew were ordained, which made having communion at worship possible.  But at a Create in Me retreat almost 10 years ago, our Bible study leader shared that most Lutheran camp program directors were not ordained. 

A different Create in Me friend and I had a conversation about becoming program directors, specifically at Lutheridge.  My friend pointed out that she wouldn't want to be responsible for training all the camp counselors for summer sleep away camp.  I agreed.

I know of some retreat centers that have programs only for adults.  I wonder if there's a complete list somewhere.  I'm most interested in a retreat center that focuses on arts and spirituality, particularly creative practices (the process as opposed to the product) and spirituality.  That intersection is not seen as unusual, like it once was.

I love the idea of working in a setting that celebrates creativity and spirituality.  I love the idea of spending my work days helping people explore both their creative and spiritual yearnings.  I am sure that there would be less idyllic parts of the job:  paperwork, unhappy retreat participants, the various crisis here and there.

I want to believe that the joys would outweigh the aggravations.  I look forward to living vicariously through my friend's experiences to get additional insight.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 2, 2019:

First Reading: Exodus 34:29-35

Psalm: Psalm 99

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2

Gospel: Luke 9:28-36 [37-43a]


Here we are, the final Sunday before Lent begins. Transfiguration Sunday gives us a chance to wrestle with an essential question: who is this Christ? Why worship this guy?

Do we worship Christ because of his glory? The mystical elements of Transfiguration Sunday dazzle us and threaten to overshadow the rest of the story. What a magnificent tale! Moses and Elijah appear and along with Christ, they are transformed into glowing creatures. A voice booms down reminding us of Christ's chosen and elevated status.

It's easy to understand Peter's response: we'll stay on the mountain, we'll build booths! It's easy to understand why the disciples stay quiet about this mystical experience.

Jesus then heals a child; he's a success where his disciples have failed.

Do we worship God in the hopes of harnessing this kind of transfiguring power? It's easy to understand this impulse. But the rest of the lesson for today warns us against this impulse.

Jesus know that he's on a collision course with the powers that rule the world. The disciples argue about who is greatest, and Jesus reminds him of the nature of his ministry: to be least.

For those of us who worship Christ because we want transfiguration, it's important to remember what kind of transfiguration we're going to get. We're not likely to get worldly power, money, or fame because we're Christians--in fact, it will be just the opposite.

Will we get healing? Maybe. Will we be creatures that glow with an otherworldly light? Metaphorically. Can we charge admission and get rich from our spiritual beliefs? Go back and reread the Gospels, and see what Jesus has to say about wealth.

Ah, Transfiguration Sunday which leads us to Mardi Gras, a few last hurrahs before the serious season of Lent, that season of ash and penitence. Let us stay here in this glow.

But let us not forget the path before us, the path that brings us off the mountain and into service. Let us not confuse the mountain top for the true relationship that God offers us.

Poetry Tuesday: "Cassandra Considers the Dust"

I woke up feeling like I had dreamed about home repairs for much of the night.  None of the houses in my dreams was my current house.  In the dream just before I woke up, it was a beautiful Victorian in disrepair, and I was not only remodeling it as living space, but also putting in a beauty parlor upstairs.

We are in that stage of home repair when I feel like we will never be done.  I am not surprised my dreams reflect this state.

It is interesting to read The Uninhabitable Earth while making these kinds of housing decisions.  Why buy the beautiful but expensive copper tiles for a backsplash if we're just going to get out when we can figure out how?

My Facebook feed is a mix of people, and the theology minded among us are keeping an eye on the decision of the United Methodist Church about a way forward when it comes to LBGTQ issues.  Here, too, my inner Cassandra wonders how we've all let ourselves get so distracted by issues that do seem important, until one ponders the trajectories of climate change and the current decisions we're making.

I'm also tired of how hard it is to know where to put some of my stuff.  Parts of my closet aren't easily accessible, and I've filled up the few shelves that are open with books and other stuff that needs a flat space.  Part of me has been waiting for the house to be restored--why move things twice?  Part of me worries about the front bedroom, the part of the house that is most tipping toward chaos, and how much it looks like an episode of The Hoarders.

I thought of my poem about Cassandra and the question of the dust.  Let me post it here for our Tuesday reading pleasure.  It was first published in Southern Women's Review, and I included it in my latest chapbook Life in the Holocene Extinction.



Cassandra Considers the Dust



By day, she talks to her patients
about the implications of their high
cholesterol levels, their spikes
in blood pressure, their weight that creeps
ever higher. As she prescribes
medication, she recommends more
exercise, more vegetables.

She stays late at night to monitor
the ones who succumb to surgery.
She has split open chests
to scoop out the gunk that clogged
the intricate roads of the interior.
She has reshaped routes and patched
together with delicate stitches.

She leaves the computers on the ramparts
to keep watch. She thinks of monks
in distant monasteries who chant
prayers while most of humanity dreams.

She drives home to her dark house.
Inside, she turns on one dim
light. She doesn’t want to see
the dust. She can’t remember
the last time the house enjoyed
a deep cleaning.

She thinks of rising oceans
and wonders how long
until the house sinks
into the sea.
She leaves the dust
to its own devices.

Demonstrations of Love and Mercy

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

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

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

Christianity is a religion built around a father

Who does not rescue his son. It is the story

of a son whose father is a ghost

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Feast Day of St. Matthias

Today is the traditional feast day of St. Matthias. In the 1960's, the Roman Catholic church moved his feast day to May 14, so that we're celebrating his life in a month that makes more chronological sense--Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot, who committed suicide after he realized what his betrayal had wrought, so it makes sense to celebrate his life after Easter. Of course, traditionalists will celebrate today. And Eastern Orthodox believers will observe his feast day on August 9.

I've recently become a bit fascinated with this saint. I've done a smidgeof research, and I can't tell what, exactly, he's the patron saint of.

If I was in charge, I'd make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition. Would I make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition in the workplace only, or in any situation? Is that process of waiting so different?

I have this on the brain because I work in a place where our local job ladder is very short. We have lots of folks who have been working for the organization for ten years or more--when there's a job opening, we can't promote them all. And once a person has been promoted, it might be years--decades even--before there's an opening above.

I imagine that the circle of Jesus was similar. There's the inner circle, the twelve, chosen early. Then there's a massive outer circle. Who would have dreamed of the incidents that led to a job opening in the inner circle?

Of course, as a woman, I will always wonder at what Gospel revisions went on in the early church. Was the inner circle really that tight? Was it really only twelve? Was it really only men? We know that Jesus had a sympathy towards women that was uncommon for his time period. Would he really have excluded them from the inner circle?

Then I think of the logistics of being one of the twelve--all that travel, all those difficult circumstances. Maybe it was kinder of Jesus not to call women to be part of the inner circle. If you go back to the sayings of Jesus, it's clear that he doesn't see hierarchy in the same way that humans do--he clearly mocked the idea that some disciples are more chosen than other.

So, would Matthias have even seen his appointment as a promotion? Maybe it's just our later proclivity to make lists that sees this development as a promotion. Of course, there is that passage in Acts that seems to show that the disciples shared our proclivities toward hierarchy and list making.

I think of Matthias, patiently waiting, following Christ, never knowing the outcome. In that way, he's the patron saint of us all. We follow Christ, not knowing whether we'll be chosen for some superhuman greatness, or whether we'll be called to stay put, quietly ministering the people around us. Some of us believe that God has a plan for us, while others believe that God will use us where we are, like a master weaver. Some of us believe that the universe is essentially chaotic, but we are not excused from God's mission of Kingdom building. Some of us know that we cannot possibly comprehend any of this, and we know that we are lucky that God does not depend on our puny imaginations.

United Methodists Meeting this Week-end

The second largest Protestant denomination meets this week-end to decide the future when it comes to homosexual relationships.  Right now, the official policy of the United Methodist Church is that "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”  But on the ground, individual churches have adopted different approaches.

I don't envy the folks who are meeting this week-end to try to come to some sort of consensus/compromise.  No matter what happens, there will be angry, angry outcomes.

I know this truth because of what happened in my own Lutheran expression, the ELCA.  In 2009, I thought the compromise was admirable, even though I wanted a less wishy-washy outcome.  Essentially, ELCA pastors can now be in committed same-sex relationships, but individual churches can choose not to call them.  Similarly, the ELCA will not condemn same-sex relationships, but individual churches don't have to host same-sex weddings or be welcoming in less obvious ways.

The UMC group meeting this week-end will choose from 3 possible outcomes, according to this article in The Washington Post.  The first option will be something similar to the ELCA option:  "One of the proposed plans, endorsed by the UMC’s Council of Bishops, would remove that language from the church’s law book and leave decisions about same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy up to regional bodies. This proposal, called the One Church Plan, would open up many options for those who support the LGBT-inclusive practices, but it would not compel individual churches or clergy to engage in those practices."

Another option would be to stick to the traditional teaching and to be stricter about enforcing the anti-homosexual stance.

But there's a third option:  "A third option would create three branches of the church reflecting the different approaches to LGBT issues. One branch would maintain the current bans, another would expect all its clergy and regional groups to support full LGBT inclusion, and the third would neither forbid nor require the inclusive practices. This plan would take several years longer to implement than the others."  I can't even imagine how to handle that increased bureaucracy that would come just from setting up that plan.

I am reflecting how few friends I have that come from the UMC tradition--I have a few back in the Carolinas and Tennessee.  But there are none in South Florida to my knowledge.  I can't imagine that I have friends down here who are closeted UMC members.  Most of my South Florida friends come from the Catholic tradition, even though few of them are still part of it.

For those of us with UMC friends who may be struggling with the decision of the larger church body, this article about how to support them may help.  It's good advice regardless of the question at hand.  We are so often not skilled at walking beside people during a crisis.  I'm guilty myself:  I want to fix things--quickly--and keep moving along.

One of the wondrous things about my late middle age is that I'm more sympathetic to my failures, which makes me determined to do better, but also gives me some gentleness (usually) when it comes to my own failings and the failing of others.  I don't lose days or weeks or months in recriminations anymore.  I understand that most people are doing their best to the best of their ability. 

I will keep our UMC compatriots in prayer this week-end.  May they be at their best.  May the Holy Spirit move in them and through them.  May they discern the best path for their worshiping body. 

The First Catholic Parish in North America

Yesterday I stopped on my way south to have breakfast in St. Augustine.  But first, I decided to see if the Cathedral was open.  If nothing else, I could take pictures of the grounds:

What a wonderful statue: 

To my delight, the worship space was open.  When I ducked inside, I was blown away by the richness of the colors and the imagery--not just stained glass, but even ceiling panels:

Here is the view of the rear of the cathedral:

And a close up of the statue of the Virgin Mary:

The space had many focal points, which I've seen in other Catholic spaces, less so in Protestant spaces:

Each side had a different statue and space:

So did each of the crosspieces of the cathedral seating space:

I walked to the back of the church, but the restroom area was gated and locked.  Part of me understood--St. Augustine has plenty of public restrooms.  Part of me was sad.  But I was glad that I walked the whole perimeter:

I crossed myself with the holy water in the baptismal font.  I left feeling like I'd gotten an unexpected blessing.