First amendment applies: Save the Internet 2

Just updating this post, on July 21 -- I cannot believe the phone companies are still being supported in this! It's bad enough that major news outlets are too lazy to listen beyond the daily White House press briefings (or their investors too greedy to shell out the money for actual reporting). But that Senators would support phone companies trying to increase their profits by charging for (and thereby selecting) "free speech" -- it says to me that our Congress has finally and completely sold itself to corporate interest.

Maybe I'll just write Halliburton my charity checks from now on.

So much for Matthew 6:24. Forget God: you cannot serve people and money.

Like rats off sinking ships

Is it just me, or is anyone else looking at the Goss departure as part of the wisdom of rodents?

Boss vs. Ground of Being

Had times and lives been different, I would have been a monastic. I crave the rhythms of fulltime devotion -- of a life formatted to center around Christ. My bowels (for it is bowels in ancient writings, rather than the romantic heart) hunger for communal life, guided by a rule. I've long wanted to create that life in this life by finding kindred souls to eat, live, worship, pray, rear children together, ideally in cohousing, less ideally within easy walking distance.

That isn't how it's happened, obviously.

The last few days I've had spiritual indigestion: I realize that lately my job (being a field rep for the Big CEO) has far outstripped my relationship with my savior/friend/lover Jesus Christ. The very things I coach, preach, cajole, and warn others on -- that time on the job too easily overtakes time spent with Christ -- are afflicting me. My pride (and, let's be honest, my enjoyment) is invested in the work of being Pastor. And the gift of being Disciple is left behind.

One of our leadership team members, Hollie, has remarked that we in Silicon Valley tend to boast in our busyness; we need to learn to boast in the Lord. The tricky bit is when your busy-ness is for the Lord, at least in theory. It's the same old temptation of idolatry: idolizing busyness, role, ability, rather than God. Following the job description, instead of following Jesus.

So for the last few days I've been praying about this, and asking others to pray about it on my behalf.

Today I attended a time of prayer with local colleagues. The focus was on learning to use the Jesus prayer as meditation, leading into contemplation. So we spent the day in conversation and very quiet prayer, which is a very good thing for me (see "craving for monastic life", first paragraph). Here's the point of this whole entry: When we were done, and sat considering the value of praying this way morning and evening, with some directed scripture study (known as lectio divina), my first feeling was "yes!" My second was guilt, as in "This would be time just for me, which would be selfish, because it would take time away from my work."

Spending time in prayer and study would be time just for me, which would be selfish. How "boastful in my busyness" is that? I'm a pastor. It's a big part of my job to model living with Christ as the center, edge, and ground of my being, and to teach others how to do that. And my gut-level (not to say bowel) reaction is that doing this would be selfish, not in aid of my Work. Does that seem good?

Yet the realest, most deeply found reason I do this is because I love God, and God's people, so much it hurts.

See the lightbulb? Hear the angel choir?

It isn't just engineers, loan officers, and construction workers who find it difficult to live with Christ as the Ground of Being. It's this wanna-be abbess, too.

I thank God for the whack across the head (suddenly I'm channeling Nic Cage in Moonstruck, when Cher slaps him and says "Snap out of it!").

So now I'm going to figure out what to do next, and try to find others to do it with, who will slap me upside the head when I get all "unselfish" and betray my bowels.

A part of the main

As I type this, two youngish people I know are dying. One is a man, here in California. The other a woman, in New Hampshire. Both I know through my husband -- the man is a former congregant, the woman is my sister-in-law's spouse of 27 years. 

 

I know neither well, and might not recognize them on the street. Yet, it seems as if the coasts of the continent are dissipating slightly, rising like steam. Or like dry ice when water is poured on it, the breathable gasses lifting up toward heaven, the solid materials just fading away.

 

Can it be that the land mass of the United States is growing smaller, its edges fraying with the loss?  And that heaven is expanding, beyond proportionately, as their souls are celebrated in?

 

"No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

John Donne

We are diminishing, even as they grow greater into eternity. 

 

Our blessings upon you, Lisa and Leonard, and Godspeed.

 

Where we're doing what we're doing

Our brother-in-law, Edward, found this in the April 17 New Yorker and sent it to us (on an Edward Gorey postcard):

For Jim Naughton, the communications director for the liberal Diocese of Washington, D.C., any compromise with principle would have dire consequences for public relations. "What is the message we push to explain our desire to stay in the Anglican Communion?" he asks, "What is the slogan we put on our literature? Here is what I have come up with: 'Join us in a diplomatically intricate, ethically ambiguous, and sometimes publicly humiliating tightrope walk toward Jesus.' "

Naughton said, "I think it needs work."

How many of the rest of us Jesus-followers could state what we're doing? Or why, where we're doing it?

Real talk

How do we learn to talk about what is most important to us?

 

Last night our group was talking about the difficulties of having God conversations.  Not the academic kind (which are fun, but not "real"), nor the bludgeon kind (which aren't conversations, anyway), but the kind in which we talk about where God is (or doesn't seem to be) in our lives right now.

 

You feel so vulnerable bringing it up -- the God stuff -- with people you know.  There's something about talking about God with someone who is already a friend that feels risky. Maybe they'll think you're trying to "convert" them (in the bludgeon sense).  Maybe they'll just get uncomfortable, and stop talking.  Maybe they don't want to go deeper at all, and you'll realize you're in a shallow friendship.  Maybe you'll lose the running partner/movie playmate/coworker.

 

But it's not just the God conversations, is it?  It's all those parts of ourselves that feel dangerous, shameful, too complex to delve into.  The painful histories, the addictions, the losses. The need for control, the fears, the lonelinesses.

 

Far too often, church folks have no more "real" conversations than any other set of people.  It is such a shame.

 

And so human, so normal, to feel vulnerable and afraid to go deep.

 

And deep is where God is, right now.

The nature of preaching

Preaching is simply a long string of slight lies to illustrate a big Truth.

 

Rev. Bran Scott (my husband)

Heaven

Yesterday I was leading a group talking about living an authentic and active faith, and the topic of heaven came up. I cannot speak about my own feelings about heaven without getting choked up.

I have many images of heaven from books and films and art and Scripture, but two are real for me. That is, when I imagine eternal life in the presence of God, two different images fill my heart:

When eternity and my life meet up, I will finally be able to rest my head in Jesus' lap, and listen to him, and gaze at his face. And he will stroke my hair. And nothing else will need to be done, nothing will distract me, nothing will take me away from that love.

Or.

The vast, beyondimaginingness of loving compassion that is God will swallow me up into its ocean, and none of us shall ever be separated again.

For me, or anyone else who continually fails at perfection in earthly love, who strays from the path, even those I would count as evil, there is hope: God never, ever gives up on us. Reconciliation is constantly at hand, for it is the nature of God to be merciful and loving, hopeful and faithful. In life, after death. Forever and ever.

And what makes me a pastor is the desire that every one experience even a taste of that, in the present eternity of God.

Amen. May it be so.

Blessings

Most of my life, I have been in professions that are not project-based. I have waitressed and bussed, edited manuscripts, tagged and coded legal publications, cleaned, pumped gas, cooked, and managed an upscale deli. My three most important, most lasting professions -- the work that permeated my life and formed me -- are teaching (philosophy, college-level), organizational consulting, and, of course, pastoring.

Consulting is project-based, and fun. But both teaching and pastoring are about relationships, and there is no clear beginning and end to those... at least not the ones that affect us.

When I was teaching (which I loved doing), the hardest part was watching people I had grown to love move on, and never finding out whether our time together had helped or hindered or affected any part of their lives. Looking back, teaching, particularly something as affecting as philosophy, was a faith walk of sorts.

Pastoring has those aspects. People come and go, and take your love with them. But sometimes, on precious days that are graced by the light of the Divine, you can see their lives change. Or they tell you: my life is changing; I am changing my life, with God's help; today I am blessed.

Today, I saw the Holy Spirit moving among my folks, my loved ones. And someone blessed me by sharing those words. The light shines in the night, tonight.

The work is the thing. But there's nothing like a great end to a good story. Or a good beginning to an even greater one.

Stepping over the edge

After Christmas, and wonderful worship with my church, I took vacation time. It was the best of times and the worst of times. The best was having extended time with my husband, and visiting my sister-and-brother-in-law in Portland. The worst was having extended time with my own brain.

Maybe not the worst of times -- "the unexamined life is not worth living," after all. Sometimes all that brain space is freeing: it can allow my mind and soul to explore possibilities. This time, I wound up confronting myself in new ways.

The upshot: The only barrier between my living fully into God's gifts and purpose is me. My own fears, my own brokennesses. My own gaps of trust in God.

But God is very very good, even to me. God reached out through the love of my husband and comforted me. God reached out through the companionship of women-friends-in-ministry and inspired me. And God convinced me to whisper my dreams and expose my gifts to all of them.

And to commit to using those gifts, no matter how afraid I may get.

I dream of relationships that break down the boundaries between me and God. Or you and God.
I dream of "church" that is whole-life, deep, and relational -- that reimagines community life into connected living.
I dream of helping others overcome the distorted mirrors and demon voices that keep them from believing that they are worthy of God's love... and that they already have it.

There's a project in the works. But in the meanwhile, there's a cyberhome.

Even You Ministries, because God in Christ loves even you, and there's nothing you can do to change that.

Vacation can work miracles.

Waiting for morning

6:18 a.m.,
after calming fear-drenched hearts past midnight, with three teaspoons of instant coffee aiding the effort but preventing its relief
after the alarm yelps, reminding me to throw on a jacket and move the trash to the curb
after feeding the cats, wetting the wet food wetter for the older one and herding the younger one toward the kibble
after heating milk for the first cup of today's coffee -- only half caffeine, pretending to be full power of the force

6:18 a.m.,
a bit too tired to sit in quiet prayer mode in the darkened living room,
I turn on the computer and wait for it to have its coffee, and look outside through the small window to the right of my desk.

Even when I shut off the desk lamp, it's still dark outside, and the early particles of light comingle with the reflected hum of the sleepy city. There's light in the sky, but it might just be the airport.

Still, looking out through that window brings me comfort, and Christ, because even in the steel gray glow above the horizon there is the promise of morning. The morning light always comes, even after the hardest night. It slowly spreads across the darkness, illuminating both the creation and the created, startling the birds into song. Eventually, even on latenightdays like this, when my soul is caught between sleep and despair and desire, the Morning Light shines through that window, catching me up in His light.

It lightens my workspace.
It lightens my heart.

after late nights and too-early days, the Morning Light appears. I cannot see it coming, but it always comes, reliable, sure, secure.

prayer-wrought

Seeds on good soil

I give thanks to God today for the opening of the Columbus (Ohio) YWCA Family Center. The Family Center merges the child care and family services aspects of the YWCA with the family homeless shelter services, allowing for a full-service home for Columbus' struggling families.

More important, the Family Center replaces the rotating-church-shelter model that had been in place for two decades, but was devastating to homeless families. I was the director of the shelter for two years and initiated the transition. Having seen how destructive and wasteful the rotating shelter model was I am deeply grateful for the YWCA's movement to a more humane and healthy model of care.

I give thanks to God today for the trust and hard work of the people of Columbus and the YWCA, and for the churches who gave up their historic investment in an outdated ministry to do greater work in God's name. And I give thanks for my friend and colleague Beth Lonn who remembered to send me pictures!

Send us your music minister

I suddenly realized that about the only place I haven't posted our ministry opening is right here.

I've made fliers and posted on Craigslist and choralnet and all kinds of other places.
I've emailed friends.
I've prayed on it (and prayed some more and journaled and sketched and doodled).

But here it is: Lord God, send us your music minister. Send us someone who loves you and loves your people. Send us someone who loves music -- really loves music -- and wants others to love it too. Keyboard/piano is critical, choir would be very helpful. But passionate love is key.

For anyone who might read this who plays or knows someone who plays, here's the deal:

In the last two years, we have moved from a 1950s-style mainline Christian stand-up-sit-down worship service into something more fluid, with more music and more music participation. When both our choir director and organist retired this year, we realized that God was giving us an opportunity. Our goal is to find someone who has gifts to be a spiritual leader as well as a musician -- someone who loves music and God's people and wants to glorify God by helping people worship.

As we get somewhat younger, and are drawing more from unchurched folks (praise God!) our range of music grows. Our current baseline is piano or organ and choir. We're also nurturing a worship leader and are looking toward the future. We want to be prepared to go where Jesus leads, which means being flexible, attentive, enthusiastic, and team-driven!

We have deliberately not drawn up a task-driven job description, because our goal is to find the person with light in his or her eyes about our vision and mission. We would rather craft around building a team than filling a slot.

All that said, here are some current data: The job will likely be .3 to .5 FTE. Currently the choir meets Thursday evenings and worship planning is Monday mornings. We are a small church -- maybe 70 in worship -- with one worship service We are an "open and affirming" church, meaning that we welcome all seekers, sinners and saints, regardless of race, class, gender, ability, or affection.

And, what makes it hard to simply fill a slot with a typical mainline Christian organist or choir director: We are becoming more and more Jesus-led and Spirit-driven.

So, for anyone out there who feels like praying: Lord -- send us your music minister.

Elane

Our third world country

God's heart breaks.

It is not the natural disaster -- not the devastating winds and torrents of rain, neither the crushing waves nor the overflowing lakes. Though we may call it an "act of God", the horror of it is no Godly activity. We say "act of God" to reflect our impotency, our utter inability (and our deep desire) to control the greatest powers of the natural world.

It is the unnecessary pain: the suffering, the starvation, the disease, the dying. It is the loss of hope: being stranded, watching bodies float by, waiting for loved-ones' calls that do not come. It is the ineffectual aid: the planes and helicopters flying over groups of people waving madly to be rescued; the tens of thousands packed into arenas without sanitation, food, water, air (never mind sleep, safety, comfort).

And it is the horror of the richest country in the world choosing -- choosing -- to behave as a third world nation: continually cutting the taxes and responsibilities of the richest people and corporations; propping up invented wars; building prisons and breaking down schools; denying health care; directing infrastructure funds to high-profile pet projects that glorify only the well-shod leaders who build them.

It is the horror of our choosing to allow the median household income in Mississippi and Louisiana to be less than the cost of a new Hummer -- and praising those who make, market, and buy the Hummer.

It is the horror of our choosing to refuse aid and kindness and connection from our global partners out of hubris and unfounded "independence".

It is the horror of redirecting our national guard to protect Iraqi civilians we ourselves are bombing.

It is the horror of the President's pride in sending just $10 billion to the effort to save our own dying, suffering, hopeless people.

It is the horror of redirecting federal funds intended for building the very flood control that would have prevented this precise disaster to increasing the "security" in our airports.

It is the horror of our pretending to be a Christian country.

It is the horror of our calm acceptance of the idolization of independence, wealth, and the GNP, and our disdain for the real needs of real people right here in our neighborhoods.

It is the horror that we are the cause of our own desolation.

God's heart breaks.

www.redcross.org; www.salvationarmy.org; comments@whitehouse.gov

Lack of control

Mostly I love technology. Computers and I have been friends since they were in diapers. I learned on mainframes, and can still recite DOS alongside childhood limericks. As they grew, I learned to let go -- to have less control over how they ran, what languages they learned, and what they did with the knowledge I gave them.

Our church has begun to create a deeper online presence. This week, we started offering Bible study through bulletin boards on our website (www.campbellucc.org/discuss -- we're working on Luke), and to have one of our leadership discussions online where everyone can see it. It's a baby step, to be sure, but an important one.

Of course, just as we're taking our little steps forward, technology (see "lack of control", above) fails us. Our web provider, ipowerweb, has some nasty code lurking on its Apache server that's been appending to our web pages and messing up our bulletin boards.

How does it feel? Like we've just got the baby toddling on two feet, but some hacker with not enough to do is deliberately tripping the baby -- and the web provider is giving the baby a little shove from behind.

So we're back to square one, waiting for them to fix the server so people can learn how to connect online.

Kind of missing the old days right now.

Writing the Evangel

The more deeply I read Christian literature and commentary, the more I find myself asking, "to whom was this written, and why?" I think that Duncan, like Jim Wallis, like Brian McLaren, is writing to fundamentalists, to evangelicals, to those whose rigidity leans in the direction of inerrancy rather than relativism. We who come from the halls of "liberalism" and universalism, who claim Marcus Borg and Anne Lamott and Mohandas Gandhi as our spiritual brethren, can tend to pick up writings of this sort and, with a self-satisfied smugness, shout "Aha! We told you!" Our needed corrective is not Duncan, but perhaps Billy Graham, or someone else who loves -- wistfully and painfully loves -- Jesus and our shared 2000-5000 year history.

Sometimes I recognize in myself the tendency to claim triumph, rather than to take in the needed admonishment, and to (lovingly) discipline my own rigidity and "inerrancy".

I am weary, truly weary of liberals and other pagans (not being technical here) who claim their deepest spirituality is in nature and not in church. Of course it is: nature cannot fight, conflict, err, speak out of turn, disappoint, sing offkey. Nature requires no response but gratitude, and doesn't even really require that. Nature is not human. It is, in that way, utterly unlike Jesus our Lord, who was deeply, tragically, joyfully human, and fought, conflicted, erred, spoke out of turn, disappointed, and probably sang offkey.

Our corrective is not universality or nature-reverence. It is rapture, engagement, humility. And the evangel Himself.

IM ICQ novice AIMing

The problem with being shy is that any technology that makes you more accessible is disturbing.

Take instant messaging. IM is old by now, but is really just hitting critical mass and becoming part of the way we communicate. I know I should use it, but the idea of people talking to me when I'm quietly hiding out makes me a little queasy. So it's hard to be inspired to learn.

That said -- sometimes I really want to "talk" with someone but don't want to talk to do it. Writing is ideal, and I have a lot of loved ones (church folks especially) I want to hear from almost anytime.

So I downloaded Trillian today and started signing up for services -- Yahoo and AIM and whatever else.

Welcome to the 20th century, Elane.

Good Friday to Better Sunday

This week before Easter, this holy week, is so full of preparation and details that it takes effort not to lose contact with the Reason.

Yesterday was Good Friday -- the day we remember Jesus' crucifixion. (Which doesn't sound like a very Good Friday.) Our church shared worship with New Community of Faith -- the one my husband Bran pastors -- and did the planning and preparation together. Some people created prayer stations for our labyrinth, reminders of the path of passion and purpose: the dust and dirt, Jesus' prayers in the garden, the cross and crown of thorns, the legend of Veronica (who wiped Jesus' face), holy communion... Almost all the folks who worked on it were new to worship planning, and it was wonderful! Poetry and sand and Van Gogh and olive branches and prayer, in the midst of a great labyrinth and candles and music.

The service was deeply moving, particularly when Karla (from New Community of Faith) spoke as Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the cross and sang. Bran stapled current news to a 10' cross on the floor, reminding us of the crucifixions that take place today. And people prayed in their seats and at the cross, moved by Jesus' path and by their own.

It was a truly Good Friday, and Jesus was in the house!

Tomorrow is Easter, when our sorrow turns to hope for new life. Not just his. Ours.

I feel so blessed to be doing this work with these people in this time. God is good. And even better.

worshipping together

On Monday, a group met with Kevin Callahan, an architect and liturgical designer from Scottsdale, whom I met at the Emergent/National Pastors' conventions. The task group working on our sanctuary had earlier met with a traditional (mid-century) architect, but for this we invited everyone who wanted to learn more about sanctuary (re)design. Seven or eight came, including some who had not attended earlier gatherings.

The next day, I asked people what they had thought. And light from the grace of God streamed in on the answers.

What I learned from what they thought is how much people hunger to worship together -- to feel connected to each other during worship -- and thirst to drink in the living water of God's presence. In professional ministry, we tend to talk about liturgy vs. free prayer, mid-80s praise music vs. circle drumming, and so forth. But when people are drawn by an outsider to feel about their desires for worship, and their understanding of their worship space as part of their life as a church, their longing for the Holy in community is palpable.

Both Holy and human. A lot like Jesus, Christ. Go figure.

New light streaming through the stained glass urges us to intimacy and awe.

Hallelujah. May our longing sustain our courage to change.

Some days there's bluegrass

I'm on a number of email lists for church leaders, with very little regularity about what "church" means and what "leaders" means, except that we all share a love for Jesus, call him "Christ", and are trying to live 24/7/52 in community. The list connection is surface; tribes emerge from the primal core and don't always have geographic center or even common language. Two of guys wound up doing Monty Python onlist today, which means that there are at least three of us in the pulpit or pews thinking Life of Brian.

It helps to lighten the weight of the call.

Yesterday my husband Bran (who is also a pastor, at another church) and I met with a colleague from Santa Cruz. Sometimes you just see your tribal marks on another person, and long silences at lunch mean absorption, not boredom or confusion. That stuff can be life-giving.

Like the fact that a bluegrass gospel band, Handpicked will be providing the music at our worship gathering on April 3. Lifegiving.

Somedays there are blues. And some days there's bluegrass.