My new favorite website

For soaking in the presence of God through music and imagery

 

http://www.soaking.net/

Listening to nudges

Sunday, a member of Council (which is our only standing board) decided to resign to focus attention on other good works he is doing. I was really proud of him for doing that.

I've been in organizations in which anger or despair is the automatic response to resigning from a board. The underlying sense is scarcity: there aren't enough people to do the work so anyone who leaves is a traitor.

We're really trying to become a community in which people listen to God's nudges, try new things, make and keep commitments, and renegotiate their commitments when they discover that God really is nudging a different direction (or has in fact provided different gifts). It takes a lot of courage to try things, be open to course correction, and to try new things. It takes courage to be accountable to your community. And we find new life, become new, when we heed the movement of the Spirit.

Anyway, I was really proud.

After that, the meeting went to talking about an adult baptism coming up at the end of the month. The candidate wants to be baptized by immersion (which I wholeheartedly support), but being a certain stream of Christians we have no baptismal pool. The same fellow who withdrew from Council heard a nudge, and started talking specs.

Now he's leading the baptismal pool build. And two Christians will be (re)born: one through baptism, one through the touch of the Spirit.

Oh! And another man, who is officially a member of another church, but leads a shared ministry and comes to our Bible study, will stand with the baptismal candidate. Her choice.

Big grins all around.

Relieving anonymity

Christianity Today has started a new line of blog/newsletter/downloads/etc. for women leaders. I had signed up for the newsletter, and visited the blog today. Read all the entries, read the bios of the editorial board. Immediately felt unworthy.

In one of the blogs, the editor asks readers to introduce themselves. I'm thinking: sure, why not. Tell 'em who is out here rooting for them (and looking for others).

Consider using a pseudonym: Lone She-wolf (what are female wolves called, anyway?)
Consider using just a first name: Elane (that could be anybody, right?)

Decide that it's so like women to just use our first names -- as if using our last names gives us too much authority, or might truly identify us (and sets us up to be recognized for our failures -- couldn't be our successes, right?), or makes us less friendly and approachable.

Realize: that's the problem. Mine anyway: claiming my power/God's power/successes/hopes.

So I use my whole name. But I don't name my church, 'cause then I'd really be on the hook.

Apparently I still have some work to do.

We're all pagans, really

Last night we put the ornaments on the Christmas tree. Many of the lights on the strand had burned out, so the day after Christmas we'll buy new ones for next year. Used the gold and whitegold balls (medium and small) as the base, then added the special ornaments: the heavy glass ones in muted colors from India, the little creches from Mexico, the handblown venetian-style glass ones from the artist down the street. No tinsel: too painstaking, too silvery.

For years as a child I refused to allow trees in our house. There were just two of us, so one not wanting something pretty much squashed it. It didn't make sense to cut down a perfectly good tree to bring it inside to die. Christmas home as tree-torture site. One year we decorated the wall in the shape of a tree. One year we used cardboard and made a tree. Eventually Mom dragged the silver tinselly aluminum fluffy tree out of storage and threatened to put it up. We went back to real trees after that.

There's something about bringing a recently living piece of the earth into your home. When it's bitterly cold outside, and the birds long ago stopped singing, having that bit of still-bright green close reminds of warmer days, of the inevitable return of spring. The decorations? Memories of better times and hopes for new times too. Bits of twinkling to pierce the darkness, to reflect back hope.

We need our touchstones, our real things. We need living hope, and the assurance of new life. We bring in trees, but we look for Christ.

God giggles

So bought the laptop, encouraged by the husband.

One minor irony: after writing this morning about fear of unintended consequences of spending money, went into the laundry are to discover 1" of standing water. Immediately thought: "Aha! Spendthrift! Wastrel! Now you need a washing machine."

Or, in this nonalternative reality, needed to mop up where waterrepellent pillows had made it overflow.

God giggles.

p.s. got one refurbished, better specs, $300 less than anticipated. I giggle too.

When is frugality merely fear?

My writing is unreadable and my brain unstoppable: a laptop would be helpful most days, most times. Having borrowed my lovely husband's laptop on my trip to hear Brian McLaren, and having envied pastorfriend Heather's little MacBook over Thanksgiving, I've finally decided to buy a laptop. Sort of.

I've researched and price-compared and read reviews. I've done and redone our budget and reallocated our savings. I've looked at my set-aside personal money and allocated it differently. We have enough money for me to do this.

But we need new flooring and landscaping. There may be a child someday and we'll need to pay match fees. My shoes need heeling and polishing, and the car has 163k miles on it. I might want a cup of coffee while I'm out someday. So what am I doing thinking of buying a laptop?

Can you see the hideous spiral?

My brain knows very well that I live in extraordinary abundance: we have steady incomes which surpass our actual needs; I love my work; we are healthy. But something inside me is afraid, and the fear can be paralyzing.

Here's the thing about trusting God, which I really do: I feel (not think) God expects me to make reasonably good decisions, and is not about to bail me out if I buy a laptop but actually should save for flooring, or for the medical help we don't need yet but might in 30 years. Which in my little lizard brain becomes "God will only take care of your real needs if you don't do anything stupid." Which is pretty stupid itself.

So I'm working on trusting God to take care of my real needs even if I buy a laptop. Because I've decided to do that. Sort of.

Funerals

When I was in seminary, the line was that funerals were "better" than weddings. I don't remember hearing an actual person say it, but I know it was the common wisdom.

I have now officiated at a number of each. Because I require premarital counseling with me, I've spent a lot of time with couples. And because I usually don't know the deceased, I've spent a goodly amount of time with the bereaved. Here's what I know:

• Engaged people lie. A lot. They lie to each other and they lie to me. Most of the time they don't realize they're doing it.
• Bereaved people lie. They do it to protect the good memories, and so as to not affront anyone.
• Engaged people are focused on the wedding day. The rest is too hard to contemplate, and a great unknown.
• Bereaved people are focused on the funeral. The rest is too hard to contemplate, and they fear they do know it.

But everyone is relieved, for a moment, when the event is over. And God attends every wedding and funeral God is invited to.

A couple of weeks ago, a woman attended our worship service for the first time. She looked vaguely familiar, but since she was sitting with a woman I knew I figured I'd met her before. Turns out I'd performed her wedding a couple of years back, and that the marriage had broken up, for all the reasons I'd warned them about. She hadn't remembered that this was "my" church, and I hadn't remembered her. She came and left, lightly.

We held a funeral on Monday for a woman I had never met. Her husband is a sweet and good man, broken by the loss of his wife. He had the funeral at our church campus because he and his wife had been married there 20 years ago. The pastor at that time basically told him he needed to shape up and be a man to his wife. And he was, and he said goodbye to her Monday.

I can't say I prefer funerals, but I know that God is asked to attend them more often.

Christmas presence

My lovely husband keeps asking me what I want for Christmas. I already circled the slippers in the Lands' End catalog, but I think he wants another answer. I told him I want a full day off, but that's not what he's looking for either. An esthetician appointment? No.

"What do you want for Christmas? What present?"

What present, indeed.

Here's what I want for Christmas:

• I want to see God. Not just "God in another human being's face", not a namaste moment. I want to see God ("and live", would be nice too).
• I want all the people who are grieving to get a break. There's so much grief around right now, and it hurts. A selfish request, but it's my present list, after all.
• I want to be fearless.
• I want to know whether God has a child for us in the plan. Either way is fine, but I'd like to know.
• I want the seven or eight children in our church who I really worry and pray about to find one good adult to guide and love them.
• I want the adults in our church whose pain is so buried that they're destroying themselves to sit down and dig -- and to let someone be with them in it. I want them to want healing.
• I want our country to gain some perspective and humility, and our President to listen to people who disagree with him.
• I want more time with my lovely husband.

I want Presence in the present.

But shoes are always good too.

Inside is winter

The only excuse for not posting is lack of discipline. Christmas season is busy for church people, but it's busy for everyone.

My nonChristian friends are often just as busy as I am, or more. They're shopping and baking and making their homes fancy and fanciful. I have visited friends in mid-December, and stepped into former apartments or hovels or houses that had become winter wonderlands. Why is it that we in warm climates do what we can to simulate German landscapes, with fir boughs and holly and pine cones? And those in colder climes bring simulated snow into their living rooms, as if they regretted the heat they so dearly pay for?

Perhaps we bring winter inside to warm our hearts. With what shall we warm the world?

Time to start writing again. Keep me at it, okay?

Brian McLaren at Soliton Zoo #2

I said in the first post that the McLaren's talk brought oxygen. For me, this was much-needed breathing space. But in the afternoon session you could feel people's tension, as more oxygen created more light and heat.

Light and heat are not always comforting things, esp. when the talk is of hell and the kingdom of God. What I find deeply reassuring in McLaren's work is precisely what others find challenging: McLaren is breaking through multiple hidden boundaries of understanding. For me, that makes fluidity; for others, chaos.

Thesis, simply put: in the West, for a thousand years or so, some of the theological questions we've asked have not been the best ones. At least, our questions have not been the only possible questions (hence, our answers not the only possible answers). To use a music metaphor, we've created a boxed set of greatest hits -- atonement, salvation, hell -- but there are other genres and musicalities to be found.

So, for example, our connection with God isn't: "Hell: Who's going?" or even "Jesus saved X people by doing Y".

It is instead: the kingdom of God is at hand (meaning, right here right now). How will we live in it? How will we regather, reconnect, restore, reconcile the whole of creation?

I realized, as the tears welled up, that I love McLaren because for the time I'm reading his books or hearing him speak, I don't feel alone in this. He writes and says what I don't have words for, but long to.

One of my brothers asked, heartfully, "what happens to sin? What happens to the atonement?" I think he meant, "I have experienced God's salvation in Christ. If that isn't the point, what does that mean for me?" McLaren was warm, and gentle, and did not defend or critique, but opened up a different conceptual box, and examined its contents with us.

During this talk, a listener noted that at least one major denomination has embraces the crazy concept that the earth needs to fall completely apart and be destroyed for the Second Coming to happen. As if God would have us destroy his property in order to hasten our salvation. Those among us from that denomination and its brethren listened, and reflected. Those of us whose roots are elsewhere listened, and reflected.

All that was said, was said with wonder and awe in a room that allowed difference, and humility, and pain, and joy. There is the graciousness, and the Grace.

I was so glad to be there. Sometimes God drives us 314 miles each way just to breathe the air.

Brian McLaren at Soliton Zoo (Ventura, CA) #1

First, thanks to my wonderful husband Bran for loaning me his laptop.

There are gracious souls active in the world. Some of them are in the bodies of pastors and theologians. One of them is in Brian McLaren.

McLaren speaks from and to an evangelical background and perspective -- his critique and hope rest upon those foundations of faith. He hasn't said this, but I suspect that his great driving desires (and we all have driving desires) are Christlikeness and wholeness. So his work -- his books, his speech, his operative questions -- center on the meaning and being of Christ, and integration (of being, meaning, activity, theology, etc.). That means that he seems uninterested in plotting a position and sweating to fill in the gaps and cracks, as if unassailability and permanence were the goal. (Which may be why his critics are so strident, as they stand spattered with mortar and spackle.)

So you probably want details.

• The church has always had an emerging edge -- we have never been rendered for all time in stone -- so there has never been a single "biblical" or "christian" world view (for example).
• A "good" theology must earn its acceptance, not impose it upon the world through conquer or coercion. It will be coherent, contextual, conversational, and comprehensive (meaning -- will speak to and with the other theologies around it, not comprehensive meaning permanent or impenetrable).
• Our world is not pluralistic, but fragmented. Fragmentation becomes relativistic becomes narcissistic.
• The best news can only come with vulnerability (and yes there's part of my xmas message!).
• The gospel is not any particular atonement theory: it's not "Jesus came to die for your sins." or "God sent his son to pay your debt." or "Jesus shows the falseness of empirical human power". The gospel (I love this): the kingdom of God is at hand. Reconcile.

Which of course is what Jesus himself said. (Matthew 4:17)

Selfishly, I am getting what I came for: refreshment, oxygen, spaciousness. That's graciousness, and Grace, at work.

(Plus there's nothing like being in a room of youngish people with light bulbs going off over their heads and sparks in their hearts. Whew.)

Elections

I try to keep it vaguely apolitical over here. I'm not a political leader, but a spiritual one, and I know that broadcasting my political views will alienate my spiritual charges as quickly as broadcasting my spiritual views will alienate my political allies.

That said:

The appallingly arrogant Republican Congress and White House has received a cold water baptism. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near," quoth a dear friend of mine and yours. But that "kingdom of heaven" ain't a Democratic Congress, either. It's a place in which all human beings are treated with dignity; where the rich accept their responsibility to care for the poor, widows, and orphans; and where the planet and all things in it belong to God (and are cared for as if God were standing right there supervising).

I am tired of being called a traitor because I believe the men and women of our armed forces are being used, and are not being provided for while or after they serve.

I am tired of being treated as a heretic because I welcome gays and lesbians into my church, and because I don't believe wealth is a sign of God's favor, but of our ability to climb on the backs of others.

I am tired of "purity" being the mark of faithfulness, as if Jesus were such a standoffish kind of guy (and it seems to be working so well for Ted, Mark, and all those guys).

And I am really, really, tired of our claiming that corporations have just as many rights or more than the 18-year-old orphan girl next door to me, who cannot pay rent with what she gets paid, and dares not ever get sick.

Do I believe that the Democrats are going to do better? No, because we've all sold out to greed and fear. But I pray that this latest baptism is a mark of communal repentence. I pray that we do begin to choose differently. For the kingdom of heaven has truly come near, and God is standing right here, supervising.

God cheats

Last night, we had a wonderful, Spirit-led worship experience led by Kathleen Fagre (http://www.kathleenfagre.com). This morning I received an email from one of the people who attended, which (with permission) I needed to share with you.

I've changed some names and identifying marks, but you'll probably recognize yourself anyway...

So there I am, well out of the circle, just so I can stand up to sing, nothing to do with picking up extra space between me and all those people of course, singing away on the last song, eyes closed ...
"May the journey be a blessing, may I rise on wings of love"
...and whump! all of a sudden my arms are full of another worshipper, weeping violently.

Now we have observed before that mercy gifts are not the dominant part of my makeup and I have generally not (never if I could help it) been the person found holding anyone weeping violently. But I can't exactly kick her away either, especially not when I'm right in the middle of asking God for an increased resemblance.

So I did the only thing I could think of and prayed the song over her as strongly as I could, changed the pronouns on the last verse and tried to bring it home to her, and for a few moments anyway, saw God in her face quite clearly.

But God definitely cheats. And telling Her so makes for a remarkably unproductive conversation.

My personal DNA

The revgalblogpals blog ring is taking a "Personal DNA" personality test and posting the results.

Here are mine.

Respectful Director

Adopting

I got up this morning full of good intentions for writing something both pithy and profound about the nature of faithful living. But on my desk are scattered agency specs and requirements, two glossy photos of my husband and me, and a colorful flyer on cardstock with our names bannered across the top.

Finally, our "Dear Birthmother" letter and our photos are being printed. The web designer is getting his specs and budget. The 800 number is working. And very soon, we will be praying even more frequently and fervently about the baby we hope God is finding for us. By next week or so, my husband and I and our adoption agency will be actively looking for a mother who wants us to be her child's adoptive parents. We will be actively waiting to become parents.

I never thought I'd have an 800 number. I never thought I'd be waiting to be a mother. Amazing what God leads you to that you'd never thought you'd do, and want to do.

So nothing pithy and profound. Just life in faith.

... and the joy of new life

Last week I posted about compassion. Yesterday at our staff meeting, our music minister, Cheryl, concernedly enquired after the state of my soul, having read this blog. (Ah, those Christians: how they love one another.)

My soul is pretty good. There's been a lot of pain and grief among my people -- loss of beloved pets, postponed manslaughter trials, end-of-life decisions to be made -- as well as the discomfort that comes with change. I had posted about this last thing -- how much pain change can bring -- but I was feeling some of all of it, I think.

God lifted a lot of my own weightiness during my prayer time (and while listening and crying to great Black gospel music).

But the other thing that evened out my soul, and lifted it, was noticing little signs of new growth among the people: new ministry ideas, renewed vigor, volunteering out of desire not guilt. God working in the very cells, renewing and restoring among us.

It's the joy of new life. And yeah, Cheryl, I'm good today -- and keep asking!

Thank you, Lord, for the pain of compassion

Lord, I thank you for the pain of compassion today. It feels like weakness, God. It feels like I don't trust you. But I read about the fleshly Jesus, and his compassion, and I know it is because he trusted you that he could feel it. I pray that when I ache, when I look at someone and suffer in my bowels with him, that it is your compassion I am feeling. I pray that when it hurts, and when I am led to not trust you because of the hurt, that you turn it around and let me hurt because I trust you to help.

Gather your lost lambs, Lord, and draw them into your safety and your salvation. If I'm not the right disciple to point them to your love, if our church fails them or isn't what they need to find you, please just reach out and find them through someone else, so that they're not all alone out there.

Thank you, Lord, for living your compassionate pain among us, and in us, and through us. Even today.

Elane

Leaving and staying

The sky is creeping tangerine across a steel gray expanse, and I'm feeling blue.

95% of the time I believe that God sent me to my church to help God turn it around: to help God's people here discover a vibrant, living, active, passionate faith, and to help others find it too. (As I write this sentence I realize what "turn it around" means to me. Who knew?)

100% of the time I know that "turning it around" will mean that many people who have affiliated with the church for a long time but who don't want what God is doing there right now will leave. 95% of the time I'm not happy with that, but I'm okay with it.

Today, I'm living in the 5% of both those things: I'm not convinced God sent me to do this, or that it's the right thing to do, or that I'm doing it rightly; and I'm not okay with the sheep who are quietly wandering off. And they do it quietly... they just slip away, without comment, their memories lingering, their ministries abandoned.

It's not the loss of numbers. I really do not care about that. But I am deeply afraid that God's lambs will wander into the hands of wolves, or simply out onto rocky promontories, alone. If they find another church community and a faith that feeds them, makes them stronger and more at peace, that's wonderful. Go with my blessing. But the potential loss, and lostness, makes me grieve.

Yesterday I was angry at the lack of accountability and straightforwardness. Today I am just sad. It's grief.

Friends, if you read this, please pray for Jesus' lambs, that as they leave our fold they find another that nurtures and sustains them. And if you have an extra prayer left in you, pray for Jesus' church in Campbell, and for me, their rather blue pastor.

The Resurrections

My sister-in-law, Caitlin Scott, was inspired by one of my husband Bran's sermons, and wrote this:



Cicadas, just
their empty husk
clung to the rails
of the back steps
in the dog days
of the brick house
in Little Rock
each of the six
crisp, claw-tipped legs
sunk in gray-blue
peeling paint. Backs
arched, torn open
by the insects
bursting out and
up and free, their
exoskeletons
irrefutable
evidence
of departure
and existence
elsewhere. The child
who found one nudged
it loose, placed it
in our army
in the dollhouse.
We three at dusk
commandeering
the lightning bugs
heard cicadas
saying something
immense, filling
the failing light
and Gothic oaks
with whispers of
a place to live
and breath and have,
at last, our being.

Responding to revgalblogpals' post:

Friday Five: Brushes with Greatness
...
1. Tell us about a time you met someone famous.
How about the times I didn't, but mostly slinked past: Gene Wilder (blushing and giggling), John Lithgow (trying to avoid his feeling I was stalking, when we kept passing each other in the grocery aisles).
Or did, when they weren't really: Lea DeLaria, Tim Curry.
Or did, but it mattered not one whit to them: All of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Robin Williams, Maya Angelou, Bishop Tutu (I have been a waitress, caterer, and stage manager in my past). Oh, and Ian Anderson (did I mention I hung with roadies, briefly?)

2. Tell us about a celebrity you'd like to meet.
Meet? None. Have actual conversation with? Bono. Nelson Mandela. Kathy Griffin. Sublime, ridiculous, and in-between. Brian McLaren. God, and, well, God. Jodie Foster. Dallas Willard.

3. Tell us about someone great who's *not* famous that you think everyone oughta have a chance to meet.
Kathleen Fagre, who is an awesome worship leader based in Colorado (http://www.kathleenfagre.com) and funny and humble.


4. Do you have any autographs of famous people?
Tom Robbins -- stood in line for two hours and got kissed. Wow.

5. If you were to become famous, what would you want to become famous for?
Never wanted to be famous, though rich wouldn't be at all bad.
If I were ... I would want to be famous for having done something right and good.


Bonus: Whose 15 minutes of fame was up long, long ago?
Karl Rove (my mouth to God's ears, please) and all the corrupt cronies.
Barry Bonds -- I'm just bored with it
Anyone on any reality tv show.