A Thin Thread

when I want to quit, this is why

2012-01-21T12:43:00.004-05:00

A lot of us are worried about why people of my generation are fleeing organized religion. The topic may be tired, but I can’t avoid it because I feel the conflict within my own self. I am both a church insider puzzling over the indifference of youth and young adults, and I am also a young adult who thinks about walking away to try and live her life in her own way.

Most of my life, I have loved being a part of the church. I have disagreed and I have raged, but I have never been able to be indifferent. I have always seen so much good that my frustrations inspired me to try and make things better.

But there is another side. When I see the bad and the ugly I wonder, “Is this church thing really worth the bother?” Today I give voice to this other side and speak about what pushes me away. And though I speak of “the church,” I really mean a segment of my church experience, those things that, when I see them, send me running in the opposite direction.

(1) My ministers are not in therapy. I see pastors leveraging their ministerial authority to meet their own sexual and emotional needs. I see ministers whose arms are full and whose backs are breaking under the baggage they carry.

(2) The church’s talk about the world and humanity feels false to me. I don’t believe that our suffering is punishment for our sins. I don’t believe that praying and reading the Bible will make my problems disappear. I don’t believe that the disco is evil. I hear sermons that tell me how bad I am (simply repulsive in God’s sight), while expecting me to far “better” than I could ever be (a person without lust, anger, or doubt.) The church isn’t talking about the things that make me weep or laugh or set my teeth on edge or keep me up at night.

(3) The church restricts my behavior. Yoga is suspect; partying is definitely condemned. I don’t care if these suggestions are good or bad, I simply don’t like rules. The church isn’t teaching me to live in a way that contributes to my health, or the flourishing of my communities and my world.

(4) The church is racist. Churches are filled with people who look, think, and talk the same way. Worse yet, they don’t desire or imagine that things should be any different.

(5) The church is sexist. As a woman pursuing ordained ministry, I despair when I remember that I could enter almost any other field and encounter less resistance based on my gender.

(6) The church doesn’t see me or make use of my gifts. I am seen as volunteer power, one unit to fill a slot in a long-running program. No one asks me what I like to do, what I’m good at, or what I might dream up for our community.

(7) Fundraising, programming, and ceremony are take precedence over relationship. Church leaders don’t have time to talk to me because they are writing an email to someone more important.

(8) A lot of religious people are really annoying. I don’t know if religious people are any more annoying than the general population, but they do seem to be more self-righteous about it.

(9) Worship is boring. Nothing happens. I don’t do anything, feel anything, smell anything, learn anything.

(10) The church forgets that God is real. People don't go to church expecting that God will move, or open the Bible expecting that God will speak. The church asks God for help with its work, but doesn’t pay much attention to what God is up to.

Bad Behavior

2011-12-10T04:37:00.005-05:00

Fifty or so parents, mostly mothers, crowded into the school cafeteria. Most of them squeezed into child-sized benches facing the front. Others, like me, sat on tables at the side or stood in the back. They held babies in their arms, sometimes nursing them, and were followed by small children who played by their feet or at the edges of the room with their friends. These were Roma: parents, siblings, or students of the school for Roma children on the edge of town. The school's Hungarian and Ukrainian teachers stood in a line along the side near the front of the room, and a few others with the director in the center.

For the next hour, those up front directed themselves to the room at large. A chief concern was the problem of school attendance. They spoke about the importance that kids come to school and on time and stay for the whole day, and that children continue to attend as they progress to the older classes.

Whatever the intentions, the results as I surveyed this scene were comically tragic. At several points the parents erupted in laughter at this or that suggestion. I felt so much loose energy in the room that I myself could not sit still by the meeting's close. These parents began by talking with neighbors, but were soon motioning to others across the room. They shifted in their places or announced an opinion to no one in particular; nearly all the men stepped out for a cigarette.

I expect that the teachers left feeling that all their negative opinions of Roma had been confirmed - irresponsible, disrespectful, uncooperative, indifferent to the wellbeing of their children, impossible to work with. And these beliefs will come out in the way teachers interact with their students. I doubt that the parents left with a flattering portrait of their children's teachers, and this will do little to mitigate the problem of low school attendance. The disappointment is that two groups of people left the room continuing to believe the worst about one another. It's not a surprise; the meeting wasn't conducted any differently than if the audience had been the children themselves.

I'm trying to imagine my way toward a different model, one in which both parties get the benefit of adult-sized furniture. The conversation might begin with questions. Why are children missing school? Because their help is needed at home? Because they worry that others will tease them about their clothes or shoes? Because they are sick? And if so, why? Because they simply don't like the humiliating treatment they get from teachers? What can we do together to work on the problems? How do the parents understand the community's challenges, and do they get any say in the way their children are educated?

Until we truly listen to another adult human being, we find no antidote for our negative stereotypes.

Images of God, Pt. 2

2011-11-22T11:00:00.003-05:00

The child who exclaims my name every time she sees me. Surely God also takes such delight at my ongoing presence in this world.

A certain wise, young woman with whom I would love to knit for hours on end, discussing theology and the shape of our lives. Because God is also a safe place in which my deepest knowings find their way into expression.

A young man who is learning to let his heart break. Maybe God once also wavered before choosing the heartbreaking risk of love.

A mentor who winks from the corner right before my voice begins to waver: Yes, this is right, keep going. God also supports my cause, both a cheerleader and a dread warrior.

Another young girl who runs alongside my bike, smiling, after we say good-bye; God also goes with me on my journey.

When I forget that it is not customary for men and women to shake hands, God is a man who steps in and shakes my hand after I offer it to one who doesn't take it or doesn't see. Even the day's small dyings do not go unnoticed, and my God will not let me be put to shame.

An old woman who makes sure I have food for each day, and plenty of it. In her God feeds me, and cares for my needs with steadfast dailiness.

A woman who smiles at me from the pulpit when I enter church a minute late. God always invites me in, however frantic my arrival.

To whom do we bear the image of God but to one another? How would I know what God looks like apart from my sisters and my brothers? We are not God, none of us but one. And yet somehow we are God, from body to breath to spirit, just as surely as we are also dust and carbon and animal.

Take care, you are the presence of God on earth. Far from perfect, I know, but an imperfect witness to something of the mystery of God, a piece to which you bear witness more perfectly than anyone else. If you do not believe me, ask, and I will tell you what I see of God in you.

Images of God

2011-11-17T11:49:00.008-05:00

A cross on a hill right outside town.

You are a good meal shared with friends;

a hot cup of tea first thing in the morning.

You are a tall tree,

and the itch to pick up my pen.

You are the fire in my belly

and the salty tears on my cheeks.

You are the dance - the moment of self-forgetfulness.

You are a full-bellied laugh

and that instant when eyes catch.

You are the swing and the hammock and a lover's arms.

When I stood with a friend on the beach of Lake Erie,

you were the sky curved around us, dazzling and protective.

You are the children who gather around my bicycle in a dusty nowhere;

you are the Hungarian grandmother who prays for me.

You are the smell of clean hands,

not the stars so much as the remembering of how big is this universe.

You are my longing and my never-fully-satisfied.

Wednesday's Mail

2011-11-11T09:39:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday morning I found a thick packet from my denomination's office on the counter in the church kitchen. I knew what to expect as I opened the manilla envelope: a short stack of missionary updates from folks serving around the globe, and the fall edition of a denominational magazine. My reactions to these contents were mixed. On the one hand, the envelope was a friendly greeting from a world that is familiar and understandable. I was inspired to see the many places where God has called others to serve. I read about "turn around" churches, new initiatives, successful partnerships, and unexpected ways that missionaries and churches have found to meet the needs of their communities.

But. All of this seems so far away from my experience. Granted I'm not a full-fledged missionary or ordained minister, just a seminary graduate and year-long volunteer. It's possible that the seasoned professionals know something that I have yet to figure out. But let me say: my life so far as a volunteer does not feel like the stuff of the clean, glossy pages I pulled out of that envelope. Most of the time I just feel confused. Even my hard-won linguistic gains are lost in most conversations when PANIC! inevitably sets in and my brain seemingly shuts down. As many days as not, I wonder if me/God/someone made a mistake in my getting here. I have felt joy and purpose, but I have also played host to loneliness, apathy, despair, and anger.

I will soon be writing (something) to share with folks back home who love, pray for, and support me. I could also write it that voice of secure optimism. But if my words turned up in the hands of some other young volunteer, would she be able to recognize this account as her own? Would it convey something of what it actually feels like to be seeking to follow God in a foreign land?

This is a question for those of us involved in ministries of all sorts. From brochures, newsletters, blogs, and snappy introductions, how do we talk about the work that we are trying to do? Can I write home trying to demonstrate that my work is important while I'm still in the process of figuring out what it is? Is there space in the pages of our publications for programs that flop, initiatives that prove misguided, or churches that close? Aren't these also part of the story, or is it only the success stories that point to the good news of what God is doing in our midst?

It's time to inject our prose with a little more honesty. Let's talk about our work in a way that reads a little less like an annual report and a little more like the book of Acts. The stories of Acts give me plenty to aspire to. But in them I also meet something of my own experience - the same struggle and well-intentioned bungling. Its (human) characters are hardly heroes, but their stories have proved to have a bit of staying power.

In response to an email I wrote on a particularly rough day a friend of mine replied, "It is such an encouragement to me to hear about someone else's struggles. (Sorry about that!) To hear about someone else's humanness and desires and search for God in the midst of life." My thoughts exactly. It's easy to assume that our audiences want to hear cheerful tidings of goals exceeded. But maybe some would like to hear that they aren't the only ones having a hard time seeing what God is doing in their lives. With this admission begins hope in one who is able to do more than we expect or imagine.

i say goodbye, but you say hello.

2011-10-26T08:11:00.001-04:00

This past weekend, my mother exhorted me to write a post about some of the cultural quirks that I have noticed. These are a few things that came to mind off the top of my head.

(1) The practice of eating foods that I would classify as "dessert" as an entree. For example, doughnut-esque fried bread with jam. For lunch. Not that I'm complaining.

(2) Local hospital policy requires that I bring with me slippers when I go to visit patients. I change out of my shoes in the lobby and put on a pair of slippers before continuing to the floors. I assume this is for the cleanliness of the floors, but I'm still confused as to why changing shoes is a higher priority than washing hands.

(3) Since the weather has turned chilly, it is now common for people to live in a single room of the house which they heat by a lit stove burner left to burn around the clock.

(4) There are a lot of factors to keep in mind when looking for the right words to greet someone: age, gender, and level of familiarity. To complicate things, the cut-off between "Good Morning" and "Good Day" hits several hours earlier than I expect. There are also particular expressions for someone who is sick, who is eating, as well as for people of a common faith. Often two or more will be strung together in a phenomenon I call "the run-on greeting." For example, someone who greets me as I eat breakfast in the church kitchen would probably say, "Blessings and Peace. Good morning. Enjoy your meal." I find this a little confusing.

(5) Also on the subject of greetings, the informal greeting, "Szia," is used for both hello and goodbye. The same rules apply for the English "Hello," which has also been adopted in the Hungarian vernacular. This produces a befuddling but highly enjoyable situation in which people not unfrequently say, "Hello" as a way of saying goodbye.

Expecting Advent

2011-10-24T15:02:00.004-04:00

Today I write about waiting. I set out to wonder about how the liturgical calendar trains Christians in the art of waiting. I got plenty of material out of the first season of the church calendar, and it now seems that I am offering a very, very early Advent post (and possibly an early indication that I am very, very bad at waiting.)

Much of our lives are a waiting, and this has been especially true of my first two months in this new country. Waiting for the language to kick in. Waiting for kindred spirits to show up. Waiting for the heating to work in my room. (And surely ever other waiting would be easier if only I weren't so cold!) Waiting for things to make sense. Waiting to understand why I am here. Waiting for the end of the car alarm that first sounded a few hours before I went to bed, and was still chirping when I woke up and began writing the next morning. (I say chirping because I tried to delude myself into thinking it was a cricket, which somehow would have been marginally less annoying.)

To think about waiting through the lens of the liturgical calender, I start with Advent. It is not only the first season but also my favorite, and my favorite way of waiting. I am a child again in Advent, transfixed by candles and the promise of gifts. Advent is the slow savoring of a warm beverage. Waiting for Jesus to show up around us can be a painful wait, but for me it is like the pain of a suspended note, or of a sad song. Maybe my mind is simply clouded by the Christmas sparkle of commercialism, but the disonnance of Advent always seems so close to beauty. In Advent we wait for a miracle, already knowing how and when the miracle will come. The virtues to cultivate in Advent are hope, joy, peace, and awe.

But what in life is like Advent? Maybe its like after you've bought a plane ticket and spend the weeks looking forward to a reunion, or your lunch break marking the pages of a guidebook. Advent is looking forward to a joyful celebration that operates on a clear timeframe. But life is different than the liturgical calendar in that there is no calender. No one knows how the seasons of life will come and go, nor are we able to change their course. Around Advent season I also wait eagerly for the first proper snowfall. This is maybe a bit closer to real-life waiting, because you don't know quite when to expect snow, until it just shows up.

Christmas and snow and plane tickets. I can wait respectably for any of these three. But when it comes to waiting for good things to unfold in my own life, I am neither so hopeful nor so joyful. When things take longer to happen than I want, my first instinct is to doubt that they ever will. My waiting is mostly anxious, frenzied, despairing... frustrated, petrified, pissed off.

If Advent is the season of expectant waiting, what is the name for the season of waiting for hope? How do I wait for something that I can't mark on my calendar? Is it possible to wait faithfully when you can't imagine how the things you're praying for will come into being?

If I believed that God would deliver on God's promises with the same inevitability that I believe snow will fall in winter... I would probably still hate waiting. But there would be less fear in waiting, and with freedom from fear comes the possibility of love.

Potatoes

2011-09-25T08:59:00.003-04:00

Vincent Van Gogh Basket of Potatoes, 1885.

I once lived in a world in which I knew how to peel potatoes. I could also chop them. Ditto with carrots and other vegetables. In my house the potato peeler is usually in the silverware drawer. I retrieve it and peel the potatoes over the sink, or the trash can, or maybe a plastic bag. After a good rinse, I stand at the counter with cutting board and knife and, you know, chop.

In this corner of the world, vegetables are chopped outside by women squatting on small stools, usually in pairs or trios. They use a knife to peel fruits and vegetables, like my Grandmother and other women of her era whom I have watched admiringly. They hold the potato in one hand and a knife in the other and, somehow, leveraging potato and knife and hands, cut across the vegetable's poles. Then, instead of pushing the knife down as if toward the cutting board, they slice up through the vegetable toward the thumb, letting wedges fall into the bucket of water.

On Friday I traveled with a fellow volunteer to the Deaconial center a bit outside of town, to see how we might be of service. The center includes an office, a bakery, a farm, a social kitchen, a guesthouse, a home for the elderly, a school for children with disabilities, a warehouse for receiving donations...among other things I am probably forgetting. I didn't know which of these activities I might be involved in as I parked my bike at about 9:07 am. I soon learned that I was assigned, for the day, to the kitchen, where my duties included the peeling and chopping of a large quantity of potatoes.

I found myself on the patio outside the kitchen: a box of potatoes to my left, a box of potato peels to my right, and in the middle a large blue bucket filled with water and chopped potatoes. My initial attempts to peel the potato with a knife caused some distress to the women around me, who probably guessed that I was in danger of slicing open my own hand. They showed me to position my thumb well away from the knife. Peeling was only the beginning of my troubles. The potato in my hand flopped about like a fish as I tried to cut it into pieces. The others occasionally paused from their labors and watched me with concern.

I thought with equal parts embarrassment and delight, "I no longer know how to peel a potato." This was sad and frustrating and funny, but it was such a lovely day, and I got to listen to the quiet hum of the women around me. They had been peeling and chopping in this way their whole lives, and I wondered if they could know how beautiful it all was. And I thought about the potato in my hand, its color and shape and feel, and that it would give life to someone I did not know. And by the end I had progressed to chopping one potato for every eight chopped by the others, or something like that, and I got this beautiful cross-cultural-vegetable-chopping-experience.

How will we be safe?

2011-09-11T05:43:00.006-04:00

This day our hearts were broken; our anger lit as bodies quaked.

We cried out and we cry out still:

How can we be sure it never happens again?

Terrified, we launched a war against our own fear:

How will we be safe?

Through the quality of our intelligence,

the strength of our arms,

the valor of our soldiers,

the even-handedness of our diplomacy,

our works of compassion?

O Lord, Have mercy on us. After so many disappointments, we still do not know the ways that make for peace.

How will we be safe from ourselves?

How will we be safe when fear and anger prompt us to spy and bomb and torture?

O Lord, grant courage to preachers as well as soldiers,

wisdom to teachers as to politicians,

that we may learn to live by our own best principles.

But God, who will protect me from the seed of hatred in my own heart?

How can I be safe with the anger and selfishness at work within me -

my own violent ideology

that regards fellow creatures as competitors

that prizes my comfort over a neighbor's survival.

Correct me, O Lord, but in just measure, not in your anger or you will bring me to nothing.

What is terror?

Surely not the enemy,

but the experience of my own vulnerability,

and a sign of how deeply we can harm one another.

The wise tell us:

the enmity in human heart is not so great as its capacity for love

(this is true for ourselves even as for our enemies.)

Love marches forward with relentless inevitability, bringing freedom, justice, and peace.

These are greater than hatred and self-preservation and even stinginess.

Help us all, O Lord, to repent of our folly;

Help us to love.

Two Windows.

2011-09-10T11:02:00.007-04:00

The first building you see at the bottom right is the tail end of the dorm where I live. You heard me right. It is a good thing I love dorm life, because this year marks my sixth total, and fourth consecutive year living in a student dormitory. Of course there are some drawbacks to dorm living, but I've already purchased earplugs to mitigate against that problem. I have met only a few of the students so far, my progress being hampered both by poor Hungarian and general shyness. But we have been carefully watching each other and greeting one another with a furtive "Hello" (they to me) or "Szia" (me to them.)

The second building is the Reformed church here in town. The primary indicator of the church's denominational affiliation is the star on the spire (which you can't really make out in the photo) as opposed to the cross of the Catholic church a bit down the street. The bells sound at about 7:53 every morning except Sunday, and this is my usual signal to make my way across for the daily 8:00 am service. Relative to other morning prayer services I have attended, this is heavy on preaching and light on Psalms and sacrament. This is unfortunate, because I go mostly to sing and to look at people, and manage to pick up only a few words of the service. I look mostly at women. This is not only because women outnumber men at the service, but because the sanctuary is constructed of two sets of pews facing each other: one for men and the other for women. I have been sitting at the back of the men's side, closer to the dorm building, which is sort of a younger-folks-mixed-gender section.

In front of the church is a pedestrian walkway that opens up to restaurants, shops, a small square, and an open-air market where one can acquire nearly any object that is able to be acquired in Transcarpathia. This street is bustling in the morning, but quiet by about 2 in the afternoon. Often the walkers are serenaded by a man playing an accordion. Which is nice, but I think he knows approximately two songs.

The building in the foreground is a Hungarian-speaking college, and the dorm where I live houses about fifty of its students. Like all of Transcarpathia, the college's building has undergone many transformations. One student (an English major) informed me that the building was a factory during World War II, and that the striped circle in the middle used to hold a Soviet symbol. There were some other things too, but they have since slipped my memory.

Now to the other side of the building. This photo was taken from my room window. This is one of the main streets here in town, and following it in the direction of the car pictured would take you across the border to Hungary. Here you see a bank, a few shops, and the Beregszászian equivalent of the wawa (i.e. lots of liquor to supplement the junk food.) Most of the signs are in Ukrainian. From this street I hear with equal frequency (a) car alarms and (b) horse-drawn carts. I also observe the passing of many interesting-looking cars, about which I cannot supply any information beyond that they are ancient and Russian-made (Hi Tim!).

I don't know how to end this. I can't believe I live here!

Hungarian Lesson #1: Beregszász

2011-09-10T06:24:00.006-04:00

I intend to write a more substantial post later in the weekend, but this is just a brief-study-break-post in response to a reader inquiry: How do you pronounce "Beregszász," the name of the city where I currently reside? (For you, Becca!)

You need three pieces of information.

1. Vowels. The vowels are a snap for my German colleagues, but I've struggled with hearing and producing Hungarian's long, roundy "o" and "u" sounds. These have yet to find a permanent home on my English palette. But! I have a vowel pronunciation list and examples on the wall right in front of me. Luckily, you won't have to contend with o, ó, ö, ő, u, ú, ü, or ű in this lesson, just "e" as in elephant and "á" like in unbelievable.

2. "Sz." This is easier. In Hungarian "s" is equivalent to an English "sh." "Sz" is an English "s." Plain and simple. To me, "szász" ends up sounding like the English word "sauce." Got it? Great. Now I wonder what bereg sauce would taste like...?

3. Finally, and most importantly, every word is accented on the first syllable (Thanks, Daniel!).

Now you're ready to give it a try: Beregszász. Excellent.

Keep the questions coming!

The Very Beginning

2011-09-01T11:51:00.003-04:00

A few of you have been making noise about my silence since I left the country nearly two weeks ago. Today I begin to answer your request. Due to storms on the East coast, my adventure began with a false start. I spent the whole day at the airport and did'nt manage to leave the city of Cleveland. Since my family was out of town and I had given away my phone, I was left to navigate my way back home, praying that the house-sitter was present,or that she had left the door unlocked. I was in luck and was able to enter the house and get a good night's rest before starting the same process the next day.

Despite this rocky start,my subsequent travels have been without a glitch. I made it safely to Budapest and got to see a few sights and talk with a missionary there about what to expect from my experience. The next day we drove East and crossed the border into Ukraine. Eight km later I was in the charming town of Beregszasz, and within another hour I was at a desk beginning my Hungarian lessons.

The subsequent week and a half has been a blur. At last count, our class had learned over 500 vocab words, but it still seems that I have been making little to no progress with this peculiar language. My eight fellow volunteers are all German, and all but one are now scattered at placements throughout Transcarpathia. Two of us remain in Beregszasz where are primary (or perhaps sole) occupations have been studying, sleeping, eating, and exploring the place that is now our home.

I will have much more to say about this place, its people, and its ways in coming weeks. As all my mental energies are subsumed by language learning and generally finding my way around, that is as much as I have to say for one day. I would love to hear from you in the meantime!

My Departure is Now Imminent!

2011-08-18T12:12:00.005-04:00

After a few blurry weeks of packing, preparations, and goodbyes, I am happy to report that it is now exactly one (ONE!) day until I depart for Budapest. Over the weekend I will have a bit of time to get oriented and to make my way to western Ukraine before beginning intensive language classes on Monday. From there I begin a year of hard work, new relationships, and cross-cultural learning.

I still know very little about what to expect in the coming year, but I am grateful for the people I carry with me and prayers that send me off. My hope is to be intentional about partnering with you in my work and asking for your support along the way. I'll be writing and reflecting here. I also plan to send out a quarterly newsletter to friends and supporters. If interested, you can find the sign-up form to the right. I love getting emails, notes, and letters and will give you my address when I have it. You can also give to support my work.

I will tell you know as I know more. Know that I am grateful for your care and support. God Bless!

Lessons from a Chaplain

2011-08-18T12:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I completed a unit of CPE. Hooray! For those not in the know, this means that I spent the summer as a hospital chaplain offering spiritual care to patients, families, and staff. At this juncture I want to pause and highlight a few (of many) reflections from my experience.

1. Human beings have a lot in common. Initially I worried about offering care to people of different faiths, backgrounds, ages... in short, people with whom I might have little to nothing in common. Don't get me wrong, the differences are real and require our attention, but the hospital has a way of leveling our careful distinctions. We all have bodies, we all get sick, we all face death. These tough realities stir up many of the same emotions and reactions, no matter where you're from or who you pray to. We're not really that different, and it's little more than luck that I'm the one who gets to leave the hospital at the end of the day.

2. I get angry. We're taught that anger is bad and dangerous. You're not supposed to get angry, and I thought I wasn't. Like any emotion, anger has its own story to tell, and it is only dangerous when we fail to listen to what it has to say. Anger tells us what we need, especially from other people. Anger warns us that we might be viewing our fellow humans as competitors rather than collaborators.

3. It's always about me. The words I speak and the silences I hold, the details I notice and those I ignore, the questions I answer and those I deflect, the emotions I feel and those I suppress, the people I love and the ones that drive me crazy... What I do as a minister is almost never about the person I am ministering to and almost always about me: my story, my family, my pain and insecurities, my hopes and desires. Being a chaplain is first of all about being a person, and I can only "help" others so far as I have sought help myself.

4. God shows up. Whatever heinous, horrible, or unfair things human beings have to go through, God always shows up. God shows up in people and in signs and in small surprises. God shows up in ways we may not be able to recognize until days, weeks, or even years after the fact. There is always a miracle and there is always healing, just not usually in the form we're looking for. I believe this more than ever, because God showed up for me this summer in ways I am only now beginning to see.

I...

2011-07-12T19:43:00.007-04:00

... have been mostly absent for the last, oh, eight months. What have I been up to? Great question! Here's a start:

I...starred in a Britney Spears parody video.

...graduated with my M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.

...received The Seward Hiltner Award in Theology and Personality (still puzzling over what that might mean.)

...traveled to the Northwest (Seattle.Vancouver.BainbridgeIsland) with a good friend to celebrate the end of the school year.

...recycled scrap paper into notebooks and fashioned an old book into a kindle cover (not a project for the faint of heart!)

...moved back to Cleveland for the summer to complete a unit of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at the Cleveland Clinic.

AND... really big news... decided to volunteer during the upcoming year among the Roma in Hungary. More recently I learned that I have been placed in Berehove, a city in a Hungarian-speaking region of Ukraine. Look for more to follow, but if I've already piqued your interest you can support me here. Be sure to select my name in the "Designation" field.

Objects lost, broken, and dusty

2011-03-12T19:20:00.007-05:00

A post-purchase photo of earrings

that broke within a few weeks.

Walking toward the train after church, I realized that one of my earrings had dropped. I briefly retraced my steps, but quickly realized that my cause was hopeless. It sounds irrational, but I felt like I could break down in tears. I had bought the pair in Cape Town, on a side street where women huddled behind tables that displayed old jewelry and other antiqueish items. Instead of crying I bought peanut butter M&Ms.

I'm often caught off guard by the deep sadness that comes when I part with a loved object. Earrings cause me the most grief; they are so easily dropped, lost, or broken. They're up there with umbrellas and anything homeknit, so easily (and tragically!) forgotten on a train or a coffee-shop or an airport. A lost object means so much more than itself; it stands for every loss - past and future - and every separation. One of the great lessons of my adult life is that earrings simply do not last. You cannot buy a pair expecting them to own them forever.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matthew 6:19-20.

Lent is a season to consider what will not last. I had the privilege of giving out ashes on Wednesday, announcing, as I placed my thumb to a stranger's forehead, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return." It was hard to forget my own dustiness as the ashes clung to everything I touched; a remnant remains lodged under my right thumbnail. My body is turned toward decay with the same inevitability that earrings break and fall to the ground. The wisdom of Lent is that this knowledge is a comfort. It is a comfort to remember what will last and what will not.

For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also. Matthew 6:21.

My Life with Tea

2011-02-24T21:25:00.004-05:00

I want to write about tea. For the last three or four months I have been beginning my mornings with tea, usually black. I try to tell myself as my feet hit the floor, "Rachel. For these very first moments that you are awake, all you have to think about is making a cup of tea."

Some mornings I am good at making tea. I watch water pour into my hot pot. I carefully select a mug and hold it in my two hands. I sit quietly while the water heats, waiting for the sound of its soft turnings. When I empty the hot water into my mug, I take a deep breath of dark, earthy tea smells. I watch the hue of the water darken; I observe the smoke curling away from my window. The mug is hot now and I like to hold it near my chest or place a hand lightly at its side. The warmth calls me out of my slumber and soothes me. I am calm but alert, because the water and the surface of my mug are hot enough to burn me. Removing the tea bag, I take my seat. I cradle my mug, put my lip to its lip, not yet daring to drink.

Most mornings I am pretty mediocre at making tea. I fill the hot pot while brushing my teeth. The water boils and I'm putting away clothes or making my bed. As the tea steeps, I run through my to-do list, I rehash old conversations, I try to remember something from a dream that is always just out of reach. The tea is far from my mind while I do battle with anxiety or guilt or fear or self-doubt in whatever dress they are donning for the day. I sip the tea, but I feel vaguely distant, scattered, anxious.

Making a cup of tea should be a simple thing. I've learned that it takes a lot of practice. I keep trying. If I could be perfectly present to a cup of tea, I believe I might be capable of anything.

In Which I Wish Happy Birthday to Myself

2010-12-18T11:34:00.005-05:00

I began birthday celebrations with a bit of shopping. I headed to the Paper Source to pick up a new journal and brightly colored pieces of cover weight paper for upcoming craft projects.

I was recently introduced to the idea of taking the Psalm of your birth year. I was also introduced to the idea of making books by folding sheets of paper together and sewing down the spine. Today I turn 24 and I recently made a book for Psalm 24. I painted the cover with water colors and sewed the spine with a thin piece of pinkish-purple yarn.

On the inside pages I wrote the verses and pasted pictures from magazines and newspapers.

Psalm 24:3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?

I hope this is only the beginning of many adventures in book-binding, and the beginning of a rich and fruitful year.

Not a Top Ten.

2010-12-14T20:27:00.001-05:00

Rankings and favorites would be a bit too much for my finals-addled brain. This is a more modest project. Just 10 from 2010. Not necessarily the best, not necessarily exceptional in any way, just a few songs and artists I've enjoyed over the last year. Just an excuse to break from study and review some good tunes.

Carolina Chocolate Drops "Hit 'Em Up Style"

Clogs "Last Song"

Jonsi - "Go Do"

Knaan "Wavin Flag"

It feels a bit tired. But it will forever be the anthem of summer 2010.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - "Vipassana"

Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"

Robyn "Dancing on My Own"

Esperanza Spalding "Little Fly"

Sufjan Stevens "I Walked"

Vampire Weekend - "Cousins"

The Story of How I Became Shockingly Proficient with Puff Paint

2010-12-08T09:50:00.001-05:00

Would you believe that I found a way to combine two of my greatest loves, theology and arts & crafts, for the final of a grad school class? I was working with a group that made a community quilt for the final our African American Religious History class, and each of us created four blocks for the quilt. I spent much of my Thanksgiving holiday with puff paint, fabric markers, needle and thread, and a book on African American quilting traditions. I have loved and devoted a lot of time to this project.

This is Jarena Lee.

She is the kind of strong, intelligent, independent, religious woman that I'm bound to become obsessed with. Who would expect a black woman to become a preacher of the Gospel in early 19th-century America? God called Jarena Lee to do just that. I knew from the outset that I would have to make a square about Jarena Lee. I chose to depict a moment when, after a moving, spiritual experience, she finds herself outside with her hands outstretched. She takes on the form of the cross in her body. She reinterprets her experience and her identity in light of Christ is empowered to become a preacher of the Gospel. I interpreted the heavens as a Texas Star Quilt, and I hand-sewed the features of the face so I could express more detail.

I was haunted by a second image that we are less eager to claim as part of our national heritage. That is lynching in the post-reconstruction South. For Christians, violent death on a tree quickly evokes the memory of the crucifixion. I struggled for a long time with how to depict this material in a truthful manner. I searched Coptic and Ethiopian icons for the figure represented. I did this to express the long history of Christianity in Africa, but I was also making a theological statement that Christ is present with and suffers with all who endure prejudice and violence. I chose this image because the features of the face were quite simple.

I still can't get these images out of my head. In the case of Jarena Lee the cross meant a voice that was emboldened to speak, while here it represents a voice that has been extinguished.

Taken together the set portray moments of both liberation and enslavement, their involvement with Christian spirituality, and the indomitable hunger for freedom. In different ways, each block draws on African American quilting traditions as a testament to the women, who whatever their circumstances, sought to keep loved ones warm and to make life more beautiful.

This is the completed quilt.

Advent 2

2010-12-05T17:24:00.005-05:00

Isaiah 11:1-10. Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19. Romans 15:4-13. Matthew 3:1-12.

Edward Hicks
(American, 1780-1849)
Peaceable Kingdom, ca. 1848

In part:

To be sung to "All I Want is You" from Juno:

The wolf and the lamb and the leopard and the goat,

and a little child shall lead them all out.

The cow and the bear and the calf and the lion;

no more destruction on holy mount Zion.

In whole:

This morning I’ll be preaching on the Old Testament text, an oracle from the prophet Isaiah. Our text is a prophecy. A prophecy that looks toward the coming of one who has power that evil has not known or understood. This is one who will destroy evil forces, and set things right, and usher in a new era of peace. Many of us will be thinking about Jesus, that’s a solid default answer for perplexing questions in church. But I have a suspicion that for a certain demographic of our congregation, talk about prophecy, especially a birth prophecy, is just as likely to conjure the image of Harry as of Jesus. This latter group will remember what only need be referred to as The Prophecy. They will remember Sybil Trelawney, and that while famously inept as both seer and professor, her prophetic career does include exactly two highlights. The first arrives at the conclusion of an otherwise abysmal job interview. Just when she seems totally hopeless, she falls into a trance and utters those fated words: The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… and so on and so forth.

If you’re not a fan, I can direct you to a number of students in our midst who will happily catch you up on all you’ve missed. And if you are a fan, I hope you’ve gleaned a couple of life lessons from your reading. One of those lessons is that a prophecy is not always such a simple and innocent thing. A prophecy can be quite complicated, valuable, even dangerous. It can be a threat to a powerful Lord who has a lot at stake. And the words of a prophecy - even if they are true - can get you into a lot of trouble.

It is this sort of dangerous, hopeful, troubling word that Isaiah writes to God’s people Israel, describing what happens to a people driven out from their land. They suffer under rod and staff and whip and great burdens. If we read backwards in our text, we see this era depicted as the leveling of a forest. Where the tallest trees once stood, now there is only ash and waste. These were mighty trees, hundreds of years in the making, all brought low, cut down with terrifying power by the LORD of hosts. The LORD’s anger burns like a fire. It devours the life of the forest and is not consumed until so little remains that it can be recorded in the clumsy hand of a child

Like a well-crafted plot, the good news of the prophecy sweeps in just at the point when all seems lost. A child will be born, one who will shift the balance of power in the epic struggle between good and evil. This one will not be like the rulers who led them into confusion. God will bring up a ruler like the kings of old, a king from the line of David - one who walks in the fear of the LORD and on whom God’s Spirit rests. When all has been destroyed, one thin shoot rises from the rubble, winding and spinning its way toward heaven while its roots burrow deeper into the clay. It’s a moment of resurrection; a light that comes on when all other lights have grown dim. Then the leader will bring them out of bondage - out of Egypt and over the sea of Egypt and into the land of Israel. Its just like all the old stories they have almost ceased to hope in.

But as Isaiah writes the people are still waiting. They are waiting for this ruler that no one has seen and no one knows. I guess no one ever explained to God that its rude to make people wait. We too are waiting for a king that hasn’t been seen in the flesh for two thousand years. Imagine, it is exactly twenty days until Christmas. When there are wrapped gifts under your Christmas tree waiting to be opened, twenty days can be a long time, for some of you it will feel almost like an eternity. But we are practicing a far longer wait. We’ve been waiting not two years or twenty years or even two hundred years, but two thousand years. You’d probably wonder what that king was thinking by waiting so long. Did something better or more important come up? Did he forget? Does he even care?

When our waiting stretches into a span that surpasses our patience and understanding, Advent is a time when we turn toward a truth that is distant and barely visible. One of my favorite Advent stories is a novel by C.S. Lewis called Prince Caspian. The action takes place in a distant and magical land called Narnia, which long ago had been ruled by four children named Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. But that was so long ago that hardly no one remembers or even believes that they ever existed. Since the ancient rule by four children, things have gotten pretty bad in Narnia. The old inhabitants of Narnia have been driven off their lands by a foreign king named Miraz and now they face total extinction.

As the creatures wait and worry, they must make a decision about what to do with the old stories. Some creatures remember, like the badgers who are the historians among all the beasts. The badgers wait expectantly for ancient kings and queens to return and rescue them. Some of them, like the dwarfs, don’t want to bother with stories when they face the very real threat of a powerful and angry king. The dwarfs are skeptics who take matters into their own hands and plot to overthrow the Miraz on their own. The stories about the ancient kings and queens might be true- but there’s no way to know for certain, and no way to know if they might come back, and no way to know that they’ll be strong enough to battle Miraz’s armies.

But somehow King Miraz knows to be afraid of the old stories. In his very castle there was an old nurse who remembered these stories and told them to the King’s nephew. When the King found out he was so angry, and so afraid, that he banished the old nurse. It turns out the King was right to be afraid, because Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy do come back, and they do much good in the land of the Narnia. But I won’t tell you more for fear of spoiling a very good story.

Now I wonder if there were any dwarfs among us today, they might be thinking that Advent is the stuff of children’s fantasy novels. Maybe you don’t believe that a story counts for a whole lot in a world like ours. That is why I need to tell you the story of Julio. This is a true story, about a real person named Julio from a country called Chile, and as a young man he was a history teacher. Julio stands in a long line of truth-tellers who have been thrown in jail, cast out, or otherwise punished for their words. That list would include Harry, and the old nurse of Narnia, and even John the Baptist.

A man rose to power in his country who believed himself to be a protector of the people, but he killed many and did cruel and terrible things. When someone disagreed with him, or tried to stop him from doing these bad things, he would make that person to vanish into thin air. The name of that man was Augusto Pinochet. He did one thing that Julio and his family remember, even though most people have forgotten, because it seems so small after the many, horrible things that happened in that time. Pinochet was worried about the history teachers. He was worried because he didn’t want children to learn too much about the history of their country or too much about how he came to power. If children learned the truth, they might rise up and resist him.

What Pinochet did was to fire many of the history teachers and then replace them with his friends who would tell his lies and keep children from knowing too much. And that’s how Julio lost his job and went to prison for the crime of teaching history to schoolchildren, because the story he was telling was just that powerful. Some time later Julio was released from prison. He went on with his life, and had a family, and eventually he even found a way to forgive that bad man who had done cruel things to him and to his country. But that’s the kind of story to remember, I think, in the season of Easter.

We are a people who cling to a story. We tell a lot of stories. Stories about an oppressed people led into freedom, about a tree growing after a fire, about life emerging from death. The stories help us to believe and to hope. We rehearse so that this hope will dig deep into our souls and give light to our whole being. Edmund and Lucy did the same thing when they returned home after their visit to Narnia. The pair would steal away to talk about distant country, and remember what took place there, and wonder when they might go back. But Edmund and Lucy were different than other children who tell stories and play games. This is what the book says: “Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for us it is only an imaginary country. Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect. Their secret country was real.” This is important, because if it were only a daydream, or only a bedtime story to help a child fall asleep, I don’t think it would be worth all the trouble it causes. We are here on a Sunday morning because of an old story that we believe is true. Or if we are not able to believe, we go on wanting to believe, or are drawn into the story even when we don’t understand it.

I would like to tell you one final story, a story about a parade. The entrants are already lining up, just outside: wolf and lamb, cow and bear. There’s a lion, but don’t worry, she won’t harm anyone, not anymore, but you still might feel a shiver race through your body at her low, husky growls. I’m most eager to meet the leopard, because leopards today have a reputation for being sneaky and solitary. I wonder if it will be hard at first for everyone to get along, but eventually they move into formation behind their leader. You might not believe it at first, but the whole group is led just by a small child. Then they start marching, a ragtag band of animals following behind the child. They might start by tumbling down Seventh Avenue, or begin in the rubble that remains after a forest fire. That is only the beginning. This clanging, clamoring troupe is on the move. The child in front plays a trumpet, bounding up mountains and over rivers. They march through city and across farmland. They dance through suburbs and through slums, calling everyone to attention with a cacophony of grunts, roars, and meows. They squeeze through the hallways of hospital wards and they skate over melting ice caps. They sing and shout through refugee camps, pausing to play tag in a battlefield. They are on the move, coming toward us, just out of sight. Though we might now and again glimpse a reflection, or hear an echo of their celebration. And we pray for it to grow. And we pray to hear it more clearly. And we pray ever that we might see it more and more.

Are We a Hugging Family?

2010-11-24T09:12:00.001-05:00

This is what my family looked like in the 90s.

My imagination was seized by this question a dear friend asked in a recent sermon. She was playing with some of the "family" language that the Bible uses to describe the Christian life. God is father; the believer is a child of God. Most critical reflection on such images focuses on the, admittedly, problematic notion of imaging God as male and implicitly endorsing patriarchal hierarchies. This sermon cracked open this cluster of images with a single question:

Are we a hugging family?

If we're God's children, what sort of family do we belong to? a spanking family? a yelling family? a conflict averse family? Our experiences of family are incredibly diverse. Are we like the family I recently overheard on the train, yelling and cursing at a young child to "Shut up!" and "Sit down!"? Are we the kind of family where the slightest misstep triggers an explosion of anger? Are we a family that maintains a picture-perfect facade by depositing painful subjects out of sight? Are we tender? Do we tell our family we love them? Do we fight and do we know how to fight well? How does this family make decisions? What do we do when someone messes up or gets hurt? What kind of family do we want to be?

How is our theology shaped by personal experiences with families? What reaction do we expect as we approach God? And how does our encounter with God transform ideas of family, fatherhood, and relationship?

Halifax Highlights

2010-11-11T19:46:00.001-05:00

A few final highlights from my recent excursion to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Weather was gray and gloomy. I explored the downtown area (Halifax Public Gardens pictured below), but it was the kind of day you want to spend indoors with coffee and baked goods.

A visit to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic was on the top of my list. I especially enjoyed the exhibit about Canada's involvement in World War II and the convoys that transported goods to the Allied forces (my grandfather was in the RCAF.) I got a laugh out of the very sinister-looking German of this poster reminding Canadians to keep all information about convoys safely guarded.

Then it was off to the waterfront.

The ships that take tourists along the coast of Nova Scotia were out of commission for the season. Instead, I took the harbour ferry to nearby Dartmouth. At $2.25 round-trip, it was certainly a much cheaper alternative.

I started off the next morning with a trip to the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market where I spent my remaining Canadian coinage on delicious goodies before grabbing a shuttle to the airport. It was definitely a best-ever farmers' market.

I also found a pretty stellar used bookstore (my photograph does nothing to communicate the grandeur of this store!)

and I think I may have even stumbled across the YWCA on Barrington Street where my grandmother lived for a time during WWII. Gramma: Yay? Nay?

The Meaning of Mussels

2010-11-09T17:35:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like travel for condensing the full range of human emotion into the span of just a few hours. These were some of my initial experiences during the few days I set out to explore Halifax, Nova Scotia at the end of Reading Week.

I hit bottom shortly after arrival when my debit card wouldn't work at the atm in the pizza place down the block from my hostel. I panicked, imagining dozens of terrible scenarios that involved be navigating the next 36 hours without cash.

Then elation! My debit card worked at the atm at the supermarket a few blocks away and wasn't I quite silly to get worked up over something that wasn't a big deal!

Then confusion! Should I make the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia my first stop of the evening? Could I even enjoy art without food in my belly? I scarfed down a piece of pizza and made my way to the art gallery where it was donations night. I contributed nothing (on the advice of the man at the desk when he couldn't give me change).

Surely my free entrance was a Sign From God that I was in the right place! (My reactions are not only very Dramatic! but also a bit theologically suspect.)

Then I was ecstatic as I sat quietly in an exhibit replicating the sounds and movements of the ocean, imagining myself to be one with the Atlantic. Isn't solo traveling the best? What companion would let me sit and meditate on the fourth floor of an art gallery!

Then a floor down I was sad again. Isn't art more fun with a good friend to whom you can point out your favorite pieces?

Then I was desperate! Where should I go to eat real food? Am I even hungry? I furtively poked around windows - Is this the kind of place where a single gal can plop with a pint and a good book? And surely everyone will recognize me for an imposter, the very antithesis of a confident, solo world-traveler.

Then hooray! I found a fun, quiet-ish brewery with half price mussels!

Despite the ups and downs, the evening takes on a rosier hue in my memory. I'm so good at reselling the story to myself that I'll be totally caught off guard the next time I arrive in a foreign destination and am immediately ambushed by the feeling that I'm not brave enough to travel alone.

And the good news? The self-doubt always wears off in a couple of hours.

Playing Martha

2010-11-06T12:28:00.002-04:00

When I was a child, I believed that beef stew was the most horrible thing anyone had ever imagined. When I become an adult, I realized - what could be better than hearty vegetables simmering all day with herbs and broth? I put an end to my childish ways and ate beef stew with eagerness.

I made this stew just days after preaching a sermon on Luke 10:38-42. The Mary-Martha text. I thought a lot about Martha as I cooked. Martha gets a bad rap, but she isn't doing anything wrong. She's just like any of us - seeking to do what God has commanded, sometimes forgetting why she started, sometimes forgetting how little really depends on her. This is what I had said about Martha a few days earlier.

I know why Martha is busy in the kitchen. I know because I too speak love in food. I have inherited hands that fear idleness, but that delight in the preparation of a feast. Each ingredient is added with a cheer of gratitude. This time of year it is apples, walnuts, pumpkin. Peeling, dicing, stirring - each touch is a prayer. Hands give thanks for the earth’s bounty, for spice and variety, most of all for the people we love. Finally, the actual manufacture of food is not a goal so much as a byproduct of this litany of thanksgiving. For Martha it is a gift to have Jesus in her home. She shares her love for him in her hospitality - welcoming, preparing, cooking, serving.

I'm On a Train.

2010-11-04T10:28:00.006-04:00

As a girl I sometimes rode the train from my home in Miramichi to visit my grandparents in Moncton, NB. I loved it, as I told my mother, because you ate breakfast and then ended up wherever you were going. It sounds like a perfect arrangement.

Over Reading Week I took the next leg of the trip, from Moncton, NB to Halifax, NS. This time I walked onto the train platform at my destination with a recently-completed scarf - the long-longed for Lace Ribbon Scarf from Knitty. This scarf continues to be one of my favorite things about Fall 2010.

Knitting with a sock yarn made for a long project, so I celebrated its completion with an impromptu scarf photo shoot.

The Heavenly Banquet

2010-10-18T23:09:00.004-04:00

Listening to Barber's Hermit Songs, my ears perked up at the following text, ascribed to Saint Brigid of Ireland. It was just the eschatological hope I needed at the end of a long day at the beginning of a daunting week. Let's give thanks that the New Testament gives us plenty of reason to hope that we will one day be partying it up with Jesus. Amen.

I would like to have the men of Heaven
in my own house;
with vats of good cheer
laid out for them.

I would like to have the three Marys,
their fame is so great.
I would like people
from every corner of Heaven.

I would like them to be cheerful
in their drinking.
I would like to have Jesus, too,
here amongst them.

I would like a great lake of beer
for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven's family
Drinking it through all eternity.

Prayer is Pushing the Promise

2010-10-17T16:56:00.002-04:00

Jeremiah 31:27-34 - Psalm 119:97-104 - 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 - Luke 18:1-8

“The soul has to go on loving in the emptiness, or at least to go on wanting to love, though it may only be with an infinitesimal part of itself.” Simone Weil.

How many times did she walk away from the judge with the echo of that “No” sounding through her mind. The widow won her fight, in the end. It is not an easy victory. The parable raises the matter of unanswered prayer. What about the prayers to which the answer is no, or maybe, or not yet? What about the long silence that fills the spaces between our prayers? How do we account for the “No”s of God? A promise delayed, justice withheld - these are also part of the work of prayer.

Is prayer like a widow badgering a judge for justice? Are we the widow? Are we powerless outsiders fighting for justice against the odds? Is God the unjust judge? Is God an indifferent ruler who might be persuaded to take action, but only out of self-interest? The parable is complicated. It builds layers of both comparison and contrast. In some ways the answer is yes, we are like the widow. In other ways we must say no, prayer to a loving God is much different than the appeals of a widow for justice. The parable requires a bit of teasing to unravel the various ways in which it speaks to us of unanswered prayer.

One answer to unanswered prayer… is to turn up the volume. This is an approach that makes prayer something of an Olympic event. The motto is always “faster, higher, stronger.” I’ve seen this logic play out in devastating ways. A few years ago, I was connected to a community that suffered a tragedy. It was a painful and disorienting loss. The collective theologizing about this event took the form of a series of group emails. A few young students began to insist that if enough people prayed often and fervently enough, that this tragic event could be reversed. If we only had enough faith, surely a loving, all-powerful God could bring the dead back to life.

Is this the message of the parable? Gather more people. Pray longer, louder. Pound at heaven’s door until you get your answer. With enough exertion, you can get God to do the impossible. I found myself speechless in the face of such determined insistence. I found myself wanting to tell my fellow students to back off a bit, to lower their expectations. The memory is still accompanied by uncomfortable confusion. It still returns me to this question: When is it time to pray? And when is it time to face the reality of a horribly difficult situation?

How long can someone pray for the impossible? How long can a heart hold out? I can only speak for myself on this matter, but it seems that growing up often means learning to dampen your prayers with a heavy dose of realism. Life is a hard teacher. A beloved pet dies. You wake up on the first day of spring and the backyard is still buried under feet of dirty snow. The disagreements of parents don’t just smooth over. There is a loss of innocence the first time you pray really, really hard for something and it doesn’t happen. Maybe you learn the prayers of lowered-expectations. The prayers of lowered-expectations don’t start with our heart’s desires; they don’t hinge on faith in a God who is able to do all things. They exercise a much more cautious hope. Such prayers do not dare to imagine beyond the best-case scenario. They don’t dream beyond the parameters of what is reasonable. The prayers of lowered-expectations protect us from disappointment. Our text calls this “losing heart.”

What would this parable teach about the need to pray always and never to lose heart? I can’t imagine that the widow had much reasonable hope that her request would be met. As a woman on her own, she is boxed out from the power structures of her day. She has no real influence over those in power. A cynic would advise that she come to terms with her situation and move on. The anecdotal evidence does not support her course of action. Her hope flies in the face of logic.

Why doesn’t this widow simply lose heart? Why doesn’t she grow tired and despair? ‘Losing heart’ is the more reasonable alternative in her situation. It must be that she perseveres because she simply has no choice. She continues to believe that justice will be done because it is her only hope for survival. She is desperate, but she will not submit to the cruel turn of events. Her struggle is necessary in a way that goes beyond material needs. A part of her humanity would be lost if she accepted this mistreatment. Giving up would mean resigning herself to live in a world where injustice is perpetrated without penalty. She could not live with herself if she gave up because the fight was exhausting. She perseveres because the cost of giving up is too great. What could be worse than losing her heart?

Now when it comes to the unjust judge - the parable draws out the contrast between a loving God and an indifferent ruler. It’s a question really: Is your God like the uncharitable judge? Is praying to God like lobbying a calculating politician? Is the proximity to election season likely to color God’s response? Is God like so many corrupt rulers who maybe, under extreme international pressure, will show respects for human rights? Is God like that? Or like a large corporation that must be exposed and shamed before taking an interest in the environment and public health? That’s where the parable is drawing us. It asks us: What is the character of the God you pray to? Does God need a good reason to do what is good and just?

The gap widens. The story drives a wedge between our petitions to the powers that be, and our intercessions to a loving God. It reminds us of God’s character. Will God not grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? God is not like the judge who can only shows compassion out of self-interest. The judge acts to get rid of a pest. God acts out of love. We don’t need to repeat our prayers to get God’s attention. We don’t need to impress God with our enthusiasm to earn the right to be heard. God has promised to hear, to attend to the cries of God’s people. We are not outsiders pounding on the gates of heaven’s door. We are children. We are welcomed, we are heard, we already have God’s ear. The message is this: do not be fooled by the passing of time. God’s silence is never a sign of neglect.

Here’s another thing about the widow. She isn’t looking for a favor or a special dispensation. She only asks that the judge do what is right. She demands the justice that is her due as a member of the community. She tells the judge to do his job. As the widow appeals for justice, we pray for the fulfillment of God’s promises. Its not that you twist God’s arm, but that God has freely made promises to be faithful to the world. Prayer is telling God: do your job. Do what you said you would do. It sounds a bit impertinent. But we’re allowed to talk to God in this way. This speech even in its desperate grasping, acknowledges God as the one who is powerful to meet our requests. This speech tells God - you must take action, because you are the only one who can get us out of this mess.

This is what makes faith so much different than wishful thinking. Faith hinges on the object of trust. The natural habitat of prayer is that space when we have come to the end of our rope, when we have nothing left to summon for our cause. Prayer takes shape at the limit of our patience and endurance. When we face problems that totally transcend our own resources and understanding, the response of the people of God is prayer. The faulty logic of turning up the volume on our prayers, is the mistaken assumption that our requests depend on our own efforts. Prayer depends on God, on the promises God has already made.

The widow made her appeal based on the legal code of her community. Our appeal is based on God’s Word. God’s Word instructs us in the promises we claim. Think of the Constitution. It outlines the rights that each citizen can expect. You can defend yourself in court using the law as the authority that governs your rights and privileges. The promises of Scripture are the leverage that Christians use in prayer. Scripture reveals what we are compelled, not just to ask, but to demand of God. The Psalmist sings that God’s words are sweet to the taste. Sweeter than honey, the words lend understanding and wisdom. The promises teach us of peace and justice and fellowship. Those who are hungry will be filled. Weeping will be turned to laughter. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

We can hold God to God’s promises. The letter to Timothy points us to Scripture as the source of our instruction, equipping us for every good work. The letter exhorts the believer to persist in proclaiming the message whether the time is favorable or unfavorable. We proclaim the message in God’s presence. We tell God: remember, this is what you said you would do. We pray in light of Christ’s appearance and in light of his kingdom. Al of God’s promises converge at this point: in Christ’s appearance and his kingdom. God’s kingdom brings justice, peace, wholeness, restoration, forgiveness.

If you listen, this one prayer sounds in all our prayers. We pray for daily bread. We pray to be forgiven and for help to forgive. The petitions change, but the chorus is always the same: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We can pick out the theme in the Old Testament reading: The days are surely coming when I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD. The days are surely coming when I will bring restoration. All shall know me from least to greatest, and I will remember their sin no more. This promise is ours; the days are surely coming. We hear it again as we gather around the table. Every week we pray together, “Come Lord Jesus.” All our prayers are a leaning into that one promise: Come Lord Jesus. We grapple with God over that promise, pushing, demanding: show yourself to be God.

Prayer is a lot about waiting. Not just waiting for this or that request, but for the whole thing. We wait for the perfection of all that God has promised. We wait for Christ’s coming and the fulfillment of the kingdom. The teaching concludes with Jesus’ question: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Prayer is where our faith meets the promise of Christ’s coming. It is not a matter of the repetition of our prayers, but of their direction. Our prayers carry the weight of all that God has already promised, and the promises are the point where we push God. Prayer is how we wait, and it is the only way to wait without losing heart. Prayer is how we keep our hearts open before God. It is how we keep ourselves ready for Christ’s return. Keeping heart we pray, Come Lord Jesus.

Out of Ordinary Time

2010-10-10T20:40:00.004-04:00

My project this evening sent me flipping through last year's journal. I came across sketches of a prayer I wrote during Holy Week, in the midst of a spring when I was writing more-daring-than-usual prayers. After searching for the final version, I felt inspired to post. Though tisnt the season, I found myself in need of a bit of Resurrection today, which I believe we're allowed to celebrate all year round.

Jesus, you used your hands to make peace. You used your body to heal so many, to comfort and feed and offer life. In the end you gave up that body. Your side was pierced and your blood fell like so many hopes.

The flesh that God wore hung lifeless and began the steady process of decay. Death only begins when the heart stops beating. The body turns cold and blood pools. Deprived of oxygen, cells begin to die. You were like that for a day and a half before the miracle happened.

How did it start? Did your heart suddenly start up with a jolt of electricity? Maybe it began with a gulp of air, the first gasp of a man who thought he was drowning. Did God have to fix all the small stuff first, knitting together individual cells and molecules? What if your body just sped backward through time until you were suddenly alive again?

However it happened, it is the greatest miracle our dusty planet has ever seen. The whole world must have felt the shock of it; a cosmic shift that set everything in a new direction. There’s no way to quantify that kind of power, but it is at work in our world, in your church, and in me. It is the power that binds dead flesh so that it becomes alive again, and it is rivering out every which way into this world.

And Lord, if there is some way that I can be an agent of that power, I pray that you would give me strength for that task. Because there is so much hurt and so many bodies that need your healing touch. May I freely offer my life and my hands in service of your restoration - for binding up the bodies that you made for eternity. Form my mind in your impossible Sermon-on-the-Mount logic - that by loving enemies and turning cheeks and making peace your church might open small fissures to the power of your grace. Amen.

It's a Sad World

2010-09-27T20:59:00.004-04:00

I love sad songs. I enjoy but tire quickly of what is bright and buoyant. When I compile lists of favorite songs, songs I can't get enough of, songs I want to listen to over and over and over again, they are often punctuated by the morose, the melancholic, and the depressing.

When I made my daily visit to npr.org/music, the only thing that could (momentarily) distract me from "First Listen: Sufjan Stevens, 'The Age of Adz'" was "The Saddest Music In The World: 6 Tunes to Make You Teary-Eyed." The article explains the appeal of sad songs saying, "Music has a tremendous power to validate sorrow and set it free." But I'm not totally satisfied with this explanation. I delight in a deliciously mournful tune as much on a sunny, carefree day as I do when I'm in the "depths of despair."

I wondered about my own favorite sad songs and consulted the "Top 25 Most Played" of my itunes to uncover the following selections. "Sister Winter" (even though it takes a happier turn midway) and "Casimir Pulaski Day" by Sufjan Stevens, "Hope There's Someone" by Antony and the Johnsons, and "If It's the Beaches" by The Avett Brothers.

Another category is the deceptively sad song. I'm thinking of Ben Folds who disguises heavy content in driving piano triplets ("Zak & Sara") and in a cheerful D Major ("Brick"). At the other end of the spectrum is "Fred Jones, pt 2", a song of carefully extended and exquisite sadness that sometimes causes me physical pain (listen, don't watch the video).

A piece that requires (and rewards) a bit more listening is David Lang's "The Little Match Girl Passion."

What makes music sad and why do we love it? What are your favorite, saddest songs?

Is this Real Life?

2010-09-22T18:43:00.002-04:00

I had a meeting earlier today about my next steps toward ordination. I learned that I could begin looking for a church job as early as spring, and an ordained minister by this time next year. I was shocked. I had a totally different timeline in my head for when I might come out on the other side of this process.

I remember how it began, and in my defense, I am neither the first nor the last seminarian who has shed a few tears after reviewing the list of tasks one must complete to become an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America. It is a daunting list, but for the last year and a half I have been steadily marking checks in boxes. Now I can basically count on one hand the number of requirements I have yet to fulfill. Suddenly I wondered - Was I not paying attention during all those meetings and papers and forms? Could this be a real possibility just a year away? And who in their right mind would trust a 23-year-old to do this job?

How did I get here so fast? I work diligently in my classes because I enjoy learning and the material is interesting to me. Field placements are a game of pretend where I play the part of minister, trying on a new role to see how it fits. The many requirements for classis and seminary are a puzzle that my Type-A self plans over a two-year period and dispatches with efficiency. I talk about discerning a call to parish ministry; the reality of actually being a minister remains distant. But where's the magic that suddenly turns me into someone who can do a job like that?

February of 2009 was the first time in my adult life that I found myself consciously thinking that I might be called to be a pastor. Since then I've been convinced that I am called to ministry, but sometimes I doubt if it is exactly "me" who has been called. How do I explain this....

When I imagine myself as a minister, its always a me who is older and wiser, who has it all together, a person with more experience and a few adventures in her back pocket. This is a woman who has finally gotten around to reading The Brothers Karamazov, who has stopped eating white flour and wasting time on facebook. She's serenely poised in a posture of perfect emotional and spiritual balance, with favorite hobbies and leisure activities in tow. It's a me who is ready to be an adult, a real adult, ready cut her hair short(er), maybe even to start a family.

The real surprise is that maybe God's call has not been extended to "future-me," to Rachel 2.0, but me just as I am. I'm led to the greatest mystery of all, that God loves me, loves all of us, exactly as we are. Sometimes I even think God isn't particularly interested in the new and improved selves we try to pull together.

Today I experienced God's grace like a shudder, awe with a touch of terror. I contemplate the mystery that God might call a me who feels too young, too female, a bit reluctant to speak on God's behalf.

What are you holding back? Why are you afraid? If you will you can become all flame.

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

One more sleep

2010-08-06T05:29:00.001-04:00

Today is my last in the church office. I get on a plane for the U.S. tomorrow and I will arrive in Cleveland the day after that. I can only rely on those words I am famous for overusing... like "overwhelmed" and "liminal."

My brus in the church office are sending up last-minute prayers (as of yet unanswered) for a South African boyfriend who will bring me back to the country sooner rather than later. Having grown accustomed to their constant teasing, I think this is really quite sweet. It brings a smile to my face even as I'm sad to leave my new friends.

Do you know what is really the best thing in the whole world? Moms. I wrote to my mom in an email about my feeling of being tugged forwards and backwards. This is what she wrote back to me:

I understand your mixed emotions. We, however, are only happy that you'll be coming home.

Isn't that the best? That in a word is what makes moms so wonderful. I know I'll be greeted by parents and sisters who are thrilled to see me, who will inundate me with stories and inquiries saved up over months. I'll feel content and bewildered and nod happily with a somewhat drugged expression, until my body and emotions have caught up with being in a new place.

I won't have much rest, at least not right away, because my family is immediately bounding off on a camping trip. I'll be computer-less, so you may have to wait a few weeks for my brilliant replies to your online communications.

Thanks to everyone for being part of my journey; your love and support mean a great deal to me. I can't wait to see, hug, and catch up with each of you. Right now I'm at a loss to describe what my experience in South Africa has meant to me. I know I'll continue thinking and reflecting, and maybe in the weeks to come I will find clarity, or at least a few apt words.

In the meantime, I wonder where I left my collection of Micheal O'Siadhail poems....

I love Cape Town so much it hurts

2010-08-02T04:03:00.005-04:00

These are some photographic highlights of my recent trip to Cape Town. It was possibly the Best Week Ever! Please bear with me as I descend from the gushy, effusive, travel-high.

I explored museums and galleries.

I visited penguins.

I wandered the streets of Cape Town.

I took the cablecar up Table Mountain.

And then (somehow) got talked into hiking Table Mountain the next day. Shocking, I know.

I moozied about the Waterfront.

I was soaked by a wave at Cape Point.

I wined and dined around Stellenbosch.

I went to the coast, ate fish & chips, walked along the beach. This picture is called "brumance."

Only a few moments from a glorious week of eating, shopping, coffeeing, partying, exploring, hiking, thinking, meeting lots of new people, and generally having a good time. Yay!

Preaching. Potjiekos.

2010-08-02T03:19:00.005-04:00

I returned on Friday afternoon after a week of holiday in Cape Town. I quickly scrambled to put together a sermon that I preached Sunday August 1st. In the afternoon our church had its annual potjiekos (poy-kee-kawse) competition in the park. The word means little pot. You put meat, vegetables, and spices into a pot to make a sort of stew or roast. Our team created a more indigenous dish, but the cooking was finished by the time I emerged after church. All I had to do was don my "Swazi-girl" costume and enjoy the party. Our team won third-prize for our delicious dish and festive dress.

The outfit and the sermon:

Ecclesiastes !:2, 12-14; 2:18-23

Luke 12:13-21

The news spread quickly. You can imagine the report: prominent businessman dies suddenly. The cause of death has yet to be determined. As the town wakes up, each one passes the story along to his friend. They gasp and sputter. Wearied women cluck and shake their heads. The tale passes swiftly through the towns and farms. By midday you can look in any direction and see people discussing the incident. Who could have seen it coming? The questions are accompanied by plenty of speculation. They discuss homicide, suicide, an accident, an unknown medical condition, an act of God.

Everyone knew this man, an important citizen in their region. They were acquainted with his wealth and ambition. For years they had watched his careful plotting and planning with detached interest. He was always looking to expand – more land, bigger buildings. He carefully selected each new investment and was greatly rewarded for his efforts. The people had heard rumors of an astounding harvest, and whispers of a plan to build new barns. His storehouses simply could not accommodate the scale of his abundance. Then what would he do? He had plenty to retire early and live out his remaining years in comfort. Maybe he was lining up his next business prospect.

The shock of the morning has given way to sage retrospection by the time the sun sets. Everyone has an opinion. He worked himself to death, some say. He never learned how to be happy in life, always wanting more. He had too much ambition for his own good. Another will say- that’s what comes from having so much and sharing so little. Darkness settles and their conversation takes a distinctively theological turn. It just goes to show that money isn’t everything. Life is short, one comments, and it makes you think about the things that really matter. They say things like – money breeds problems – and - You can’t take it with you.

But can I tell you a secret? They don’t really believe these things. These are good, religious people and they don’t want to seem too infatuated with this man’s money. Instead they moralize about the meaning of life and the danger of riches. But none of them has quit a job or given away a field. They have forgotten that for years, they harbored envy and suspicion against this man. They’ll talk about money as if it were just one thing among many. Its nice to have, of course, but not the sum of human life. Yet even as they say these things, in secret each one has begun to think about the fortune that has been left behind. Each wonders who might come to claim the inheritance. Each will dream about what could be done with so much money: a new addition to the house, a better car in the garage, luxurious vacations, a closet devoted to shoes and designer handbags. But that’s only the beginning. They also think about elite schools for their children, taking care of aging parents, paying off bills. It would just be nice not to have to worry so much. It would be nice if your stomach didn’t flip every time a child coughs, or the car makes a strange noise, or something else breaks around the house. With that much money, a person could just relax. You could drink, eat, and be merry.

Its hard to be honest about money. Especially in church, we would like to act as if money weren’t really so important. Its nice to have, but its not everything. Talking is one thing, but it’s a good deal more difficult actually to live and plan and invest as if money didn’t matter. We all know the types of things you’re supposed to say about money, but those aren’t the kind of attitudes we would appreciate in a financial planner. Our world operates according to a different sort of lie. It’s the lie that riches can take care of all our needs and satisfy our deepest longings. In the real world we expect that stable finances can protect us from most of life’s problems. Living amidst such ambiguity, we might just be a bit confused on the matter of money. For though money can buy happiness, I don’t think it can buy joy. Money may buy admiration, but not love. Money can pay for comfort, but not for peace. Money can secure the best healthcare, but you can’t buy eternal life.

Some years ago I took a class called Introduction to Macroeconomics. In our first lesson, the very first principle we learned was the scarcity of resources. Our world has limits. There is only so much to go around. Manage and distribute as you will, the bottom line is that most people are not going to get as much as they might like. The whole idea of economics is based on this problem of scarcity, that we are all in competition for limited resources.

Take the case of these two brothers who come to speak to Jesus. There is only one inheritance to be divided and shared. Scarcity of resources. It is not enough for them. They quarrel and the conflict creates a fault line within the family. They sound a bit like two boys squabbling over a toy. Teacher, tell me brother to share with me. Sound familiar? We reached a point in my upbringing where my mother tired of mediating disputes among my sisters and I. She had been dragged into enough fights. When we went to report some grievance the other had carried out, her response would always be, “I don’t care. Sort it out yourselves.” Well, we were always at a loss. We would look at each other and think, “Now what are we supposed to do?” It was always a bit irksome. None of us had been vindicated, the fight hadn’t ended, and the worst part was that she was so dismissive about the whole thing. We had gotten ourselves so worked up about something, and she would refuse to give it any importance at all. Jesus does something like this in refusing to take sides. He exposes the pettiness and the greed at the center of their dispute. Jesus doesn’t differentiate between the brothers. He doesn’t say that one is right and one is wrong, because they are both guilty of greed. He says, “You’re both wrong if you think possessions are the point of life.”

Sadly the conflict over scarce resources isn’t limited to disputes among brothers. By all accounts, scarcity is a problem at national and global levels as well. Wherever there is oil, or diamonds, or gold – the odds are good that there will be human beings fighting with one another. Where wealth is not distributed evenly, we can expect to find tension, resentment, and violence. The brother who has not received his due could easily be a poor person in this country or any other. He looks to the teacher and says, “Tell my brother to give me my share. Jesus, tell my sister to be just. Tell them that the gifts of our Father belong o us all.” The response seems to be the hands-off approach to parenting that says, “Sort it out yourselves. Yes, there is scarcity in this world, and you kinds are just going to have to learn to play fair.” It’s that sinking feeling all over again when you realize that you’re on your own… that mom isn’t going to sort this one out for you.

For a long time I’ve had a sort of perverse fascination with religious television. I often pause on a channel when someone is preaching or teaching on religious maters because I’m very curious about what they’re saying. I inevitably get very angry because of interpretations or theology I disagree with. A few weeks ago I was channel surfing, and even though I knew it was a bad idea, I paused at a religious program. The theme of the day was hope. The preacher described hope as being like a telescope. Your life might be in shambles and everything around you might be a mess, but if you pull out your telescope you can see far off into the distance and to better days ahead. Hope is like fixing your eye on a distant star. Hope is aiming for some future very different from where you are right now.

I found this message quite sad. I found it sad to think that you would need to look so far away from the world to be able to believe that God might be doing something good. The telescope hope is actually the false hope of the rich man in the parable Jesus tells. There isn’t value or good in the present, the good is in some removed future state when I have more. My hope is an imagined future where my fields are plowed and my barns are full. This is a pretend hope that would ignore this world for the sake of some future when I earn more and have enough saved and finally have my life in order.

The writer of Ecclesiastes isn’t peering into distant galaxies, but takes a clear-eyed look at the world as it is. This isn’t a teacher who would do well on television. He proclaims that human life is an unhappy business, our work is a vexation, our possessions do not last, everything is vanity, meaningless. He looks for a way to justify his life, to explain human existence, but in the end he can’t do it. Not work, not even storing up treasures is good enough. Its as if this writer has already heard the story of the rich fool and knows that death separates us from the fruit of our labors. So what’s the good? Its as if he knows the brothers who will not divide their inheritance fairly. He knows that we cannot trust those who follow us to use our possessions wisely. Perhaps in moments of doubt we have felt the same way. You work hard but don’t seem to get any farther ahead. You build and save and store but cannot make anything truly lasting. What’s the point? After this cold, unflinching analysis of human life, what is left for us to enjoy?

While Ecclesiastes complains of despair and vanity, it also bears witness to a subtle hope and gives expression to a deep faith. This is the hope we find articulated in the words of Jesus, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” You don’t need a telescope for this kind of hope. It begins in this world and it attests that there is meaning to human life beyond the accumulation of wealth. It says that we are spiritual beings, created by God for all eternity, and can never be fully satisfied by riches. Without this hope, we would be right to exclaim that all of life is vanity. Though it would be dishonest to deny the seductive allure of wealth, we must also be assured that God intends so much more for us. The hoarding of the rich fool and the materialism of our own day are joined by despair – a despair that there is nothing of greater value than filling barns and closets and garages.

Like all real hope, this isn’t easy. It isn’t easy to believe in this world that money won’t solve our deepest problems. This hope is often put to the test. The poor are always near us asking brother, sister… When will you give me my fair share? When will you let me see my part of what God intended for all of us? As we release our grasp on things, perhaps we can learn to open our hands to others. Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. Our humanity does not lie in the extent of our consumption, but in the depth of our love.

Of Note

2010-07-19T08:30:00.002-04:00

A common language does not guarantee that you know what words mean. Here are some things I have learned:

biltong - beef jerkey (but better!)

biscuit - cookie

bru - bro

cooldrink - soda

gogga - insect, twice I have heard this used as a term of endearment for children in Afrikaans-speaking families.

jol - party

lekker - cool

nappy - diaper

oke - guy, think "bloke" minus "bl"

rusk - biscotti

sarmi - sandwich

takkies - sneakers

tomato sauce - ketchup

torch - flashlight

varsity - college

yebo - yes

I find it even more interesting when familiar words appear in different contexts or with greater frequency. These are some words and phrases that are essential to South-Africa-speak.

Bleak - an emotional state of disappointment, especially after the loss of a sporting event.

Hectic - anything crazy, unexpected, extreme, or surprising.

Mission - a difficult, complicated, or daunting task. I enjoy referring to anything I am doing as a mission.

Now - Soon. Probably after I finish what I am doing at the moment.

please note these variations:

Now-now - Soonish. A small but indeterminate length of time, maybe 15 minutes to an hour.

Just now - Later. I recently heard someone say, "I'll be there just now. I'll leave at (names a time forty minutes in the future.)" If a South African tells you that something will happen "just now" you could be waiting anywhere from an hour to the end of eternity.

Proper - real, satisfactory. Suggests that something has been done the right way. I associate this especially with food and pieces of furniture, a "proper desk."

Sort (someone) out - to take care of or set someone straight. When explaining what needs to happen in an exasperating situation begin with "I would ... " and conclude with an emphatic "Sorted."

Shame - the standard response to any report of bad news, often used to convey sympathy, sometimes a response to something cute or sweet.

Day One.

2010-07-12T03:19:00.004-04:00

It has been a month of watching matches at parties and braais (South African barbeques), bars, pubs, and restaurants. This is the extent of how bad things have gotten: this morning I thought about stopping by a bakery I recently heard about for coffee and pastry- you know, just a little something to help ease into the new week. And my stomach turned over a bit at the thought of flooding it with so much sugar, fat, and caffeine. What?!? You know you've over-indulged a bit when pastry no longer sounds delicious. So, it is now time to introduce:

The Post-World-Cup Diet!!!!

Its the new simple, simple plan for health and weight loss. Just follow this one easy rule. It couldn't be easier!

Stop drinking so much and eating junk food all the time.

That's it! Anyone care to join me?

confusion and ironies

2010-07-09T04:45:00.003-04:00

1. I was the one straggler in the church office at the end of the day when the bell rang. The man on the other side of the gate held out a pair of keys and began speaking to me in Afrikaans. As a woman of great intelligence, I surmised that he was dropping off the keys for our caretaker whose name I heard amidst the gibberish. I was totally taken aback by this address in a foreign language, not sure if I should respond in English to the message I understood, and wondering what was the shorthand for, “I do not speak the language you are using.” The blank expression on my face apparently conveyed that I had misunderstood the content of the message, but did not suggest the depth of my confusion. My interlocutor repeated himself once or twice before I could catch up with the one obvious response in this situation, “Sorry, I don’t speak Afrikaans.” I’m still not sure what to make of the fact that I was mistaken for an Afrikaans-speaker. Thoughts? And this oke didn’t even know that I’m driving a Free State car. Someone who saw me climbing into my car once asked me where I was from in the Free State. I dodged the question, but I'm working on saying "Bloemfontein" in a thick Afrikaans accent so I'll be ready if this should happen again.

2. This would probably be a matter for my previous post, but one thing I don’t understand about SA is how private security companies occasionally set up security check-points of sorts - gates, logs, and the like - on public roads. The standard procedure, it seems, is to wave, say hello, or perhaps write down your name in a register. I have severe doubts that this measure increases my safety, but I suppose it’s a few jobs for the men who watch me drive in and out each morning and evening. I reached one such “check-point” on my way to my latest homestay and had no idea what action was required to allow me to pass. The security man responded to my confusion by pointing a bit to my right where there was a short post with a video camera and a green button. I inched forward a bit and lifted my hands to my side to indicate I was still clueless. Rather than coming to speak with me, the man continued pointing. I could only imagine that I was supposed to push the button, and was even more confused about what this would accomplish. When I left the next morning I saw a hand written sign saying “Press the Green Button.” When I returned in the evening the sign was typed and laminated. Was I responsible for the new signage? I guess I can be pleased if my embarrassment has resulted in making the city more navigable. The incident raised more fundamental questions about why, when your job serves no real purpose, you would put up a sign to explain how visitors must navigate a basically meaningless security procedure. What other task are you ostensibly carrying out that you cannot walk towards my car and tell me what to do. In case you are curious, pressing the button takes a picture of me and a picture of my car. I’m thankful that I’m not prone to paranoia.

3. I watched the recent Spain-Germany game at a local shopping center. I’m still a bit sore about this experience because I spent more time trying to exit a parking garage than I did watching soccer. At one point I turned off my car and pulled out my journal to write a paragraph that began with the desperate cry - I am trapped in the belly of Melrose Arch! I was so tired and irrational at this point that from there I went on to contemplate how much time I had before we would collectively asphyxiate.

4. I had finally explained to an elderly woman who I was and why I wanted to visit her when my phone gave out; I needed to buy more airtime. I had the perfect opportunity a few hours later when I was out with my boss running errands. Later in the day I received an email from Chase bank informing me of suspicious charges on my account. The email outlined in a somewhat accusatory tone that I had failed to respond to phone calls and messages sent to me phone (which does not receive service here and has fallen among those odd objects at the bottom of my suitcase that I don’t use but carry around from homestay to homestay.) In an effort to follow the rules (and not forfeit the use of my debit card) I called the toll-free number included in the email (fyi - not toll free when calling from international locations.) You know the rigmarole, I punched in the necessary numbers. I panicked momentarily when instructed to answer a multiple choice question about the state that issued my social security number, but three of the four choices were states I haven’t even visited, so the answer was obvious enough. Finally I heard notice of the suspicious charge to my account. It was the $14.36 I had spent on airtime earlier in the day. (Does anyone know why this would cause alarm? I’ve made many larger charges and withdrawals since my arrival.) When the nonsense finally came to a conclusion I checked the balance on my phone… to find that I had spent about a quarter of my recently purchased airtime on a phone call to establish that it was in fact I who made this purchase.

Right and Left? Right and Wrong.

2010-07-06T10:30:00.002-04:00

Driving in Johannesburg has been a surprisingly instructive undertaking. These have been a few of the twists and turns of cross-cultural driving.

Things I have gotten used to:

The car I drive is a manual, and I have gotten used to shifting with my left hand.

When I enter a car, I instinctively set my bag on the floor behind my legs rather than tossing it onto the passenger seat. I no longer find this placement to be a hindrance to driving. The practice stems from a basic safety principle: keep all valuables out of sight at all times... also from a phenomenon called "smash and grab."

Arriving at an intersection I scan right-left-right. It turns out that the hardest part of driving on the left side of the road is not being on the left side, but little things like avoiding the left curb and cars parked along it, or remembering what direction traffic comes from at an intersection. The right-left-right trick reminds me that the cars closest to me are approaching from the right.

When I return to my car after an errand, I dig out some number of coins, hopefully amounting to about 5 rand, to give to the car guard. Car guards are one unusual part of the country's informal economy, and I've heard the fee they are paid best described as a "social tax." I'm severely skeptical that the man in an orange vest will actually be able (or willing) to take action should someone try to steal my car.

All to frequently, I am not entirely sure where I am or where I am going. I have accustomed myself to tracing mentally the route I have driven so that even if I don't successfully find my destination, I can get back to where I started from.

I know that once I am within two suburbs of the church - though I certainly couldn't write out directions or draw a map - I always know how to find my way back.

Things I am not used to:

In the car I drive, the blinker is to the left of the steering wheel. For me this is "normal". But when I have driven other cars, it has always been on the right, and so the sweeping motion I make with my left hand as I approach a turn initiates a chaos of lights and windshield wipers that is only heightened by my frantic pressing and turning for the next three or four minutes.

Taxis. They're not actually taxis but quasi-buses in white vans. I have not gotten used to the sudden stops to load and unload traffic, the terrible driving, the cutting people off even though they accelerate more slowly than any other vehicle on the road, the people standing far too close to the road waving unknown hand signals to get the taxi's attention. I read yesterday that more than half of commuters rely on taxis, and the prevalence of such a chaotic system seems out-of-sync with a relatively modern city.

Calling traffic lights "robots."

Calling the sidewalk "pavement."

Calling the trunk of a car the "boot."

Figuring out what side of the car to get in. For a while I told myself to climb in the "wrong" side, but now I mistake the "wrong" side for the "right" side at least 25% of the time.

The absence of street signs and too-small street signs. My carefully written directions are continually rendered useless by this city's severe lack of signage.

Motorcycles and bikes that drive in between lanes of traffic.

People standing in and around traffic stopped at - wait for it - robots, selling newspapers, flags, world cup paraphernalia, and many other far less useful objects. To my mind, they place themselves uncomfortably close to traffic. Today I saw someone holding a tray full of what I believe were cups of coffee. If it's true that I can pick up my morning coffee while waiting at a red light, then driving in Joburg is about to get a whole lot better.

another untitled sermon: Luke 9.51-62

2010-06-28T08:36:00.003-04:00

In my first weeks at St Columbas I have been frequently called upon to answer the question, "Where in the United States are you from?" It's a logical thing to ask when you're trying to get to know someone. The places we live shape us into the people we are. You're curious about who I am and where I come from. The question will often facilitate a small moment of connection; you tell me about a visit or a relative who live's near my family's home, and this vast world begins to feel a bit smaller and friendlier.

But sometimes this question can produce a bit of waffling. Whether or not you have yet addressed me with this inquiry, the only fair and definitive answer I can give is simply, "I don't know." When I really stop to consider the matter, it's quite tricky to answer this question about where I'm from. My usual response is Cleveland, Ohio - a friendly city in Middle America where my parents live. This is where I store my stuff; its where my immediate family gather for the holidays. But for almost the entirety of the eight years my family have lived there, I have been away at school - university and now seminary - and I could just as easily tell you about those places, and the friends who have become a kind of second family. In a sense the answer could be the rocky coasts of New Brunswick where I was born and amy dad's family live - but I've logged the most years in a middle-of-nowhere small town dropped in an endless swath of corn and soybean fields. And in each of these places I've picked up dear friends who have also moved and scattered. Home is a tangle of faces and places and memories cast across countries, even continents. I'm sure this experience holds true for many of you as well. People simply don't stay put in our globalized world. As we move and our families move, the notion of "home," of being, "from somewhere" grows a bit relative.

A piece of a song caught my ear the other day, played in the background of a tv commercial. Maybe you've heard it, the words were, "home is not a house but a feeling." There are a lot of commercials like this - sugary melody interposed over heart-warming scenes of domestic bliss. Maybe this is the answer to our predicament. That feeling of comfort and safety and belonging that you're looking for can be yours for the low, low price of the dish-soap, or the light-bulb, or the cable subscription on the screen. It's cheesy and fake and tired, but on this particular day, the advertisement actually started to pull on my emotions a bit. I forgot whatever product it was that was being promoted, but I held onto that little piece of the song, "home is not a house but a feeling" and looked it up later. I found the lyrics of the song which continue with the refrain, "Home is where you are/Home is where I wanna be/Wherever you are/You can come home to me." Okay, its hardly poetry. But its certainly not the only song to attach home to a person, to a loved one. If only the singer could be united with the one that he loves, then everything would come right. Only people are a bit more complicated than that. Who hasn't longed to see a distant loved one, only to start bickering within minutes. The old complaints are right where you left them. We may sing along to the love songs, refrains like, "Home is wherever I'm with you." But such sentiments can hardly cover the depth and complexity of our human relationships.

We are reminded that the home can also be a site of extreme disruption. It is where we feel our grief most acutely; it often holds anxiety, worry, and conflict. The disruption becomes most extreme for many around the world who find themselves without a home. I had a rather poignant experience just within 24 hours of my arrival in Johannesburg. I was accompanying Chunky to a wedding outside the city, and to introduce me to the complexity of the social and political situation in South Africa, he planned the route so that we drove by a squatter camp, inhabited - as I soon found out - by scores of refugees from other African countries. I was struck by what Chunky said to me as we passed; he said, "Imagine if this was what you had to come home to." I did imagine, I remembered what it feels like to return home tired at the end of the day: drop belongings on the floor, fall into a comfortable piece of furniture, and exhale. Home is supposed to be a sanctuary, a refuge. As a physical location, home is the space I shape and call my own. My home creates a physical boundary around those I will allow closest to me, who will be around for bad morning breath, selfish arguments, and midnight terrors.

This story we have read cuts to the heart of this question about our homes - where they are and who we allow in them. It seems at first glance that Jesus intends to further upset this precarious balance of our lives. No minister or organizer or leader in her right mind would respond in such a fashion. Can you imagine? Imagine some earnest soul approached one of our ministers after church with words like, "I would like to learn more about St Columbas," or, "How can I get involved in the church?" What would you think of a minister who paused and then responded, "mmm, no thanks. I don't think you're cut out for this" or, "we're not really interested in your participation unless you are willing to walk away from all your family and responsibilities and belongings." I doubt these tactics would make for a very effective membership recruitment strategy. I certainly wouldn't stick around if those were the terms of involvement.

This is quite a brash Jesus, don't you think? He's pushy; he makes unreasonable demands. He issues this sharp retort, "Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of Man has no place to lay his head." Jesus has no place to lay his head. This isn't exactly literally true. If you read Luke's Gospel carefully, you'll see that Jesus is hosted by Simon, by Martha and others. He asks to be put up in private homes; on occasion we even see him in attendance at lavish dinner parties. But in another sense Jesus himself is without a home. Who could forget that first night: no room in the inn, Jesus' parents take refuge in a stable, the swaddled infant is placed in a manger. Then as a boy, there was that time Jesus got left behind in Jerusalem. Maybe he was a bit mixed up, but when his parents finally found him, he said that the temple was his Father's house. I guess Jesus never really fit in. When it came time to preach in his hometown Nazareth, the people were outraged at his words and drove him out. Since then Jesus has been wandering about doing ministry, and the Jerusalem where he lingered as a boy isn't such a safe place for him anymore. But that's where he is going. He has "set his face;" who knows what the end will be. Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of Man has no place to lay his head. Jesus’ words might not be a scathing comeback, but a warning that the journey is long and difficult. Maybe Jesus is saying, “Take it from me; you don’t want this life.”

Like me you probably have a number of questions about this story. For one, does Jesus expect me to leave behind creaturely comforts to join an itinerant preacher? And even more importantly, what about family and job and all the people who depend on me? As many questions as we might ask about story, it also addresses a question to us. It reappears in different modes and forms, but the heartbeat is this question: How much are you willing to give?

First Jesus encounters the Samaritans. It was common practice at the time for travelers to seek lodging in houses along the way, with the expectation that the hosts might later receive hospitality in return. Jesus is looking for a slightly different form of hospitality. He himself lacks home and possessions, so he seeks hospitality without the condition of compensation or reciprocity. Jesus and the Samaritans have gotten along quite well in the past. The problem now is that Jesus is headed to Jerusalem - not a Samaritan but a Jewish place of worship. Jesus is one of them now. This Samaritan village may not be exactly hostile to Jesus. However, after generations of animosity between Jew and Samaritan, they're not going out of their way to host a group of pilgrims bound for the temple of their rival religious cult. How much are you willing to give? The Samaritan village will happily open their homes to members of their religious group, but to them? No thank you.

James and John see this. How do they respond when insulted? What else but command firestorm from heaven to consume wrongdoers? These disciples feel slighted and their indignation is an expression of deep-seated prejudice. The incident exposes that the location of our homes often forms lines of demarcation between us and them. Rather than siding with Jew or Samaritan, Jesus' rebuke makes it clear that he has come to put to an end their cycles of violent hatred. How much are you willing to give? James and John follow Jesus, but they won't lay down the neat lines of division that separate religious and ethnic groups. They won’t surrender their right to avenge a petty grievance, or the subtle distinctions that make them ever so slightly "better". You ask too much, Jesus.

Then Jesus converses with these would-be followers. How much are you willing to give? These individuals want to follow, but also want to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, hold on to their past, tie up loose ends. I don't think we can fault them for any of this. The complication may not be a lack of religious devotion, but a very practical, this-worldly concern. Jesus is about to send out his followers in pairs on a mission through the surrounding villages. He sends them without money or sandals, dependent on strangers who may or may not open their doors. It is simply not possible to carry out that work while tending to household business. Jesus doesn't call everyone to such a lifestyle. It is far more common that he asks people to open their homes to the stranger and outsider, he stretches their hospitality beyond its conventional bounds.

Then the question turns to us. What are you willing to give? There are no easy answers to this question. We have only an example, only the precedent of the one who goes to the ends of the earth for the sake of those he loves. In this way, the message very much accords with what I have experienced thus far at St. Columbas - a community that devotes so much of its energies toward feeding and clothing and caring, and where I myself have been a joyful recipient of generous hospitality. Jesus' words are not about making a show of spiritual strength, not about being a religious superstar. It is a matter of how much you are willing to give for the very concrete purpose of helping those who have need.

Does this mean walking away from family responsibilities? Not necessarily, but it might shed a new light on them. If, as they say, home is where the heart is, then Jesus calls us to examine the people and places who lay hold of our hearts. One theologian coined a phrase I rather like, he calls this group our heart community. Your heart community are the ones you love so much that worry about them might keep you awake at night. Who inhabits your heart community? I would expect to find immediate family and close friends. Maybe like the followers in this story, you have also experienced Jesus pushing and pulling at the corners of your heart. Jesus at work making space for those who may not look like you, may not live in your neighborhood, may not think or speak like you. In short, Jesus is teaching you to love as he himself loves. How much of yourself are you willing to give to such love? Will you allow it to enter your home, the core of your being?

You can be sure that Jesus' heart has space for all people. Space for those who live in mansions and in the park, for those in Africa, Asia and Europe. Though loving all equally, his own ministry suggests that he had a special love for the down-and-outs - and not because they were better than anyone else, but because they were so especially in need of comfort. With this love Jesus embraces you - a love so great that he left home in search of you. Jesus is still searching for you, ready to bear your pain, ready to embrace you in love, ready to open your heart toward love for others.

Embarrassing Display of Nostalgia

2010-06-25T10:33:00.001-04:00

This post has nothing to do with South Africa. This is me bursting with pride and nostalgia and sentimentality because this very weekend, my childhood best friend is getting married.

I was seven when I met Ashley. My family had just moved to Iowa. At a "soup supper" held in honor of the newly-arrived pastor, a girl named Kim pointed to Ashley and I and said something like, "You two must be about the same age." That was all it took; we were besties for the rest of time.

We went to school together, we explored every corner of our small town, we had adventures on her family's farm, we played, dreamed, and giggled. She was quite disappointed when her family sold the farm, but I was thrilled that Ashley was moving into a house just ONE BLOCK AWAY!

The move inaugurated a new era in our friendship. We swung by her house everyday after school to watch Saved By The Bell. In the summers we questioned our mothers about the food they were preparing before deciding where we would eat that day.

I was 15 when my family moved away, and Ashley and I stayed in touch intermittently. Our communication may be infrequent, but you just can't mess with a friendship that spans such time and depth.

This isn't the first time a close friend has married, but Ashley is the first with whom our shared history stretches back into the silly, giggly terrain of girlhood. I smile to remember so many conversations about what our lives would be like, what we would do, where we would live, who we would marry and when and how. I can happily report that Ashley has remained a lovely, caring person. She left the small town (but not Iowa) and is a social worker in West Des Moines. Though I haven't met her husband-to-be, I'm convinced he can only be equally wonderful. I'm so happy for her, grateful for who she has become, awed by the responsibility we shared in shaping each other, proud that we are still kindred spirits, two peas in a pod, bosom friends.

I've turned very Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof) in light of this occurrence, or maybe it's Anne Shirley at the wedding of Diana. Cue choruses lilting - Sunrise. Sunset. I'll take the solos - Is this the little girl I carried...

Rainbow Nation

2010-06-21T14:35:00.000-04:00

I love this flag. It's colorful; the shape suggests unity within diversity. Many South Africans have proudly instructed me that the flag was originally adopted only for an interim period, but it is now so beloved and well-recognized that no one would think of changing it. I have also heard different accounts of the symbolism of the colors, but there is no official or universal explanation of what each color means. Even so, it's hard to miss the resonance with South Africa's previous flag

and the flag of the African National Congress

and in the build-up to the World Cup, this flag has been everywhere. Its colors are proudly displayed on cars, buildings, advertisements, scarves, hats, vuvuzelas etc. etc. I was inspired by these creative uses of the flag when it came to making a sign for this past week's Fun Club. I was quite proud of the result, and I think the design also effectively conveyed our World Cup theme. I made the sign with a fellow American - though we incorporated a foreign flag, this is a stunning example of American ingenuity.

Signs of Grace

2010-06-19T10:23:00.007-04:00

After a few of those clueless-feeling-totally-out-of-place experiences I described earlier in the week, I am happy to report that more recently I have enjoyed several glorious moments where I feel myself and understand why I am here.

On the last day of the holiday "Fun Club," I sat with a young girl who confided in me about her shyness; she loves to write stories but receives low marks on speeches because she becomes too nervous to look up from her script. I listened, smiled to myself, and then counselled her that it would not in fact, be too show-offy to incorporate her cartwheel/splits move into the choreography of her group's play.

I began work on next week's sermon with my usual pattern - writing out the text by hand - as I sat in the corner cafe a few blocks from the church. Peering out the big glass windows, I watched the whole world passing and sipped a too-sweet mocha. I plan to make this a regular event, but will push the experience into perfection range by replacing the sugary concoctions with "filter coffee." And it gets better - next to this spot is a small, orderly, classical-music-playing used bookshop where I spotted lots of titles I've read and many more I've been dying to read.

This afternoon I found my way out of the suburbs and began my exploration of artsy-fartsy corners in Joburg's downtown area. As always, the drive was a bit hectic with a few unexpected detours, but I was totally gratified when I finally arrived at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. I love such solo adventures, but this was my first time venturing into an unfamiliar neighborhood to visit a point of interest in South Africa. There were a handful of small works by big-name European artists - sometimes chaotically interspersed with the work of artists of Southern Africa. For me it was these latter works - and an exhibit of Afro-Cuban art - that made the gallery a must-see in Joburg. The two works above particularly nourished my soul.

For Bekah: Delayed Culture Shock

2010-06-14T11:24:00.005-04:00

The World Cup is underway! I never watched soccer much until this week, but I've found it nearly impossible not to get caught up in the enthusiasm. As I woke at 6:30 on Friday, I could already hear the sound of the vuvuzela, blasts overlapping so that the noise became a constant buzz. The quality of sound is reminiscent of a fifth-grader in his first hours of playing a brass instrument. Nevertheless this noise is the official drone of the World Cup. The vuvuzela-noise only grew in frenzy as the opening game against Mexico approached. At times I couldn't distinguish the vuvuzelas I heard through the television from the ones being played nearby.

People played vuvuzelas while stopped in traffic, walking through the shops, out the windows of taxis. (No, the taxis aren't what you think. They are big white vans that always appear to have at least 16 passengers and that drive wildly through the streets of Johannesburg.) This reminds me of how my sister and her friends once played the mellophone out of a car window through the streets of Cleveland. These seasoned brass players would not be surprised that many South Africans are complaining of dry, bruised, and swollen lips.

I've been watching soccer for the excitement, but also because I find it to be very beautiful. I don't know how to explain that, the game just appeals to me on an aesthetic level. A new past-time has been watching soccer while reading a book I've borrowed from my supervisor by Desmond Tutu. I was engaged in this activity a few days ago when an unusual scene unfolded. I was in the midst of writing a Tutu quote in my journal when I heard a knock at the back door (I promise, in a home with a fence, an electrical fence, and an outdoor alarm, this is hardly an expected occurence.)

The man announced that he was with ADT security, and I wasn't surprised because a false alarm had sounded earlier as a boarder in the guesthouse left a few minutes earlier. The alarm was quickly followed by a telephone call. I was home alone, but I acted as I have seen others do, and answered the phone to explain that there was no cause for concern. It was only after picking up the phone and being prompted with questions about my identity and the security pass-code that I realized that of course I should have to demonstrate that I in fact was not a house robber. I in turn was wary about handing out the small pieces of information I had about my host's security system. The same thought-process repeated itself as I talked to the security man at the back door (which I didn't have the keys to open). For me, as I think for many Americans, this kind of interaction is totally foreign. I just had no idea what you're supposed to do when something like this happens. In the end I think what saved me was that as a young white female I look relatively non-threatening. (Beside the fact that I was watching highlights of Ghana's win against Serbia and writing a journal rather than dismantling valuables.) The man wrote out a visitation report form of some sort and slipped it under the door.

The ironic thing is that the security system (getting locked in the house, getting locked out of the house (and/or gate), setting alarms, setting off alarms etc. etc.) has generally caused me greater angst than the realities against which this system is meant to protect me. It reminds me of a phenomenon another American here described as delayed culture shock- where it takes a while to realize that you are in a new environment, and even then you can't quite disentangle what is foreign from what is familiar.

So that's that. I have a tiring week ahead - running a VBSesque program. I'll see you on the other side.

TIA: This is Africa

2010-06-07T10:13:00.006-04:00

Fear

2010-06-07T08:35:00.006-04:00

This picture fills my heart with fear and dread.

Last week I was amazingly blessed to spend several days in a private game reserve adjacent to Kruger National Park. I saw so many amazing and beautiful things, and my hand and my brain are worn from trying to put words to what I was so lucky to experience. One good word is fear - you know - "the fear of the LORD" kind of fear. Throughout the trip our group talked about the animals we found most frightening; one was afraid of spiders, she of snakes, someone else of buffalo. I can only think that I am afraid of them all, all and none. It is a blending of terror and awe that sends me running to the poets for help, for some way to cope within all the mystery.

Adjectives fail me for the task ahead, to narrate what I witnessed on my very first game drive. It occurred within hours of my arrival in the bush, but was something so remarkable that it had never before been seen by either of the guides travelling with us. (and a word to the wise-what follows may get a bit gory.) The sun had set, and our vehicle stopped by the side of the road where dust was flying into the air and commotion was stirring among three characters. The first two were lions, father and son. The son had only just returned to the wild after recovering from punctures caused by buffalo. I had first seen this pair an hour or two earlier, napping (they are cats after all!) as flies gathered around the wounds. (After this sight I am much more afraid of buffalo than I am of lions!)

As we park the lions are awake and looking for a meal. They surround the home of the third cast-member, a wart hog. He (or she, or perhaps a different warthog altogether) had bolted out of this burrow as we passed earlier in the day. This may have been a good time to bolt again, as the lions scraped and clawed to dig the warthog out of his home. And there were plenty of good moments for bolting. The lions paused frequently from their labor, looked around distractedly, climbed above the hole in hopes of hastening the task. "Such lazy creatures, these male lions," our guide said. Another car came and paused for ten minutes and continued along, but I sat with rapt attention thinking, "What better thing have I got to do than watch two lions scrape for their dinner?" We waited like this for maybe an hour in growing darkness that was only interrupted by the clawing of paw on dirt, the groaning of lion's stomachs, and the occasional pig squeal.

It was difficult to follow what happened next. The son stuck his head into the widened burrow and I thought - is he biting? being attacked with a short wart hog tusk? His breathing grew heavier, I wondered if the lung so recently punctured by a buffalo could burst again. He went through all sorts of contortions, back legs forward to create leverage against the walls of the burrow. Has he gotten stuck? someone suggested. He twisted onto his back next, somersaulting as he dragged the squealing pig from its home. Once out, lion senior clamped around his neck, but from the side so that it didn't suffocate him properly. The two lions dragged him across the road. The son plucked off a back leg and the sound reminded me of the ripping of fabric. Male lions don't like to share. Both had done the work, but the father tried to drag off the pig to enjoy on his own. He began growling in low, husky moans - a parental warning that went unheeded as his son finished off the best meat.

Talk about fear. Guts are spilling out- things I speculate might be intestines, the heart, mostly just sundry entrails. The lion's mouths are stained by blood, with patches of red on the side of the body as well. Somehow, every time I am so certain the warthog must be dead by now, a new series of screams and squeals issue forth and the pig resumes kicking his front legs (the only two he had left) against the lion. As cool the whole thing was, the squeals were a bit much, and I could feel tears pooling behind my eyes. "He's a bit sore," our guide said. "Why don't they just kill him?" someone said, "Can't they see that he's suffering?" The response was, "Yeah, but they don't care. They're just hungry." Eventually the older lion clamped down over the throat to strangle him properly. The kicks turned to quivers, and then he was still.

We revisited the burrow by light the next day. Look for the claw marks.

Bird Park Photos

2010-05-31T04:14:00.003-04:00

This weekend my host family took me to a bird park a bit north of Johannesburg. The not-afraid-of-heights among us rode in this balloon for a spectacular view of the city.

A photo of me in the balloon taken by the four-year-old daughter of my home-stay family.

I am almost certain that this is the very bird that landed on me and peed on my hand while I held out food in the plastic cups. We were getting to be good friends when the bird started to nibble my finger, then I got startled and dropped the food.

Flamingos!

Surprise Sermon

2010-05-30T06:59:00.005-04:00

This morning was my first official Sunday at church. You'll never believe what I did at the 9:30 service. I gave a children's sermon. I know. I'm generally not a big fan of the whole children's sermon genre; I hope I was successful in avoiding the clichéd, moralizing, object-lesson that I so dislike.

How did I end up on children's sermon duty in the first place? Well, I think it was about Tuesday morning when one of the ministers came into the office for a coffee break. He had been trying to think of a children's story for the Trinity Sunday Family Service about how God invites us to partner with God as co-creators (Psalm 8), called to sustain and uphold the world. I said that I thought I had a story that might work and, eager to get involved in the life of the church, offered to share it on Sunday.

If I may toot my own horn a bit, my audience was spellbound as I described my family's home in Cleveland: the plants growing on the front steps, the silly, little dog, the birds and the hamster. Then I talked about a time when my parents went out of town and left me in charge of the house. The kids helped me think of all the things I had to do in looking after all this plant and animal life- watering, feeding, etc. The moral of the story blah-blah-blah is that creation is God's gift to us blah-blah-blah and we show our love for God by caring for the world blah-blah-blah. And kids, what are some other things that God gave us to love and care for? Pray. End Scene.

Before the service my boss had joked that I was going to be preaching the sermon and that he wanted a copy of my script to analyze and pick apart etc. etc. As it turned out, he was only half-joking. I sat down next to the ministers after talking to the kids, and the service progressed to a hymn and then the offering and then came to a close as I slowly realized that I had, in fact, preached the sermon - or as much of one as there was in this "family service." It was one of a series of mini-blunders I made as I stumbled through the choreography of the service- always just a few steps behind. Ministers tend to have their heads in the clouds, so no one had briefed me on the logistics of the service (I'm certainly not exempt from this problem as I never thought to ask anyone about these details).

So there you have it. Unbeknownst to me, I preached a sermon this morning. Now I'm wondering, has anyone else ever had this problem?

And here are some pictures of the church:

a window.

everything in this country is decked out for the World Cup. including the church sanctuary.

When I first arrived the U.S. flag had fallen down. I was deeply offended. England's flag fell down a few days later. We did a quick rescue mission earlier in the week.

more photos from this weekend and various theological reflections to follow soon...

Cold

2010-05-28T06:37:00.005-04:00

I'm notorious for not wearing a winter coat around the ptsem. I cite a few excuses: "New Jersey winter is much milder than what I'm used to," or "I'm only travelling a few hundred feet to class," or "it wasn't this cold yesterday!"

One remnant of my Canadian heritage seems to be the lingering notion that the cold of winter is somehow "good for me." I can offer no rational or scientific explanation for this belief. Blame it on my father, who often stepped outside (even in Iowa winters!!!) without a coat, perhaps suggesting that the ability to endure cold temperatures with foolishly little outerwear is a sign of strength and masculinity [you might substitute the word "stubbornness."] Blame it on my grandmother, who recommended to my mother that she wrap me in blankets, put me in the baby seat, and set me out on the porch for a little while during the winters of New Brunswick -presumably to toughen me up. Maybe if my mother had heeded this advice I would be a lot happier when I crawl out from under the blankets at 6:00 am into the cool of unheated homes. The winter in South Africa isn't terrible, but it gets quite cold at night... and without heating, the chill soon settles in your bones.

Recently I learned that my instincts about cold may have some basis in fact, because when our bodies become accustomed to a constant temperature, we loose the ability to adjust our inner thermostats. I've tried adopting the strategy of Madeleine L'Engle who writes in The Irrational Season, "I console myself when I'm wet with heat in the summer, shivering with cold in winter, that I'm helping my body's thermostat to become functional once more." Still, I don't relish those early morning hours, however good it might be for my inner thermostat.

First Roads Travelled

2010-05-19T17:04:00.006-04:00

I have arrived safely in South Africa.

It's hard to gather my first thoughts and impressions about this place. For the most part it feels very much like home (except houses are surrounded by fences, people drive on the wrong side of the road, and I'm not allowed to go outside.) I heard recently that there are 3.5 million white and 40 million black people in South Africa, but that ratio hardly holds true in the wealthy suburbs where I have spent the last several days. Mostly things just seem "normal" to the point that its easy to forget I'm in Africa at all.

In the first days I have been very hyper-aware of small differences in words and customs, but these surprises hardly amount to anything I could label with the word "culture shock." South Africans say "take-away" instead of "take-out", "chemist" instead of "pharmacist," "buggy" for pick-up truck, "avocado" is abbreved to "avo" but it sounds like "evo" (yes, for a brief period of time I was telling people that I had never eaten avocado.)

It's sort of like how rugby is a lot like football but with a few different rules. Even so the differences are sufficient to make it an entirely different game (one that very much resembles the "tackle keep-away" I played as a child.) Rugby is pretty cool. I recently watched my first game: South Africa's Northern Bulls against New Zealand's Canterbury Crusaders. As it turned out it was a pretty historic match as a traditionally white Afrikaans team played in Soweto, a township key to the struggle against apartheid.

In case my sports metaphor didn't clear things up... let me say that the small sliver of South Africa I have experienced thus far feels pretty familiar... but if I step back a few paces the reality quickly grows more complex.

I have been taking pictures as promised, so here are a few photographic highlights of my first weekend:

I enjoyed a wonderful send-off thanks to the amazingly crafty Becca. I literally cannot handle how obsessed I am with this journal.

Then I wrote a poem in my journal that the poetry-minded among you may enjoy.

After a 16-hour flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg, I met my supervisor at the airport and spent the weekend with him and his family. Within a few hours I had made my first two converts.

On Saturday I tagged along to a wedding at the amazingly gorgeous Kloofzicht Lodge. This place will be hosting the Australian team during the World Cup. Good choice, Socceroos!

I have since relocated to my first home-stay with a young couple who have a four-year-old daughter. My first evening with them we took a stroll through the park and fed ducks at Emmarentia Dam; its quite a lovely spot.

More to come...

give a woman a home!

2010-05-17T19:33:00.005-04:00

Home is an illusive thing. Is it a place, a person, a memory? What is it about home that we long for - familiarity, history, geography, stability, unconditional love? I've known a lot of homes; I can think of a few dozen people and places that are like pieces of home for me. I've largely made my peace with the fact that home is a lot of things I can't have all at once. Sometimes I imagine that home would be all these places, times, and people somehow brought together - but the only conditions that could approximate this, I think, would have to be eschatological. Whether we're talking about this world or the next - home is important to me, even if only as an idea.

So who knows if these songs stuck out to me for their musical qualities - or because they treat the perennial urge to take off and go somewhere else - and then the urge to go back to wherever we came from - and sometimes the search to find what, or where, that might be. They weave together strands of cynicism and hope; many allude to shame, trains, and romance. I've found this to be a good public transportation mix.

It seems that music is powerful in helping to capture what home is about. Even beyond songs about home, I could make lists and lists of music that rekindles the memory of a person, a moment, an era, a feeling (The Avett Brothers' "If It's the Beaches" comes to mind as an obvious example).

Here's the list. Tell me what I missed.

"Feeling the Pull" by The Swell Season

"She's Leaving Home" by The Beatles

"I Was Young When I Left Home" by Antony with Bryce Dessner

"Hometown Waltz" by Rufus Wainwright

"Feel Like Taking You Home" by Brendan Benson

"Find My Way Back Home" by Priscilla Ahn

"First Train Home" by Imogen Heap

"Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

"To Go Home" by M. Ward

"Pale Horses" by Moby

"Give a Man a Home" by Ben Harper

"You Remind Me of Home" by Andrew Kenny & Ben Gibbard

"I'll Come Home to You" by Michael Jackson

Geography is hard

2010-05-17T18:38:00.003-04:00

Caption Reads: TV People Confuse World Cup Host Country With Similarly Named Landmass

Streetside

2010-05-15T17:35:00.006-04:00

Sitting outside Old First on a spring day, scanning the non-stop synergy of Seventh Ave quickly brought this poem to mind. No office girls on a Saturday morning, but I was directly across from bouquets on display outside Key Food.

Streetscene

Michael O'Siadhail

The aim fidelity, a perfect wide-angled focus.

But the frames slide into a movie, reality

blurring under a metaphysical Midas touch.

Is this the perpetual street? Spring says yes

as sporting a soft indigo cambray blouse,

a cinnamon suede skirt, a plum-coloured

underskirt jutting below, a young office girl

passes on some mid-morning postal mission.

A lorry driver's mate winks, wolf-whistles

an easy-going admiration; then stoops to lower

through an open-pavement grill another

squat beer cylinder, trundling to the underworld

Hell must be dumb, a terrible, dank cellar

of wonder bundled up, shuttered from sun,

tight-lipped, tongue-tied, the word slips memory.

Unexposed to worship, we wither in darkroom silence.

Blinking in the sun, this viewfinder rescans

the non-stop synergy of the street. A child chases

a coin pirouetting over a gutter; touching each other

two greying men swap hush-hush information.

A flower-seller highlights, proclaims her titles:

freesia, tulip, anemone. A whitsun gift

Crouched, the sound-man records the sacred words,

open-sesames unlock again the gate of Babel's Tower.

Easter 4

2010-05-03T20:57:00.006-04:00

Agreeing to preach on the Sunday after finals week was probably not the best move of my life, but I survived. I wish I could have given this sermon a bit more polish, but sometimes life is about settling for what you are able to accomplish while also writing final papers. There is enough here that I like to merit posting.

Don't you wish you had a pet goat?

Acts 9:36-43. Psalm 23. Revelation 7:9-17. John 10.22-30.

Sheep abound in today’s lectionary readings. I don’t know why sheep should make such a special appearance on Easter 4, but there you have it - sheep at every corner. Sheep appear first in the much-beloved Psalm 23. These sheep are living the good life -they go in paths where the footing is secure so they will not fall. These sheep eat from ideal pastures; they drink from the best waterholes - quiet and dammed up - where water is abundant and the sheep may satisfy their thirst without haste.

Then sheep in the Gospel reading. Jesus finds himself in yet another dispute with the religious leaders of the day. He won’t answer the questions they plant as traps, because the works Jesus has been doing speak for themselves. Jesus teaches about the sheep who have been given to him by the Father. Jesus’ sheep hear his voice - they recognize him even as he knows each of them by name. They follow Jesus in obedience, and nothing can snatch them out of Jesus’ hand.

The vision recorded in Revelation offers a glimpse of the heavenly worship of the Lamb who is also shepherd. The Lamb is surrounded by a multitude who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb so that their robes are now white. They wave palm branches and - with the elders and the four living creatures - they sing praise to the Lamb day and night. They no longer hunger or thirst or suffer under the heat of the sun - for the Lamb they worship is also their shepherd.

The Bible comes to us from a world where sheep and shepherding were commonplace. Sheep were an important economic commodity, and their care was entrusted to shepherds who found food and water and guarded them from prey. That much seems pretty obvious, but I still don’t really know what sheep are like. I don’t know sheep the way you would if your family’s livelihood depended on protecting them from predators and disease.

I do have a small connection - not to sheep, but to goats. For much of my childhood and early adolescence, my family lived in a farming community in rural Iowa. And before they sold it, my best friend lived on a small family farm. Can you imagine the love a pair of nine-year-old girls can have for such a place? The farm meant adventure, room to run, places to hide, contests of strength and endurance, scraped knees, calloused feet, and always enough dirt and foul smells to shock my parents when I returned home.

The farm was my personal petting zoo, with a rotating cast of pets, flocks, and 4-H projects. When a pair of goats arrived, the kids quickly took to naming and befriending them. My friend’s parents, I think, quickly repented of this decision. The goats were always eating, exploring and climbing. The goats were very difficult to keep contained and had a knack for testing and escaping from most enclosures. A favorite goat pastime, we quickly learned, is climbing on top of cars. To this day, any mention of goats will remind me of this pair standing so proudly atop the family station wagon. Not unlike we kids who roamed the farm, the goats were curious and independent.

Sheep, however, are not like goats. Sheep behavior more closely resembles the kind of scene I remember from the middle-school cafeteria. Sheep have a strong flocking instinct, they grow anxious if separated from the group, and they require the presence of at least four or five other sheep to maintain a visual link while grazing. In the case of sheep, flocking is an important survival strategy, because a group of sheep are more likely to detect danger early enough to have time to escape.

I have to be honest though, I don’t really like this sheep thing. I don’t like drawing a comparison between myself and an animal that instinctively follows the animal in front of it. Sheep are notorious for following - they will follow over the edge of a cliff and will follow to the slaughter. Sheep are vulnerable and in need of protection. We might use the word “sheep” to describe someone who is timid or meek, someone who thoughtlessly follows the crowd.

Isn’t sheep-like behavior part of the problem with the world? Too many are unquestioning followers of violent ideologies. Too many stand by silently while the weak and defenseless are trampled. Critics of organized religion that the sheep metaphor is precisely the problem with Christianity. Christianity’s talk of meekness and mildness enforces social hierarchies, trains a mute and unquestioning following, and has silenced generations of women. We see this in the church abuses and cover-ups that are so often before us in today’s news. Too many have been trained to submit to leaders who were not worthy of their trust. When church policy conspires with male domination and rigid hierarchies to conceal rather than address situations of abuse, we start to wonder if such texts lead us very far astray.

In light of all this we must be clear that when Jesus talks about his sheep, he is not teaching mindless following, not instructing us to unquestioning submission. Jesus is teaching about radical trust and obedience to God. Despite the impression you might get from Sunday School pictures of a soft, fair-skinned Jesus cradling lambs, Jesus was hardly a pushover. I find it hard to imagine that anyone would have accused him of being sheepish. Jesus speaks about sheep as a metaphor, his real concern is the obedience of those who belong to him. The point is not the meekness of the sheep, but that they are trained to hear and respond to the voice of their shepherd. Jesus uses two verbs to describe his sheep: hear and follow. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me” Jesus says.

The sheep hear Jesus’ voice and they recognize who he is. The abuses of power remind us how important it is to follow a shepherd who is good and trustworthy. When the sheep hear Jesus’ voice, they know that he is the one who will lead them safely and will allow no harm to come to them. Obedience is automatic; with this shepherd you are secure and well-tended. For the people who have already been delivered by the power of this shepherd, there is nothing left but obedience.

The sheep hear and follow. Some tell Jesus, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus doesn’t really answer, because words will not evoke faith in those who have hardened their hearts. There is something mysterious and irreducible about faith; something that goes before explanation or understanding or decision. In Jesus’ words there is a sense that you are placed in Christ’s hand and on the path of obedience before you are quite sure what has happened. Belonging to this flock isn’t about your choice, but God’s ownership of you.

I like the idea of having the shepherd, but I wish I didn’t have to be the sheep. When it comes down to it, obedience to God runs counter to my instincts. I don’t believe that Jesus is telling us to be docile and passive, but I still don’t like being told where to go - even if by the Good Shepherd. I don’t think I’m the only one in this predicament. The shepherd image speaks to some of the things we most desire - like belonging and love and protection - like safety and being at peace with ourselves and with God. But then the sheep image speaks to some of the things we are most reluctant to surrender - like independence and pride and self-sufficiency. I would like to reserve the right to opt for the path that goes around the darkest valley, for example. That guiding staff is also a bit of a sore subject. Of course I need that gentle nudging to get back on the path. I could be wondering away from the rest of the flock or stubbornly headed toward danger. Maybe if I were a parent I would better understand how discipline and correction are really about love; maybe in time we can learn how much we need the love that we don’t always like.

Like many of us, I’m pretty attached to the myth that I can basically take care of myself and supply all of my own needs. This is strange, isn’t it? It’s strange that I would turn down God’s security, the protection and love of the Good Shepherd, for a glimmer of security - which is really just the illusion of security - when I am free to govern my affairs as I please. Though Jesus teaches that his sheep respond with automatic obedience; it seems that the surrender can be long, and that our wills are like beasts that will not be tamed, or like children who will not heed the voice that speaks out for their wellbeing.

Maybe that is why Psalm 23 is a song of trust that emerges, not in a moment of effusive piety, but in the wake of deliverance from a very real danger. Those words, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” remind us of the trust and innocence of children, but I think this Psalm comes from a heart much older and wiser. It is not the blissful unconcern of youth, but a spirit that has been chastened by bitter experiences and continues to find communion with God. This singer is peaceful and childlike even in the face of danger. There is a wisdom that has learned that the staff is a comfort; knows that God’s guidance leads in right paths - through the paths that lead to salvation. Obedience is a gift. It comes not all at once, but slowly and often painfully. It comes as we know the power of God’s deliverance, the saving help that comes in the valley of shadow and darkness.

The Psalm begins on a hillside, and it ends in the house of the LORD. This is where God acts as a host, setting the table. In this sanctuary the people enjoy the goodness and the presence of God; their heads are anointed with oil. God’s saving help leads to the temple and to the table, because these are the places where God has revealed God’s saving power. Worship teaches us the trust of the Psalmist, the very fact of your presence trains you in obedience. This worship prepares us for the heavenly worship of the great multitude who, robed in white and holding branches, stands before the throne and the Lamb. This is a peculiar scene. But if we really desire the peace of sheep with their shepherd - not just the peace of being free from danger - but the peace of obedient communion with God - this vision is a hope and a promise. Those among the multitude are pure and bright, they celebrate the shepherd who has brought them safety and victory, and in obedience they direct their cries only to Christ.

Fish N Chips, WWII Stories, North American Poltics

2009-09-16T14:58:00.003-04:00

These were some of the central components of my recent trip to New Brunswick, Canada. My week passed rather uneventfully; I followed my grandparents in their day-to-day routines and questioned them about their families, homes, jobs, and stories. I spent many hours watching BBC, CNN, and CBC and have learned many things about leading Canadian political figures.

Settling, writing, catching up, and scrounging for food are my primary activities these days. Preparation seems to be the word of the week as I look to begin classes on Monday. More on all this later. For now I am ecstatic about the nonstop slumber party that is Hodge Hall... and trying to write a paper. boo.

O Canada

2009-09-09T10:35:00.004-04:00

That is right. From now until next Tuesday I will be in abiding in our home and native land. New Brunswick to be precise. Not the New Brunswick down the road here in Jersey. New Brunswick Canada. I'm visiting my grandparents and I have an agenda: I want to hear lots of stories and learn how to make jam.

Last night I compiled The Seven Books I Must Have With Me While in Canada for a Week. After further deliberation I was successful in eliminating one of them. Per always, the rest of the packing/organizing/cleaning has been a bit more problematic.

Well everyone, I'm leaving the wellbeing of our nation in your hands for the next few days. Try not to bungle things too badly until I get back.

To the true north strong and free!

wtf?

2009-09-08T22:52:00.002-04:00

Did Foreign Policy steal my headline? (see post of 9/7)

Appararently someone else in the world shares my knack for the obvious.

She Wore the Pants

2009-09-07T12:12:00.003-04:00

I'm thinking that I might start blogging again on the sly; I'll see if I can keep it up for a few days before I spread the word.

I moved this weekend and my current habitation is on its way to dorm room greatness. I crafted some jewelry boxes yesterday while listening to an embarrassing number of This American Life episodes. Imagine I hadn't lost the cord that connects my camera to my computer and there is a picture right here:

I think you should read about Lubna Hussein and her struggle for women's rights in Sudan.

Here is another, less uplifting, article about the impacts of climate change in Nepal. This quote stuck out to me: Nepal is extremely vulnerable to climate change; yet has one of the lowest emissions in the world - just 0.025% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

Labor Day always makes me think of a little town in Iowa called Kanawha where I lived for almost ten years. I contend that Kanawha offers the greatest Labor Day parade in the history of the universe.

Happy Labor Day K-Town!

Death & Contra-Dancing

2008-09-28T16:47:00.003-04:00

I ate chocolate earl grey ice cream this week. This flavor combination continues to intrigue me even now that I have tasted and enjoyed it.

The bad news is that my computer died. I took it to the library one day to work on a paper and the screen spontaneously went black after a few minutes of use; this trend continued with multiple reboots. The good news is that I hadn't actually done any work on the paper at this point. The next bad news was that whatever part needed to be replaced (I'm not quite geeky enough to remember what it was called) cost many, many hundred dollars. The other good news is that my overall productivity has soared to the point that I'm thinking about holding off on replacing it!

I went contra-dancing! Contra-dancing involves a lot of spinning, which I really enjoyed until the next day when I remembered about how whenever I go to an amusement park I feel really gross the whole next day. I was still spinning Thursday morning in class, and it had nothing to do with George Hunsinger's lecture.

One fun feature of dorm life is impromptu haircuts. It's the kind of things that's best when it's entirely without premeditation. Although I'm pretty sure I said - trim a few inches - I lost closer to four or five. Mid-cut, I started to get some funny looks from onlookers and got a bit weary. Have you cut hair before? - I asked my friend. Yeah - she responded - but mostly just guys. It all turned out in the end and I'm very pleased with the outcome, even though it wasn't quite what I was expecting... I suppose that could be said of a lot of things.

a speck of news flickers under the sun

2008-09-21T14:24:00.002-04:00

This update is a bit overdue, but I am happy to announce that me and most of my belongings have made it to Princeton, New Jersey. The move was a bit complicated but I only forgot a handful of key items so I count it a success. I survived new student orientation and the first week of classes. I feel surprisingly comfortable and settled in this new place. I have encountered many kindred spirits. I have a Princeton University library card. I've probably done at least a couple hundred pages of reading, I'll take my first Hebrew vocab quiz tomorrow, and I turn in my first paper on Friday.

Today I am enjoying a much needed rest. I decided pretty quickly after I arrived that Sabbath-keeping would be pivotal if I hoped to maintain even a shred of my sanity.

Being a seminary student is still pretty surreal. Even as I wonder where I'm headed and what all this means, I feel certain that I am in the right place and hope only to be grateful for these opportunities to learn and grow. And I'm having a lot of fun. I'll follow up with specifics soon; in the meantime I love to hear from y'all!

Le Bus; La Colombe; :)

2008-09-06T13:37:00.003-04:00

For approximately a week and a half, I have been with my sister in the city of Philadelphia. It’s a bit strange because I’m not at home but I haven’t gotten to school yet either. Right now Rebekah is rehearsing don Juan, can anyone think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning? She just sent texted me that she is losing her will to live.

Some of my recent activities include massive shopping expeditions to Trader Joes and Superfresh, sitting in on Curtis orchestra rehearsals of Dvorak 7, pretend shopping, visiting two really nice used bookstores on opposite ends of the city, strolling along South Street, and watching the first season of Scrubs. I spent a day at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and was especially impressed by the museum’s collection of Asian art. Of course I saw the Liberty Bell. I toured Independence Hall where I entered the most historic room in the most historic building in the most historic square mile of our nation! I ended my day in historic Philadelphia thinking I’m not that into colonial America or the Revolutionary War (maybe this is the Canadian in me.) A favorite activity has been reading in Rittenhouse Square at lunchtime. I watch young women pushing babies in strollers, business executives pausing to eat lunch on benches, children and dogs skipping and sniffing. Today I got rained out, but this is generally a pleasant activity.

Most everyone has gone back to school by now and I will be moving in on Monday, although I don’t actually start classes for another week. I’ve tried to write some profound words about my goals and expectations before I begin my life as a seminary student. The only thing I’ve come up with is that I feel really, really lucky to get to go to school for a few more years. It’s a blessing for which I cannot express enough thanks.

If you should have a quiet moment, I would recommend reading or listening to the stories of Elna Baker (www.elnabaker.com.) I like to think I’ve told some good stories in my day, but this girl could eat me up and spit me back out again before pouring her morning cup of coffee, except she’s a good Mormon and so doesn’t drink coffee.

Summer 2008: A Review in Books

2008-09-03T21:24:00.002-04:00

I want to take a moment to remember and reflect on some of the books I have read over the last four months while free from the demands of classes and professors. Rather than merely listing my favorites, I am presenting them in the form of senior superlatives.

Best sense of humor: Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander
Hilarious.

Best eyes: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
I was almost finished reading before I noticed the really creepy eyes on the top of the book's front and back covers. I think if I had noticed them sooner I would have been too frightened to finish.

Most popular: Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
I have heard more people recommended or rave about this book than anything else I read.

Most likely to succeed: What is the What by David Eggers
Most of the drama takes place in Sudan, how does it not have the makings of a bestseller? A great story, but what I remember most are the moments of beauty, humor, and insight that pierce through the narrative. The title is a bit ironic now that I remember the relentless stream of bad luck the protagonist suffers.

Best personality: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
An all-around warm, beautiful, and honest book.

Cutest couple: A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch
This label is also ironic because the book is about the destruction of human relationships, although my favorite pair did remain intact throughout the turmoil.

Most likely to change the world: Evangelical Theology by Karl Barth
What I really mean is that this book had the greatest impact on me personally. I may be trying to draw flattering comparisons between Barth and myself because this was the superlative I got as a senior.

Most likely to give up grand ambitions and lead the most ordinary life possible: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
A variation on one of my favorite quotes from the book.

Most school spirit: Hail! Madam Jazz: New and Selected Poems by Micheal O'Siadhail
This is the poet I've been talking about all summer. If my endorsement wasn't spirited enough to merit the award, several poems are a shout-out to the Irishman's university days.

Most intellectual: ????
Oh wait, I didn't finish any of those ones.

Biggest downer: A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
Not because the novel was bad but because the ending was bleak. It reminded me a bit of Flannery O'Connor in that regard, except English.

Most likely to die slowly and painfully: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
My title is an homage to some who have strongly disliked this work. I will concede that its pace makes the word "slow" irrelevant, although I would prefer to describe it as "contemplative".

Best dressed: Glittering Images by Susan Howatch
The characters look nice on a superficial level but the fronts and facades (or glittering images) barely hide the chaos within.

Best smile: Thirst by Mary Oliver
My description is flippant because the poems are deep, but they certainly made me very happy.

Best floral arrangements: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

A Little Bit of Knowledge

2008-08-20T17:42:00.001-04:00

I often find that it is difficult to recognize a really bad idea until it's set in motion. The thing might start sensibly enough, but it quickly takes on a life of its own. By the time you recognize the impending disaster, it's too late to reverse earlier decisions.

A few days ago I was answering phones at the insurance agency where I work, and a woman called in asking to talk to someone who speaks Spanish. I gleaned a bit of information from her and when transferring her call I warned the recipient, "This caller wants to purchase personal insurance but she doesn't speak much English. I do speak Spanish if you would like me to help you out." My coworker took me up on this offer and we moved into a conference room so I could translate his questions. This is what happened:

Act One

For the next thirty minutes I ask M. questions about herself, her car, and the house she is about to buy. After each question I put her on hold and ask my coworker, "Is that it?" The answer is always, "No" and, "I need you to ask her: something I have no idea how I am going to say after I press the hold button." I quickly realize how much Spanish I have forgotten in recent years as I sift my brain for words like "zip code," "heating," "cement," and "mortgage." I don't even have a chance with "liability," "realtor," or "circuit breaker." I mangle verbs, botch prepositions, and continually slip from the formal Ud. into the more comfortable tú form. I use all the "Englishy" words and phrases that make me cringe when I hear Anglos speaking less-than-perfect Spanish and I know nothing about maintaining proper phone etiquette in my second language.

I recall how I had laughed a few days earlier about the debacle that is praying in Spanish, which is like a study in two of the most horrible parts of Spanish grammar: the subjunctive and direct/indirect objects. (Aside: asking foreign visitors to pray in their non-native tongue might seem like a good way to include them in a church service, but it's only slightly more merciful than eliminating the strike-out rule in an elementary school ball game. It quickly becomes awkward for everyone involved. By the time I hit the second petition, all I can think about is child X who has just failed to make contact with the upteenth lofted baseball.) Finally I tell M. that someone will call her back soon with a quote (coatización, although I don't know it yet.)

Act Two

As a joke, a coworker tries to convince me that I am going to go on an appointment to serve as translator. The next day, someone raises this as a serious suggestion. I'm asked to call M. to tell her about the quotes we found for her (luckily I had just spent a few minutes perusing a Spanish-English insurance dictionary). She has a million questions about her coverage and premiums. I'm never entirely sure what she's saying, let alone what I'm telling her! She keeps asking me if she can make monthly payments and I try just as many times to explain (as prompted by an actual insurance agent) that the company has a 10-pay system. I contemplate how I might bring up the fact that I will only be working at this office for another three days. After twenty minutes she says she will call back later in the afternoon to determine when she can come in to our office to finalize everything.

Act Three

She calls back at a quarter to five. I spend a long time explaining that we are an insurance agency, not the insurance company, and she is still concerned because she cannot find a website for either business. She asks some follow-up questions about her quote. I wonder how I can tell her that I do not actually know anything about insurance, or that I cannot immediately produce answers to her questions, or that I have this other job called being a receptionist which precludes hunting down the information she requires. This is only the start of a very lengthy conversation in which no actual information is exchanged. When she hangs up we have concluded that she will call back tomorrow to determine when she can make an appointment with someone from our office.

It occurs to me: we are about to write home and auto insurance for this woman, and I am the only person in our office who can communicate with her, and I will only be here through the end of the week. All of the information about our company and her insurance program has been mediated through me, who knows nothing about insurance and is a less than reliable translator. I'm in so totally over my head, but I don't have it as bad as whoever will be talking to her next week.

Life in Disaster City

2008-08-18T20:01:00.000-04:00

So the flat that threatened to complicate my drive home from Flushing yesterday turned out to be only a prelude to future vehicular failures. My dad went to pick up my mom from work, and the car was not up to the return journey. No news yet about the vehicle's long-term health.

Two initial reactions: First, tack this on to the list of recent Daley disasters (the women of "disaster apartment" smirk knowingly). Second, thank God this didn't happen yesterday while I was driving home, or while I was in Michigan, or even before I began my road trip.

This reminds me of something Anne Lamott writes in Traveling Mercies. By some freak accident, all of my books are at my sister's place in Philadelphia so I have to rely on my own memory to make references. (I feel like this could be a metaphor for something, maybe the secrets of the universe will always be locked away in my sister's studio apartment across state borders.) The gist of Lamott's story is this: an acquaintance tells her that when everything is going wrong, it means that something wonderful is trying to be born and we need to get out of the way so it can happen as perfectly as possible.

Whatever this wonderful thing is, we're getting ready for it.

In other news, the latest Daley pastime is printing off orchestral parts and jamming along with Beethoven and Mahler symphonies. Delightful.

A Conversation Over VBS Crafts

2008-07-30T20:24:00.000-04:00

-Camo, camo, camo!

-You guys both painted your cloth fabric bags camouflage last week, why don't you do something different this week?

-But we love camo and then we can dig a hole and use the box to hide BB bullets

-Why do you like camo so much?

-Because of the army and the navy and stuff

-Why do you like the army and the navy so much?

-Because they have guns and knives

-Why do you like guns so much?

-Because they're just so powerful

-I don't think guns are that cool

-That's because you're a girl

-Kids, let me tell you about guns: they destroy things, hurt and kill people (including yourselves), and land you in prison. Guns cannot bring peace, happiness, or the power you crave. This is what guns do: they instigate cycles of violence that tear apart individuals, families, communities, and cultures. Guns cause destruction; they do not make, do, or accomplish anything. Also, you might at some point want to pursue a career path outside of the armed forces. A more effective way to acquire the power and control you desire in your lives is to devote yourselves to getting a good education, earning a lot of money or political power, or developing the charm and charisma to manipulate the people around you. You might find that art, literature, sports, spirituality, or personal relationships are more deeply satisfying than guns (or machetes, or hand grenades, or any of the other weaponry you have discussed in the last hour). You might not believe me now, but I am more than twice your age and have infinitely more knowledge about the world. I know that I am right, and someday you will know it as well. It is not my gender but your short-sightedness that is the issue here. Your inability to understand any of this is annoying. Do the world a favor and paint animals or shapes on your boxes.