Schedule update

I was going to start reading Judith Shulevitz' The Sabbath World today, but it's due back at the library in two days and someone is waiting for it.  I'll reschedule it for later this summer, and we'll continue with Heschel's The Sabbath for a couple more days.

Meeting the Sabbath

Attached to my computer monitor are two small reproductions of icons. They happen to be Mother of God Directress and Christ the Lifegiver, but nearly any traditional icon would have done.*  Icons are intended to be windows; both their production (known as "writing") and their contemplation give us sight beyond sight, a glimpse of the eternal reality.  On my monitor they remind me of (Orthodox) liturgy, which intends to duplicate that of the angels in the heavens, instantiating their worship on earth, binding the heavens and the earth in one glorious song. To be present to the icon or to the liturgy is to stand in a hyperthin place, on the very boundary between the material and the eternal, basking in and reflecting the heavens' golden glow.  When I take notice of the Mother of God and of the Lifegiver, for a moment I step out of today's technological duty into the real Presence of God.

There is in Heschel's Sabbath a same beauty that glimmers, pervading and perfuming the universe.  Heschel's prose is redolent of Sabbath itself, pointing as it does beyond description and into Reality.

As I consider what keeping sabbath might mean for me and my family, two themes assert themselves: rather than being a cessation from certain activities, sabbath is a presence to be met, and like any beloved guest, welcomed and cherished; and sabbath is a "sanctuary in time" -- reminding me that time is a most precious commodity.

If I do nothing but consider these two themes and live them out, our sabbaths will become icons as powerful as the ones on my monitor, and with God's grace, our lives come to resemble a divine liturgy -- the work of the people of the Heavens.

My in-progress notes on the book are here.



*Yes, I am excluding the lovely contemporary icons at St. Gregory of Nyssa and the Cathedral at Los Angeles, as well as many of those produced by Bridge Building Images, among others.  Their purpose is enshrinement, rather than revelation.

Divine Conspiracy, chapter 1

The first book in the stack for the Renovare Institute is The Divine Conspiracy ["DC"] by Dallas Willard.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, or have reviewed my Facebook fan pages, or have spent much time in my sermonizing, you know my deep respect for Dr. Willard.  He has pierced a thick veil of greyness that suffocates modern understanding of Jesus, revealing the ease and depth of the life within the Kingdom of the Heavens.

Re-reading DC chapter 1, I am again astonished by all I have forgotten about my Lord and about God's plan for each one of us (which is the universal plan, lived out uniquely). Willard describes how truthiness has replaced truth, how the din of clever quippery drowns out the simplest of facts. Then, he states the simple fact: we are petty rulers of the kingdom of our selves invited through Jesus to be powerful participants in the Kingdom of God.   Here is a gist, in a few quotish paraphrases: http://bit.ly/awMCtN.

impotence

= beloved friends + surgery + long recovery + long distance

God is going to have to handle this one  -- but I'll be waiting by the phone just in case.

The Sabbath

Even though I read this just a couple of months ago, I had already forgotten just how edible Heschel's prose is.  He makes me want to linger on every sentence, savoring like the first asparagus or truly fresh black truffles.  Simply amazing: no wonder I have always felt kinship with Hasidism, if Heschel and Potok are to be believed.

2nd Amendment

Three things about our Constitution I do not understand:
1) The arguments that the 2nd Amendment is meant personally rather than collectively, given that it starts with that "well-regulated militia" clause (which individuals, by definition, cannot be)
2) Why the Five aren't considered "activist" when they've consistently overwritten decades of precedent;
3) How in the world you can call yourself a "strict" constitutionalist, given #2.

I mean this honestly: I do not understand it at all.

For the doubters

There has been scoffing, so I present to you my clean desk, one week later. And yes, I have used it since I blogged.  Note particularly the lack of stacks of books and papers on the shelves. 

I pray that this may also offer some crumb of hope to those who have not seen their desks since Barry Manilow ruled the airwaves.

... the teacher will come.

Early this morning I added my Renovare Institute reading schedule to my shabbatical reading schedule, noting the splendid overlap of purpose and desired outcomes.  That was okay. Then I reviewed the syllabus, and looked at the seriousness of the practice, and the educational expectations.  And heard Beautiful Daughter rousing and the chickens clucking and the laundry cycling.  Not to mention the scores of apricots dropping from the tree and the job I'm not currently doing but at least vaguely expect to return to.

They say that when the student is ready the teacher will come.  I'm a little afraid the teacher may come whether the student is ready or not.

Desk is still clean

It's been 24 hours. I'm on a roll.

Renovare Institute begins

This morning I received a letter, schedule, syllabus, and FAQ for the 2-year Institute that begins July 1.  I am beyond excited, and am relieved that so far the reading looks manageable.  Doesn't hurt that I've read nearly all the books for the first semester already.

Now I can concentrate on those DMin apps.

On the summer reading front:  I simply cannot get through The Clinton Tapes. How could anyone take 8 years of conversation with former President Clinton and make it boring, you might ask?  I asked myself that through about 1/4 of it; today it gets donated to the library. Truly disappointing: I ordered it pre-release and saved it for this summer.   On to the next non-shabbatical books:  two of the You series.

Today we begin

Last night Wonderful Husband and I had a difficult conversation about just exactly what my instituting Sabbath was supposed to do for him and our family, and exactly what I expected of everyone else.  Of course, I couldn't answer: I am not in the habit of talking about what I'm reading, thinking, feeling. Sometimes I expect him to be psychic, but most times it's just my hating when I am not able to make myself clear and understood. I prefer to present a coherent set of reasoned thoughts, and to discuss those, rather than to pour out whatever murky muck of thinking and feeling happens to be -- like primordial chaos -- knowing that with God's help it will change and morph and evolve. 

So today we begin, not Sabbath planning, but my learning to speak sooner, knowing that what I say will be misunderstood and will change, probably as I am saying it. That may be enough work for today.

1st Sunday of Sabbatical

9:24 am

Wonderful Husband sleeping.
Beautiful Daughter watching 101 Dalmatians.
Clearly we're going to need a plan for Sundays.

Stacks

One of the books on the shabbatical list is The Sabbath World by Judith Shulevitz. Our local library set it aside for me and I picked it up today, reading only the first couple of chapters.  Why the restraint?  Because the stack for the summer is very high, and I've got 3 books going right now without even touching the "official" pile. Or the piles of laundry and stacks of to-do lists.

But reading even a few minutes' worth I recall why I'm doing this: Sabbath is necessary and challenging both theologically and practically. When I resume reading this one in a couple of weeks, I'll be looking for the notes supporting her (anti-Jewish) interpretation of Kierkegaard's use of the tax collector. In the meantime, it's back to the short stack and the piles.

First day

First day of sabbatical:

Slept in until 6:30.
Two rooms in house now clean.
2 more half clean (if you don't look inside anything.)

What a whirlwind!

Transitional thoughts 5 am

Today I become a Christian for 3 months.  Not a pastor, but a Christian; not a leader, but a follower. What, besides sermons and budgets, is the difference? Some initial transition thoughts:

• If they play a music video in a worship service I attend, I won't cringe at its being way too soft. (Nickelback last Sunday. Excellent video. But seriously, AV guys: it's rock!)
• If the officiant knocks over the communion juice, I won't be sticky.
• I won't know the opening crew at Peets.
• No longer can I tell myself "I'm too busy." Especially when someone is in need. Including me.
• Random screeching by strangers probably won't be directed at me, and my phone number won't be in circulation among certain segments of the mentally ill population.
• No teenagers.
• No office away from home.
• Public identity gone.
• When people ask me what I do on all the other days, they'll understand my answer.

More will present itself. But for now I just have to submit my reimbursables and empty out my office for the new guy. Who may very well turn out to be Jesus.

How many things wrong can you identify?

Scene: Getting 2.5 year old Daughter into carseat.

She:  I'm not white.
Me (waiting): Okay.
She: I'm black.
Me: Actually, you're white and black and Indian, but okay...?
She: So you don't like me.

Other conversation ensues. The rest of the day passes. Wonderful Husband consults a biracial colleague then leaves work to be with us and figure out next moves. There is ice cream and talk about how many colors of skin and hair and eyes are in our family and at the ice cream store, and how much we adore (and like) her.  He leaves. She goes on as usual. I avoid lethal injection by not physically ripping the hearts out of anyone who might have said anything like any of this to her, or who ever will, ever.

But the hole ripped in my own heart gapes. Fear and sorrow enter, and I pray that God is entering too.

My Utmost for today, excerpted

Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.

The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice.

Homeland security

The effects of this oil spill are the greatest threat to homeland security we have ever seen. How about sending our best minds to work on that?

Space and time

I've actually had two other sabbaticals.

The first was in 1990 or 91 or 92.  Having been a college philosophy teacher for a number of years, I took all my money out of CalPers retirement and moved to San Francisco. There were two purposes to this, one of which was to learn how to not work 80 hour weeks.  The days stretched out in front of me like the Pacific Ocean out my window. I was so anxious I wanted to peel the paint off the wall.

Sabbath -- spaciousness -- is a blessing, partly because the pain inside has room to move, and then to heal. That doesn't seem like a blessing when it's happening, so most of us do everything we can to avoid it.  Gerald May writes, "True space is encountered only with the willingness and courage to experience things as they are....When people tell me they have trouble taking time for prayer or meditation, I often ask them what unpleasant things they might be wanting to avoid."

Sabbath is a blessing, also, because one's soul has space to yearn, to stretch, and to rest in the presence of God or peace or hope.

My second sabbatical was a few years back, when my oldest friends invited their friends to spend a week in a villa in Tuscany.  A week may not seem like a sabbatical, and certainly we kept busy (even without traveling, you put twelve people in a house there will be cooking and cleaning to do) but if sabbatical is purposed break in normal activity to rest in the arms of God, this was sabbatical.  Every morning my friend Jeff and I awoke early by nature, with neither alarm nor agreement. One of us made coffee. Then we would sit outside, drinking coffee, and reading. This was not intentional; it just was. Sometimes we talked, mostly we didn't. The Italian hills stretched out before me like those minutes of internal spaciousness.  The quiet companionship, the uncluttered time, the softness of morning, and the joy of reading remains for me the image of the jewel that is Sabbath.

In sabbatical, we wait in space and time for healing and rest, and after the pain begins to heal and the clutter blows away, it finds us waiting, with room to spare.

Undisciplining a gift

In 8 days I will be on sabbatical. Other than knowing I already miss our youth I really don't know what to expect. I have plans, but suspect God giggles at them and angels cover their faces with an "uh-oh". My to-do list gets longer by the day, and now includes activities like painting the two walls we missed 7 years ago, and cleaning out my laptop (including bookmarks. What evil genius invented bookmarks?). Suddenly 13 weeks of relative freedom seems like nothing. In fact, in some ways I'm feeling more constrained than usual.

That's how the devil works, isn't it? God gives us a gift grounded in freedom, and we (at least I) immediately unwrap it, take it apart, and nail it to the ground. Then wonder why I can't pick up this great gift and use it with abandon. Whether it's the gift of words (I am not spending enough time wordsmithing my sermons; I am not blogging enough; my Home Depot lists lack panache.) or the gift of freedom in Christ, our/my temptation is to render them a burden.

When gifts become a burden, it's time to rearrange, rethink, and recharge. Sometimes the only discipline needed is enjoyment. Which gets us right back to "in 8 days". Angels, uncover your eyes: I'm going to need your help.

Shabbatical Reading List

Would you read with me this summer? During my sabbatical I will be reading and blogging, and would love to have others to talk with.  Here's my approximate schedule by week; I'll announce any changes here.  I begin the 2-year Renovare Institute in July; I'm hoping that reading list will augment rather than replace this one.

 

6/11/2010	Rest and clean my house
6/14/2010	Play and continue to clean my house
6/21/2010	Other reading and projects
6/28/2010	Sabbath, Abraham Heschel
7/5/2010	The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time, Judith Shulevitz
7/12/2010	Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren Winner
7/19/2010	Visiting Oxford, MS and Asheville, NC
7/26/2010	Catch-up and projects
8/2/2010	Acedia and Me, Kathleen Norris
8/9/2010	Streams of Living Water, Richard Foster
8/16/2010	Catch-up and projects
8/23/2010	The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser
8/30/2010	Living the Sabbath, Norman Wirzba and Wendell Berry
9/6/2010	Catch-up and projects

The Gulf is Drowning

Oil Industry: Quit whining and build the berms and sandbars already!
Congress: Stop protecting your own interests and raise the financial cap to unlimited.
BP: Stop pouring in poison as if that helps and plug the hole. (And, by the way: who builds a long pipe without shutoff valves?)
EPA: Really? There's nothing you can do?
You and me and everyone else: Can we choose to live differently?
God: It's looking a little apocalyptic from here...

My Utmost for His Highest for today

by Oswald Chambers

. . . it has not yet been revealed what we shall be . . . —1 John 3:2

Our natural inclination is to be so precise— trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next— that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. Consequently, we do not put down roots. Our common sense says, “Well, what if I were in that circumstance?” We cannot presume to see ourselves in any circumstance in which we have never been.

Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life— gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God — it is only believing our belief about Him.

Jesus said, “. . . unless you . . . become as little children . . .” (Matthew 18:3 ). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.

Jesus said, “. . . believe also in Me” (John 14:1 ), not, “Believe certain things about Me”. Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in— but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.

Shabbatical

As you may know, I am on sabbatical this summer. If you have no idea what that actually means, you're not alone: the more research I did, the less it turned out I actually knew!  So here are some of the questions I had, and the answers I found.

What is a sabbatical?

The bottom line is that a sabbatical is a time to “not do what you normally do.”

Based on the Biblical concept of Sabbath, a sabbatical is a period of rest and renewal. It's not a vacation, but a deliberate re-centering in one's calling. For an academic, that often means doing personal research or pursuing an advanced degree. For a pastor, a sabbatical is often a time for travel to holy places, such as Palestine or Iona (Scotland) or the basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

The word “sabbatical” comes from the word “sabbath”.  Sabbath is the fourth of the Ten Commandments, and is central to the Torah system of social justice and right action.

How long is it?
My sabbatical will be three months long, which is standard, though some last as long as a year.

Why do you get one?
Because being centered in God and healthy in body, mind, and spirit is critical to ministerial leadership -- and to following Jesus.

The calling of ministerial leadership is a claim upon one’s entire life. Whether one is ordained and employed, or a lay person and volunteering, accepting God’s call to ministry leadership means that every part of your life is available for God’s use, and that we are specially accountable to God and our community for our use of your time, gifts, and resources.  This is a profound responsibility, affecting not only our lives but those of our families, friends, and churches.

The United Church of Christ, like most denominations, recognizes that pastors have responsibility to their communities whether they are on campus or not, at all times of the day and night. So the agreement between the pastor and the church usually stipulates a periodic time of renewal, for the sake of all parties involved. My “letter of call” from our church calls for a 3 month sabbatical every five years.  I was called as your pastor in November 2002, and this is my first sabbatical.

What about our church?

This summer is an opportunity for our church to “not do what you normally do.”  Council member Debra Carpenter and Cantor Susan Hough have been working with me to provide for our church’s care and development.  By the beginning of May, we will send out the plan and all contact information to each household.

We agreed from the beginning that this was a great time for our church to do new things, hear new voices, strengthen lay leadership, and have fun. 

• New things: the theme this summer is Servolution! Our major ministry activities will be scheduled random acts of kindness – sharing the love of God in fun and practical ways. 
• New voices: we are scheduling a number of preachers over the summer to bring different perspectives and life experience to the interpretation of Jesus’ gospel. 
• Strengthen lay leadership: Council and Staff will supervise the daily business of the church, coordinate ongoing ministries, and appoint a single contact for emergency pastoral needs.
• Have fun: This summer's emphasis on random acts of kindness will be a fun way to share God's love -- and every single person will have a vital role it.  It's a Servolution, after all!

There will also be clergy coverage. Rather than having a single person try to do everything, we will engage 2-3 part-time sabbatical replacements, each utilizing the best of the gifts God has given them.  

What will you be doing?

With God’s help, this will be a time of “how to live” rather than “what to do”.  I hope you'll join me in some of the experiments and readings -- I would love to discuss all of this with you!

• Theme: Shabbat-ical – composing a life based on God’s Sabbath rhythm. (Shabbat is the Hebrew word for the Sabbath.)
• Primary spiritual practices: Doing just one thing at a time, and the Ignatian exercises.
• Primary activities: Researching Sabbath; restructuring our household activity to be able to observe Sabbath; writing a Rule of life; and blogging about our discoveries.  I also hope to perfect my baking technique for pain a l’ancienne!
• Travel plans: Worshiping with other communities.  As a family, we expect to go to Oxford, MS to see Bran’s family and attend the (William) Faulkner conference; and to North Carolina  I hope to get some days at the ocean as well. to visit Elisabeth’s godmothers and their daughter.

I also plan to read and blog on my reading. Some likely books are:

• Sabbath, Abraham Heschel
• Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren Winner
• The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time, Judith Shulevitz
• Living the Sabbath, Norman Wirzba and Wendell Berry
• Streams of Living Water, Richard Foster
• The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser
• Acedia and Me, Kathleen Norris

And, for the fun of it:

• The Clinton Tapes, Taylor Branch
• The Tenth Muse: My Life In Food, Judith Jones.
• Whatever I haven’t read of Michael Pollan and Anne Tyler, among others.

Finally and firstly: I look forward to spending time with my husband Bran and our daughter Elisabeth, who have been very patient with me for (at least) the last eight years.

If you have other questions, please email me!

A head spin worthy of Linda Blair

I wasn't going to blog this, because it may sound like an attack on particular individuals. But since I've been pondering it for 24 hours, I'm forging ahead, fully aware that someone in the SF bay area, someone else is blogging in shock over something I've said.

Yesterday I visited my alma mater seminary. Our church decided to welcome a minister-in-training next school year and I was there to sit at a table for questions and give a two-minute promo for our church.

BACKGROUND: My alma mater is pretty liberal.  Its self-image derives from a certain kind of wide-open ecumenism that welcomes seekers and strangers and the estranged, is uncomfortable dictating expectations, and hopes to encourage the Spirit in all of us. So, for example, a gay leather daddy with a sense of how The Unnamed Divine is working in his life would be welcome to attend.  In this way, it is an amazingly open and diverse place. 

Because of this openness, it is historically wary of more ... traditional? that's not quite right .. approaches to faith. And, because it is founded in the work of white liberals, by and large, it tends to treat its very welcome people of color as exotica. So, for example: if a black lesbian attended the school, and spoke comfortably of Jesus' activity in her life, her confession of Jesus might well be viewed with kind and gentle cultural sensitivity. "She's black, right? and her culture thinks of Jesus this way."  The underlying message would be, then, that unfortunately we are all shaped by our culture, and if she were more self-aware she might find more open and non-discriminating ways to express her experience.  But -- thank The Divine! -- her (black, not gay) community will no doubt benefit from her experience as a lesbian and learn from that, plus she'll be able to reach them because she speaks their language.

A white woman saying the same sentence, though, must be, well, a bigot, or sheltered, or at the wrong place, or straight, or... you get the drift.  Since there's no cultural excuse, confession using "traditional" language is suspect.

The other outcome of this openness is an aversion or unreflective neglect of public prayer.  We talk about prayer, but don't do it. Just don't think about it, or craft it very carefully so as not to either offend or go too deeply into treacherous waters.

EVENT: So anyway, the event starts. The host welcomes all of us, tells us how it will work (pastors and agency reps get 2 minutes to talk about the uniqueness of their settings), introduces his staff, etc.  No opening prayer. No blessing. No mention of call or God or anything like that.  The parade of speakers goes on.

At some point one woman goes to the microphone and apologizes for the absence of her senior pastor, who is attending the family of a young man in surgery that very moment with a broken neck after a motorcycle accident. She makes light of the circumstances (which, in a broad comedy movie would be funny, were there no injuries), and assures us that the good news is that the young man is able to wiggle his fingers.  Immediately she launches directly into a rah-rah about her church, which does sound very interesting, and sits down.

Two or three more speakers follow. Not one of them acknowledges that we have just been told about a young man with a broken neck in surgery at that moment, with the good news being that he does have some movement in his fingers.

Remember that scene in the Exorcist where Linda Blair's head is spinning? That's exactly how I felt, sitting in my seminary, with  2 dozen clergy, maybe 3 dozen students, a dire circumstance, and not even a dash, a smidgeon of prayer.

So of course when I got up my heart was pounding. I couldn't remember what I had planned to say; I just knew I had to pray.  So invited everyone to pray. I think I prayed for the man and the doctors and family. I think I prayed for the seminarians and their call to follow Jesus and to serve him with their lives.  I feel confident I forgot to mention where I was from or what my name was. I know I said I missed prayer while I was there 12 years ago, and that my field education way the most important part of my training. I did say that we take prayer seriously, and the Bible seriously, and because we take the Bible seriously we are a progressive congregation. I did say that if they spend a year with us we would take them seriously, encouraging them to aim high, risk big, fail dramatically, and try again in the name of the gospel.

Another dozen speakers. No closing prayer. No blessing, but an invitation to have a cookie.

No one visited my table, but two clergy thanked me for the prayer. One student assured me that they don't pray there at all -- that they talk about it but don't do it. So I didn't feel insane.

Even though 60 eyes or so suggested I was. Or at the least, a white bisexual tattooed-and-pierced Jesus-freak threat to liberal thinking everywhere.

Looking ahead to Taize

Wonderful husband is due back tomorrow night after 9 days out of town. Though I'm fighting a cold (doesn't it sound like "I" have some actual control over this?) I am looking ahead to the 18th when I do my own traveling.

Taize.

Some go to Mecca, others to Lourdes, still others crawl on their knees all the way to Puebla. I'm not one of them, but am indulging a repeating whim to go to Taize.

For those who don't know anything about Taize, I refer you to this excellent blog post by a youth minister on his group's stay: Youthblog

Perhaps the unique aspect to Taize is not its form of worship so much (though that's what impresses and gets copied to varying levels of success) or its intentional ecumenism (rare for a monastery) but the fact that the vast majority of attendees for a week of silence, prayer, and work are under age 30.

This is the legacy of the martyred Fr. Roger: he envisioned youth finding Christ, en masse, for real, and taking the gospel message of service and love out into the world.

I cannot wait.

(Though I do hope it warms above 27F soon...)

So shut off the neon, already!

When Wonderful Husband and I were in seminary, he worked for a homeless ministry and I worked in downtown San Francisco. Not so different on a daily basis. What we noticed that was, even in our off hours -- not at work, not doing outreach -- we attracted crazy people. You know what I mean by crazy people? Everyone from I-can't-get-out-a-single-linear-sentence crazy to just-as-soon-kill-you-as-talk-to-you crazy to I-know-we-haven't-met-but-here's-my-life-story crazy. On the days that the crazies who accosted us outnumbered the other contacts we had, we were certain that we had bright neon signs, visible only to others, that said "crazy people welcome!".

Sometimes the neon would be on and we'd just get a lot -- I mean dozens -- of strangers coming up and talking to one or the other of us. Sometimes it would be less confrontational, like the weeks that one of my classmates had a crush on me and followed me everywhere. Everywhere. Hiding behind trees. Leaving really strange gifts. (Yes, I reported it as stalking. Yes, it stopped eventually.) Or the day that one of the homeless guys we both knew grabbed Wonderful Husband by the throat as we said hello to him. Or the day that another of our guys started daydreaming aloud about the children he'd injured. When the neon is on, it's not about numbers but about quality of interaction.

By and large our church lacks neon. We've had a few challenges -- your average dual-diagnosis homeless men, the borderline personality who would scream at our poor office manager over the phone when I wasn't in to scream at, the really broken soul who didn't realize that it was her own behavior that caused the problems she had -- but nothing constant or really dramatic.

But I think that the lack of neon, the lack of drama, is taking its toll on people. Over the last few months, a couple of our regular members -- clinically sane people -- have started acting out in that oh-so-lovely nice churchy passive-aggressive way. You know: the ones who that whatever whim they have must be a church priority even if everything else has to come to a stop or a full 180 to accommodate them -- until they drop it suddenly because they got bored or distracted, leaving behind angry and confused helpers and unfinished work. Or the ones who whimper about how hurt and damaged they are (no fault of their own) as they systematically work over everyone in their paths. Or the ones who will pick fights with the mother-figure (me) because their spouses won't take it anymore. And, my perennial favorites: the ones who brag about their money, give less than a mite, and then want personalized service (including monetary investment) from The Church.

So Lord, if you're listening, would you shut off the neon, please? Or give me whatever patience you've got, because right now I just want to unplug the whole damned electrical system.

There's always one more thing left to do

Colin Beavan's post this morning. You go on, No Impact Man!

Yes, sometimes I do have to boast

Our webminister said that the mic settings (etc.) for this song were set up for great sound, but didn't record the choir well.  Okay.  But they still sound great, and God was in the house!

Song: God Will Lead Us On!  (David Lantz III and John Parker, Daybreak Choral Series)

When snark sneaks out

On Sunday, in the middle of an impassioned plea for help to Haiti, the speaker disparaged American systems of emergency aid. It was a sarcastic side comment, irrelevant to the topic, and it made me wince.

I winced not only because it was unnecessarily negative, and not just because it weakened the overall message, which was so important.  I winced because I could imagine myself doing the same thing. Different topics, different audiences, sure, but my inner snark sneaks out more often than I'd like.  This speaker's slip was showing, exposing my tawdry undergarments in the process.

Honestly, I don't know why I do it.  The speaker I heard has a lot of built-up anger and resentment, and it often spills out in negativity.  Is that me, too?  Or is it something else: some demonic possession of my tongue, snaking my words through paths of unkindness. It doesn't matter: I don't want it anymore.

Lord, whatever it is that causes negativity in me, help me find it. Lord, when I find it, help me understand it. Then, dear One, help me forgive others and myself, and, please, if you can't heal it, crush it.

What's best?

I am applying for a long shot week-long writing workshop. Part of the application is submitting a piece of writing, 1000 words or less. Any topic, any form, but one's best writing.

For years all I have written are blog posts, sermons, and grocery lists, all of which are merely personal letters to loved ones and Trader Joe's.  Sermons are too long. Groceries lists too opaque. So I read back through the nearly five years of this blog, searching for something that would accurately gauge my gifts.  That's a lie: I was looking for something that was better than my actual best, something that would wow the committee:

"Have you read this one yet? She's a pastor in California."
"No, not yet."  Reads. Tears of laughter and sadness roll down the reader's face.  "How could we have missed this brilliance before? Where has she been?"
"I don't know, but I think we should send this to the Pulitzer committee today. Maybe she would lead a workshop for us."
"We couldn't afford her."
"Thank God we opened this email. My spiritual life has been made complete."

Or, alternatively:
bread
wine
olive oil
meat
potatoes
humble pie.

to give up your life

retweeted from Todd Agnew who retweeted from Steve Timmis (@stimmis)

1. "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Jesus Christ 
2.   
   If I'm not prepared to jeopardise a friendship so that I can tell others about Christ, I can be fairly certain I won't give up my life.
3.   
   If I'm not prepared to miss out on promotion so I can stay & help plant churches, I can be fairly certain I won't give up my life...
4.   
   If I'm not willing to pursue people who are different from me in order to bless them, I can be failry certain I won't give up my life...
5.   
   If I refuse to give up a holiday abroad so I can support someone in gospel ministry. I can be fairly confident I won't give up my life...
6.   
   If I'm not prepared to give up my bed to go and serve someone, I can be fairly confident I won't give up my life...
7.   
   Can't ultimately be sure until I'm called on to do so. But there are indicators in what I am reluctant to give up...

the problem with confession

There's a darned good reason people confess to priests, and it's not about intercessors or indulgences: sometimes confession is good for the soul and really bad for the hearer.

Remember the conviction I wrote about in an earlier post? Today I made the mistake of acting on it.  For the past year and a half, I have loved being with our youth, and counted myself selfish for loving it, and despaired over the days that ticked by without a new youth and family minister, and been privately grateful for the delay (see "selfish" above).  A few days ago, I emailed the youth volunteers and hiring committee about meeting to regroup and to ask God precisely what the heck He is trying to teach us. Early this morning I decided I wanted to tell the youth about the delay, about the volunteers needing to regroup and confront the Lord, and ask for their prayers and input.

After worship, I re-read Mark Yaconelli's "Contemplative Youth Ministry", (btw--thank you, Heather, for recommending this a couple of years back. Or curse you. Whichever.) and remembered once again how much I like working with our kids. And what I love about working with adults. And what I love about my own relationship with God.  Surprise: they are all the same thing.  It's presence: the presence of God, the presence of vulnerability, the presence of truth and light, the presence of hope, the presence of abundant life. Asked in the form of a jeopardy question: What is contemplation, Alex?  I want to not divorce myself from our kids because it's yet another opportunity for God to be present with me, and for me to witness and witness to God's presence in the lives of others.

But confessing to the youth would be wrong, at least in the mea culpa, tell me what you want, here's what I really want, wow that's manipulative way I was considering. So, my priestly friends, offer up a few intercessory prayers for me, assign me some ignatian examens, and let's all just move on. Okay?

Prayer for critics and enemies

Prayer Regarding Critics and Enemies by Serbian Orthodox Bishop

By Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, Serbian bishop who spoke out against Naziism, was arrested, and taken to Dachau.

(reposted from brianmclaren.net)

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them. Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have. Friends have bound me to earth; enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.

Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world.

Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath Your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world. They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself. They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments. They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself. They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance. Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish. Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a [fly].

Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.

Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.

Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.

Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:

So that my fleeing will have no return; So that all my hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs; So that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul; So that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;

So that I might amass all my treasure in heaven; Ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself. One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies. Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies. A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life. Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them. Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Copenhagen Sermon -- Archbishop of Canterbury

Copenhagen Sermon

Given by The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams

'Perfect love casts out fear'. It's a well-known biblical text; in its original setting, it's about how we learn to have the proper kind of confidence in the love and forgiveness of God. This kind of confidence, St John says, comes from understanding that we are – miraculously – able to stand in the same place as God himself. 'In this world we are as he is'. Our own confidence, our fearlessness, is built on seeing love at work through us – not our personal warm feelings or positive emotions or even kind actions, but the love that really sets people free and brings something new into the world: God's love, dealing with the deepest tangles and knots of our situation, the love that was the essence of Jesus' life and death and resurrection.

And the deepest religious basis for our commitment to the environment in which God has placed us is this recognition that we are called to be, and are enabled to be, the place where God's love for the world comes through. We have to flesh out in our lives that fundamental biblical conviction that when God looks on the world he finds it good. We have to show in our lives some echo of the delight God finds in creation, recalling the astonishing image in the Book of Proverbs of God's eternal wisdom playing and rejoicing in the whole span of the universe.

Love casts out fear. If we begin from the belief that God wants us to rejoice and delight in the created world, our basic attitude to the environment will not be anxiety or the desperate search for ways of controlling it; it will be the excited and hopeful search for understanding it and honouring its goodness and its complex, interdependent beauty. If there is any 'fear' around here, it should be fear of spoiling the heritage given us, of forgetting the overwhelming scale and depth of the gift and of our responsibility and care for it, fear of forgetting that we are called to show consistent and sacrificial love for the created world as we must show towards our fellow-human beings. And, as we should have learned by now, the truth is that we cannot show the right kind of love for our fellow-humans unless we also work at keeping the earth as a place that is a secure home for all people and for future generations.

But there is another kind of fear we have to think about, a fear that should prompt us to get in touch again with the love that made us and sustains us. At the present moment, we are faced with the consequences of generations of failure to love the earth as we should; and we are also faced with the choices that might make those consequences less destructive than they would otherwise be. Each of us as an individual, each international business concern, each national government – all of us have choices. We are not doomed to carry on in a downward spiral of the greedy, addictive, loveless behaviour that has helped to bring us to this point. Yet it seems that fear still rules our hearts and imaginations. We have not yet been able to embrace the cost of the decisions we know we must make. We are afraid because we don't know how we can survive without the comforts of our existing lifestyle. We are afraid that new policies will be unpopular with a national electorate. We are afraid that younger and more vigorous economies will take advantage of us – or we are afraid that older, historically dominant economies will use the excuse of ecological responsibility to deny us our right to proper and just development.

There is, in a word, no shortage of excellent excuses for turning away from decisions that will mean real change. But at least let's be honest about where they come from: it is fear – not necessarily irrational fear, not even necessarily purely selfish fear, but fear all the same. And so long as that dominates our calculations, we are stepping back from love – love for the creation itself, which we must look at as God looks at it, love for one another and for the generations still unborn, who need us to do whatever we can to guarantee a stable, productive and balanced world to live in – not a world of utterly chaotic and disruptive change, of devastation and desertification, of biological impoverishment and degradation.

Love casts out fear. The truth is that what is most likely to get us to take the right decisions for our global future is love. The temptation is to underline fear so as to persuade one another of the urgency of the situation: things are so bad, so threatening, that we have to do something. And indeed there are moments when we might think, rather bitterly, that the human race is still not frightened enough by the prospect of what it has stored up for itself. But this is to drive out one sickness by another. That kind of fear can simply paralyse us, as we all know; it can make us feel that the problem is too great and we may as well pull up the bedclothes and wait for disaster. What's more, it can tempt us into just blaming one another or waiting for someone else to make the first move because we don't trust them. We need more than that for lifegiving change to happen.

And that is what we are here to say today. We meet as people of faith in the context of this critical moment in human history; and so we are not here just to plead or harangue, let alone to encourage panic and terror. We are here to say two simple things to ourselves, our neighbours and our governments.

First: don't be afraid; but ask how the policies you follow and the lifestyle that you take for granted look in the light of the command to love the world you inhabit. Ask what would be a healthy and sustainable relationship with this world, a relationship that would in some way manifest both joy in and respect for the earth. Start with the positive question – how do we show that we love God's creation?

Second: don't separate this from the question of how we learn to trust one another within a world of limited resources. In such a world there can be no trust without justice, without the assurance of knowing that my neighbour is there for me when I face insecurity or risk. How shall we build international institutions that make sure the resources get where they are needed – that, for example, 'green taxes' will deliver more security for the disadvantaged, that transitions in economic patterns will not weigh most heavily on those least equipped to cope?

Love casts out fear; and the promise that makes sense of all this is the promise we heard in the reading from St Paul's letter to the Romans: if we allow God to teach us trust and if we learn to live in trust and confidence, the whole created order feels the effects. The 'slavery' imposed on the created order by human sinfulness and selfishness gives way to liberation; human freedom and the fulfilment of the destiny of the world around are manifested together, and the result is glory.

In this season of Advent, we renew our confident hope that such a future is possible. We give thanks for the Christmas gift of Jesus Christ that has broken through our selfishness and begun the work of our liberation. We reaffirm our conviction and commitment in the name of love; and we say 'don't be afraid' to all who stand uncertainly on the edge of decision. Don't be afraid; act for the sake of love.

© Rowan Williams 2009

writing christmas

Honestly, it's been so long since I've done any serious writing that I'm not sure I know how any more. What do I mean by serious? Crafted language, inspired by the Breath of God (rather than the completed work of someone else), that puts the poetic in perspective, that makes mystery manageable, that in-spires as well as ex-piring.

So we get to Christmas, and a couple of hours of research later, nothing out there says what I want it to say the way I want it to say it to the people I want to say it to. Or for. Whichever. Now I have the choice of continuing to look for the right words (someone else's) for a few more hours, or taking those same hours and begging God for both breath and skill. And trust. And patience.

How many hours would it take 100 monkeys with typewriters to come up with Shakespeare? And how many hours until Christmas eve?

Luke 13:34b

That's it. Just the scripture.

Do they know it's Christmas?

They're so young.
And it's still a good question.

Out of body -- back in 30 minutes

So I get to the office today and there's a message on my phone from my cousin* Debbie. I was last in contact with Debbie in the early 1970s. She got my church number from her mother, Lynne.** I do a little googling and find Lynne in a YouTube video. I may have also found her son's wife's blog.

You'll have to excuse me now: my body seems to be typing without me.

*She may be my cousin too -- I don't understand these things. Her great-grandmother and my grandmother were sisters.
**I think Lynne is genealogically my mother's cousin. I don't think I have been in contact with her since my mother died -- 2 years before I started at this church. Maybe. Unexpected, nonetheless.

Is it too late to be a youth minister?

I love my kids.
I feel for the parents and teachers.

If you're a praying sort, would you please keep them and their families in prayer? I'm seeing a few slo-mo train wrecks in the works.

And btw: if you're a former teacher of mine, I'm sorry. Pick an event. I'm sorry for it.

4 new family milestones

#1
Location: Neighborhood sit-down Mexican restaurant, packed at dinner hour.
Scene: Mama and Toddler Daughter out for girls' night. Both on banquette side, facing out. Mama wearing business casual, Toddler in dress and leggings. Toddler has eaten well, been well mannered, a joy.
Time: Dinner winding down. Check paid. Toddler starting to play with straws and spoons. Good moods all around.
Event: Toddler pokes Mama with her mouth-held straw. Straw pokes back of Toddler's throat.
Milestone: First public full frontal vomiting of horchata and tortilla. Ongoing, pathetic.

#2
Milestone: First time Mama holds Daughter's hair back while she throws up.

#3
Milestone: First time young teenage stranger goes to kitchen and comes back with many napkins, and helps me spread them around and under Daughter's fountain. And does it again. My hero. His mother helpfully suggests I clean out Daughter's mouth with water to help stop the vomiting.

Aside: Did I mention we were facing out, toward the other people in the restaurant? Or that the family directly across from us was celebrating with a huge platter of beautiful shellfish -- crabs, mussels, oysters?

#4
Toddler goes to bed at 7:45 pm. By choice.

Have a beer with the President?

I never understood the "if you wanna have a beer with him, vote for him" standard of presidential election. I don't want a president who is my peer. If I have to choose between liking and respecting, I'd rather respect.

As you might imagine, it has been a long time since I respected my president, prone as we have been to electing The Guy Next Door. I've met the guy next door. I don't want him as president.

Obama is bearing up well under a constant campaign to "other" him. Fearful people from various threads of the tattered political flag are working hard to make him a noncitizen, a socialist, a communist, a czar/tyrant who will abolish free election, a turncoat dove, the antichrist. While this is all ludicrous -- all of it -- and much of it racist, and some of it anti-intellectual (can anyone say "Palin"? No, not Michael, though he would be a lot easier to stomach.), here's the bottom line for me: though I want us to agree on the Big Things (like the belief that the real purpose of government is caring for the least among us), I don't want my president to be my mirror image. I've seen myself in the mirror, and I wouldn't want me as president.

So, I want my president to be "other" than me in some really critical ways. I want a president who is way smarter, more well-informed, more even-keeled, more thoughtful, and quicker than I am. I want my president to be more humble than I am. And, when we disagree, I want my president and his advisors to have enough spine to not label me unpatriotic/unamerican/unreal, even if I stoop to name-calling myself.

I don't always agree with President Obama, and Jesus is still my commander in chief. But finally, I have a nonfictional president* I respect.

May God bless and keep him and his.

*Hey, Josiah Bartlet was my president for a long time. I just wish he existed outside Aaron Sorkin's head.

Answer to a young friend

A few weeks ago you asked me why your parents wouldn't simply let you make your own mistakes. You were angry and anguished. I didn't answer you then: I knew you needed a loving heart and an open ear more than a quick brain. Here is what I might have said if you'd asked me and hoped for an answer.

Imagine that you've just gotten your driver's license. You found an old motorcycle on Craigslist and mechanically minded friend helped you rehab it. The bike has no sweetness, but it runs. Finally you have some freedom.

You read on the internet that running muriatic acid through your tank will flush out all the old built-up gunk. You don't read the whole article (especially not the part that says to remove the tank from the bike first, wear goggles, etc), and so you snag a big bottle of pool cleaner.

I see you standing there with the bike propped up and running and the pool cleaner in hand. Should I let you pour it in?

Suppose I did exactly the same thing when I had my bike, to disastrous results. How about then? Should I let you pour it in, knowing you really value both your bike and your life?

And if I love you very much, and know what it took for me to get past the whole muriatic-acid incident, and never ever want you to have to go through that...

And if I know that the cost is just too high, that the lesson you would learn simply isn't worth it...

My dear young friend:

I can't speak for your parents, but I know that I want you to make your own mistakes. I want you to learn from actually living. And, I want you to never, ever go through some of the things I've been through. Ever. Because the lessons learned just aren't worth it.

Because I love you, I will do everything I can to help you skip those particular lessons. Not because I don't trust you, or don't want you to learn, or think I always know better, but because I love you enough and have survived by the grace of God long enough to want you to not destroy yourself, or someone else.

Hope that helps. I'm praying for you, and my ears and heart are always open.

Pastor Elane

Convicted

Recently I FB'd* about being convicted but in denial. "Convicted", in evangelical-speak**, means "to feel guilty about something. You feel an uneasiness or restlessness in your heart.... It is your conscience,speaking to you, in the unsaved. It is the Holy Spirit speaking to you, in the saved." (Robyn, on ChristiaNet, 10-29-08) Well said, Robyn, whoever you are: uneasiness or restlessness in the heart. Spiritual dis-ease, a symptom of the Holy Spirit having slapped you upside the head of your soul. The lingering ache of a Simpsonian "d'oh".

I wax digression.

Remember when Wonderful Husband decided the economic world as we knew it was coming to an end and we should have a garden and chickens? I blogged at the time that he had unwittingly opened the Pandora's Box of my simple-living Scott-and-Helen-Nearing romantic fantasy of Right Living. Since then,

• I've been accumulating books and blogs like Marion Nestle's What to Eat, and Walter Brueggemann's Prayers for a Privileged People, and Mother Earth News/Grit, and Colin Beavan's No Impact Man. Joel Salatin's You Can Farm came this week. They should all come in plain brown paper wrappers, unmarked, silently hand-delivered by someone wearing a hat and mask.
• I got the church hooked up with a bulk food distributing company specializing in natural and organic stuff; that catalog is sitting on my church desk, sheathed in its Priority Mail envelope.
  
• On Craigslist I found a guy a mile or so from me who keeps bees and produces honey; I've bookmarked the listing but have not transcribed his number onto paper or into my phone.
  
• This week our church received a CIPL "oscar" for greening, and I signed us up to screen the movie No Impact Man during the Copenhagen climate change talks.
• Canning this weekend (Note to family: you now know what you're getting for Xmas).
• A friend is coming for drinks today and I'm trying to figure out where to get locally made vodka and olives.
  

I feel like a spy in the house of Wendell Berry, deep in the Small Is Beautiful closet, hanging on the hook of Luke 18:22-23. Sartre was wrong: hell isn't other people. Hell is living in denial of the Holy Spirit's head-smack.

*To FB is to write on your Facebook status update. When did we decide a website could become an acronymic verb? I guess when "google" entered the OED.
**Liberal Christians don't talk this way.

Soulation Exercise

In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, consolation is "every increase of faith, hope and love, and all interior joy that invites and attracts to what is heavenly and to the salvation of one's soul, by filling it with peace and quiet in its Creator and Lord." Desolation is "that state of interior disturbance which is caused by the devil: 'darkness of soul; turmoil of spirit; urgings to what is low and earthly; restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations, which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love."

Sat in the sun trying to identify the moments of consolation and desolation in my week. Individual instances were hard to picture: the ebb & flow seems almost constant.

We don't remember breathing, the intake and expulsion of breath unless we gasp for air and fear we may not get it.

Yogic breathing and singing both teach you to expel breath fully. You discover that if you do this, the air immediately flows in to fill the void. You may have to pay attention to get all that you can, or train to get all you can consistently, but when your body is empty it takes in air.

So it is with consolation and desolation. Consolation is the ensouled body filling with the Spirit and her fruits. Desolation is the expulsion of the Spirit and the experience of that emptiness.

In normal breathing, desolation and consolation ebb and flow according to their natures. We take notice only when we find ourselves gasping for air, or so full we float.

Our spiritual practice, then, is to expand our lungs, and to expel fully with the certain knowledge that we will breathe in when we are finally empty.

Simple pleasures

Roasted delicata squash with parmesan

With

1 part lavender liqueur (homemade last fall)
1 part French dry vermouth
dash Angostura bitters
ice

And

a healthy chattering toddler

who unfortunately just poured out her water into her tray.

Have a kosher Easter!

Sugar Easter Charms (K) ( SKU Number: 5600-EA-AC-1 ) Charming is an understatement for these 1/2" - 7/8" miniature sugar charms. Your Easter treats will be too cute to eat!! A generous 24 pieces per package, includes 8 each of Chick, Egg and Bunny. Molded sugar. KOSHER - manufactured under the supervision of the Kashruth Division of the Orthodox Union.

Why Mary didn't blink

This morning one of our chickens, Meg, flapped her way out of their run. I heard a squawk, and turned to see her walking alongside the others, outside the fencing, puzzled. I went to pick her up and she hopped a bit away, flapped a little, and then settled down against my chest as I stroked her. She's used to my giving her food and treats, picking her up, smoothing her ruffled feathers.

As the baby continued to eat her breakfast (or toss her breakfast on the floor. Whatever.) our cat Jamba joined the throng beneath her chair to collect whatever manna might fall. I reached my hand down to stroke him. He didn't flinch, letting my hand graze his fur as he continued his pursuit.

We are often mystified -- even incredulous --at Mary's acceptance of the angel's presence. Some reject it outright, explaining it as a patriarchal view of a simperingly weak woman. Or as just not what a young teenager would do. Or even as a rape of sorts -- Leda and the swan.

Perhaps our response to Mary's equanimity reflects our own experience of God's loving provision. We doubt because we have not spent our lives knowing we were being fed, loved, cared for. We are the feral cats, the factory-farmed food, accustomed to scrounging or gulping, lost or confined.

But for Meg, and Jamba, and Mary, the Provider is loving, trustworthy, and ultimately safe. And the only response to the assuredness of love is: Yes.

Sixth learning

Sometimes you're the one doing the interviewing.

(No, not a job interview. Ignatian exercises.)

Fifth learning

I don't have to be blissed out to know I've been with the Lord.

Fourth learnings

The problem with greed is that the "too much" is never as good as the "enough", and lures us into believing that this is because it is not enough.

I can construct reasons for shame in the most benign of circumstances.

"At the end of the everlasting "why" there is a "yes" and a "Yes" and a "YES!" (poorly paraphrased from "A Room With a View")

My deepest, most authentic desire turns out to be what I thought it was: to be flooded constantly by the fire that burns but does not burn up, by the God who wants to know me even more than I want to know Them, by the unselfconsciousness that allows for the miracle of the intimate "I am the Lord's servant. May it be with me according to your will," and for the ongoing miracle itself. Yes, that's one desire.

Every day one must reopen the floodgates and keep the hinges oiled.

And the strangest learning today? Even me.

Third learning

If the distance is fuzzy, and you have to squint to see close-up, new lenses are the first step.

Second learnings

Eye makeup is useless on retreat, because if the tears don't get it, the sweat will.

If someone you trust and respect recommends a book, read it.

First learnings

Now I understand why people have spiritual directors and what they are supposed to do.

To do one thing at a time I have to intend to do one thing at a time. If I'm going to spend time listening to God's longings inside me, the annual-planning-books-and-readings have to go back in the box, back in the car.

My deepest authentic desire is also God's desire for me. God's desires and wills express themselves through my silently singing core.

Sleep is not a shameful act, or a sign of unbearable weakness.

What counts as "overwork" changes. What is "overwork" now might not have been 10 years or even a year ago. That's not about aging per se, but about circumstance and location.

That deep longing of my heart may be exactly what the church needs too.

"My" needs may be God's "needs" in me.

I like coastal weather: viva fog!

Meat loafing

Have you ever seen meat emerging from the other end of a grinder? Pink mottled red and white, too thick to ooze, too broken up to be recognizably steer or pig or pullet. Or Lamb.

The thing about ground meat is you can shape it, make something different (if not new). Bound with starch, it can become a ball or a loaf. Spiced, a sausage. Browned and immersed, it is a ragu or chili. Carefully wrapped with the thinnest of pastry, it is a wonton. How ground meat turns out is in the hands of the cook.

Maybe that's why a soul can feel like ground chuck: broken, smushed, rent. I didn't realize that I'd been on the wrong end of the grinder until I got here. Parked the car. Checked in. Read a welcome note from the spiritual director I'm meeting, and sobbed. But I trust that the all-time most Creative Cook knows what to do with minced soul.

Mixed with plenty of Lamb, I should be something different when I leave.

Completely off-topic

Seriously, I could make a theological case for going here, but you're smarter than that.

Pesto is like sex. When it's mediocre, I'd rather have something else. It's not satisfying. It's a little flat, a little "last week". You expect it to be like that long ago summer you only remember in your nostalgic fantasies, but it's more like running into an ex-lover who has gone to seed.

But when it's right, pesto titillates every sense, and satisfies beyond its components. Basil, olive oil, toasted nuts, cheese. Individually all are good. But when they come together, well, you remember that God does love us, and that She made us sensual, physical beings.

Wow.

Jesus, PhD

Sometimes when I read the gospels I hear Jesus talking in Dr. Phil's voice. "How's That working for ya?"

Lately I've been fascinated with the speed at which Baby is learning and using words. More on that later. But here's the goodie: we're sitting down to lunch and I close my eyes and hold out my hands to bless God for the food. I feel her little hand take my finger, and hear her "amen" at the end. Wow.

So the word list as of today:
shoes, socks, o's, Tanqy, apple, banana, "I see you", mama, dada, more, cheese, flower, airplane, truck, bus, car, go (when the light turns green), help, up, down, dirty, chickens and duck (and their voices), outside, inside, brush teeth, purse, keys, phone, spoon, milk, glasses, water, bottle, cup, toast, cookie, bar, strawberry, blueberry, cracker, goldfish, cold, hot, hat, Ellen, yay!, hands, feet, belly, eyes, ears, nose, on, please, yes, no, pacie, blanket, mine, you (although which one of us "you" is, is stil in question), cat, Jamba, church.

And Amen.

Thank God for Sam. Really.

Who knew that we hit a trend? Or that Everyone with a table saw would start making chicken coops (starting at $450, thank you very much)? And that there's serious peer pressure to build your own out of really anything -- doghouse, shed, VW van, pallets. I considered a bookshelf, an ikea cabinet, doghouses, sheds, shipping crates. Found a rabbit hutch for $50 (just like a small chicken hutch without a perch) but couldn't make firm contact with the seller. Found an Everyone making coops I really liked , but I'm cheap.

Finally returned to the Wizard, Sam pf Sam's Downtown Feed, who has been my sage throughout this. He cut me a deal. So here's the coop that's coming home Saturday.

Now we have to figure out a paint scheme. I'm headed toward maroon and lime green, but I suspect I'm in the minority.