Life: Apply Liberally

Poppies On Memorial Day

2010-05-28T21:08:00.002-06:00

(Story copied from http://www.cal-mum.com/poppy.htm)
In 1918 Miss Moina Michael was teaching at the University of Georgia, in the town of Athens, USA. Having volunteered for war work with the YMCA she was called up for service with the Overseas YMCA War Workers. In September 1918 she took leave of absence from her post at the university and arrived at the YMCA training headquarters at Columbia University, New York City, where she had originally been a student in 1912-1913.

After completing her training course Moina's hopes of being sent abroad were dashed when she was barred from overseas service due to her age - she was 49. However, Dr J W Gaines, president of the Overseas YMCA Secretaries, helped Moina stay with the organization by giving her a job at the training headquarters where she worked until January 1919.

The idea for the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy came to Moina Michael while she was working at the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries' headquarters on a Saturday morning in November 1918, two days before the Armistice was declared at 11 o'clock on 11 November.

The Twenty-fifth Conference of the Overseas YMCA War Secretaries was in progress. On passing her desk, a young soldier left a copy of the November Ladies Home Journal on Moina's desk.

At about 10.30am, when everyone was on duty elsewhere, Moina found a few moments to read the magazine. In it she came across a page which carried a vivid color illustration for the poem "We Shall Not Sleep" (later named "In Flanders Fields") by the Canadian Army doctor John McCrae.

Reading the poem on this occasion - she had read it many times before - Moina was transfixed by the last verse - "To you from failing hands we throw the Torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Fields."

In Moina Michael's book 'The Miracle Flower' she described the experience as deeply spiritual, and she felt as though she was actually being called in person by the voices which had been silenced by death.

At that moment Moina Michael made a personal pledge to 'keep the faith' and vowed always to wear a red poppy of Flanders Fields as a sign of remembrance and as an emblem for "keeping the faith with all who died".

Compelled to make a note of this pledge she hastily scribbled down a response on the back of a used envelope, entitled "We Shall Keep the Faith".

On the morning of Saturday 9 November 1918 three men from the Twenty-fifth Conference of the YMCA Overseas Secretaries appeared at Moina Michael's desk. On behalf of the delegates they asked her to accept a check for $10 in appreciation of her efforts to brighten up the headquarters with flowers.

She was touched by the gesture and replied that she would buy twenty-five red poppies with the money. She showed them the illustration for John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" in the Ladies Journal, together with her poem "We Shall Keep the Faith", which she had written in reply. The delegates took both poems back into the Conference.

After searching the shops for some time that day Moina found one large and twenty-four small artificial red silk poppies in Wanamaker's store. When she returned to duty at the YMCA Headquarters later that evening delegates from the Conference crowded round her asking for poppies to wear. Keeping one poppy for her coat collar she gave out the rest of the poppies to the enthusiastic delegates.

According to Moina, since this was the first group-effort asking for poppies to wear in memory of "all who died in Flanders Fields", and since this group had given her the money with which to buy them, she considered that she had consummated the first sale of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy on 9 November 1918.

During the winter of 1918 Moina Michael continued working for the Staff of the Overseas YMCA Secretaries. She visited wounded and sick men from Georgia who were in nine of the debarkation hospitals in and around New York City, to find what could be done for them other than what the hospitals were doing.

By March 1919 she had moved back to Georgia to take up her place at the University of Georgia. With the return of thousands of ex-servicemen from that time Moina realized that there was not only a need to honor the memory of those who had died in the service of their country, but also a need to remember that those who were returning also had mental, physical and spiritual needs.

During the summer months of 1919 Moina taught a class of disabled servicemen, there being several hundred in rehabilitation at the University of Georgia. Learning about their needs at first hand gave her the impetus to widen the scope of the Poppy idea, to develop it so that it could be used to help all servicemen who needed help for themselves and for their dependents.

In September 1921 delegates at the Auxiliary to the American Legion Convention agreed that disabled American war veterans could make the poppies sold in the United States, thus generating much needed income for veterans who had no other income. The Auxiliary provided all the material and had it pre-cut for forming into flowers.

Michael

2010-04-10T17:36:00.000-06:00

“There’s something in your face, Michael, I’ve seen it all the day;
There’s something quare that wasn’t there when first ye wint away. . . .”

“It’s just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right,
That puts the stiffinin’ in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . .”

“There’s something in your eyes, Michael, an’ how they stare and stare –
You’re lookin’ at me now, me boy, as if I wasn’t there. . . .”

“It’s just the things I’ve seen, mother, the sights that come and come,
A bit o’ broken, bloody pulp that used to be a chum. . . .”

“There’s something on your heart, Michael, that makes ye wake at night,
And often when I hear ye moan, I trimble in me fright. . . .”

“It’s just a man I killed, mother, a mother’s son like me;
It seems he’s always hauntin’ me, he’ll never let me be. . . .”

“But maybe he was bad, Michael, maybe it was right
To kill the inimy you hate in fair and honest fight. . . .”

“I did not hate at all, mother ; he never did me harm;
I think he was a lad like me, who worked upon a farm. . . .”

“And what’s it all about, Michael; why did you have to go,
A quiet, peaceful lad like you, and we were happy so? . . .”

“It’s thim that’s up above, mother, it’s thim that sits an’ rules;
We’ve got to fight the wars they make, it’s us as are the fools. . . .”

“And what will be the end, Michael, and what’s the use, I say,
Of fightin’ if whoever wins it’s us that’s got to pay? . . .”

“Oh, it will be the end, mother, when lads like him and me,
That sweat to feed the ones above, decide that we’ll be free. . . .”

“And when will that day come, Michael, and when will fightin’ cease,
And simple folks may till their soil and live and love in peace? . . .”

“It’s coming soon and soon, mother, it’s nearer every day,
When only men who work and sweat will have a word to say;
When all who earn their honest bread in every land and soil
Will claim the Brotherhood of Man, the Comradeship of Toil;
When we, the Workers, all demand: `What are we fighting for?’ . . .
Then, then we’ll end that stupid crime, that devil’s madness — War.”

Robert William Service

Hope For The Future?

2010-02-18T12:04:00.003-07:00

Check out this "two-fer"-- Easy Hate, Hard Love...from Jarrod McKenna, an interesting young blogger/activist as he comments on Cornel West's Note To Obama.

When I Can't...God Can.

2010-02-15T10:36:00.005-07:00

This week's Alban Institute E-Letter article, Downward Mobility, directs us pastors toward analysis of what we are and aren't good at in our job descriptions and then asks us and our councils and congregations to accept the reality that we are "only human!"
The ultimate wrap is approaching ministry with humility which thrills me in light of last Sunday. I went into the day absolutely exhausted...was it because of the topic or the preparation or the week before or the weeks before? Probably a combination of all plus some I haven't considered.
Be that as it may, at the moment I stepped up to preach I knew I didn't have the energy to pull off "my vision" of a Sunday message. So I simply sent a prayer skyward that said something like, "God, I am humbled here and now by the task at hand. I am literally on the bottom of the energy barrel but you are God. Anything good that comes of the next 20 minutes is up to you and the Holy Spirit!"
And in the praying came the answer and the Word of God went forth. I am thankful and grateful and inspired by a God who "fills in the blanks" for us and I realize that this kind of rescue effort is going on even when, especially when, I am not humble enough to ask for it!

Where are the Other Christian Voices Against Uganda's Anti-homosexuality Bill?

2009-12-12T12:25:00.002-07:00

This post came across my Facebook page. In the midst of our hustle/bustle/spend, spend, spend season...a tragic event is sneaking past on the world scene. Read it and weep (and then speak out). LN

Where are the Other Christian Voices Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill?
by Aaron Taylor 12-11-2009
As a career missionary to Africa, I fear what would happen to me on judgment day if I didn’t speak out against what is happening in Uganda right now in the name of Christ. I was in the middle of typing my monthly newsletter when I decided to check my e-mail. The subject line read, “Pastor Rick Warren condemns Uganda anti-homosexuality bill.” Hurray for Rick Warren, but my question is where’s everyone else? Christian Right leaders in the U.S. are constantly griping that the media portray them as bigoted toward homosexuals. Well Mr. Dobson and Mr. Sekulow, now would be a perfect time to prove them wrong. I’m still waiting for my urgent action e-mail.
I’m not talking about an issue that falls within the realm of perfectly legitimate political debate — like whether gay marriage should be legal or not. What I’m talking about is a bill that, if passed, would condemn homosexuals to prison, would give the death penalty for homosexuals with HIV, and would criminalize heterosexuals who support gay rights. The bill being considered would actually force heterosexuals to report their gay friends and neighbors to the authorities. I would expect something like this from a group like the Taliban, but from a nation with a vast majority of Christians? Who would have thought? But then again, I’m not sure why I’m surprised.
I’d like to think American Christian leaders have nothing to do with the direction that Uganda’s government is sliding toward, but I know it’s not true. For starters, I’ve been to Uganda and have lived and traveled extensively throughout Africa. Based on my experience, the level of influence that American pastors, evangelists, and missionaries have in predominately Christian countries in Africa is astronomical, especially when you consider how many African churches and ministries are dependent on American support. As difficult as it may be to believe, in most English-speaking countries in Africa, American televangelists are like rock stars. Ironically, the way the average Ugandan feels toward people like T.D. Jakes, Reinhard Bonnke, and Benny Hinn is what the average American feels toward people like Bono. If I’m exaggerating, it’s only slightly.
Lest I be misunderstood, I’m not suggesting that the above-mentioned leaders are guilty of stoking anti-gay bigotry in Uganda. I use their names only to underscore the fact that, in most cases, American Christian leaders wield a greater influence over the pop-culture in African countries than they do in their own country. Even pastors of small to mid-sized congregations in the U.S. can go to countries like Uganda or Kenya or Nigeria and preach to tens of thousands of people at a time — and maybe even meet with the country’s leaders. It happens every day. American Christianity has enormous influence in Africa. With great influence comes great responsibility.
Let’s not forget that there was a man about 80 years ago that came to power on a platform that included criminalizing consensual gay sex. His name was Hitler. There’s a reason why the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthian Church, “For what have I to do with judging those who are outside?” (I Corinthians 5:12). Paul must have known that when Christians try to legislate morality outside the confines of spiritual discipline within the Church, the result is usually an ugly monster that looks nothing like Christ. It’s time for American pastors, missionaries, and evangelists, along with our African brothers and sisters, to declare loudly to the world — not in our name!
Aaron D. Taylor is the author of Alone with A Jihadist: A Biblical Response to Holy War. To learn more about Aaron’s ministry, go to www.aarondtaylor.com. To follow Aaron on Twitter, go to www.twitter.com/aarondtaylor. Aaron can be contacted at fromdeathtolife@gmail.com.
Categories: Faith and Politics, Human Rights, Theology
Tags: Africa, African, America, Apostle Paul, bigotry, Christ, Christianity, church, death penalty, debate, dobson, evangelists, Gay Marriage, government, HIV, Homosexuality, leaders, marriage, Ministry, morality,

A Note From Jesus Re Christmas....

2009-12-12T11:55:00.003-07:00

This came via email....I appreciated its sentiments greatly...LN

My Dear Brothers and Sisters:

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now, having said that let Me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks were.. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing the President complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up... It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile; it could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary-- especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember :

I LOVE YOU,

JESUS

The Time For Deleting Has Passed

2009-10-02T11:19:00.003-06:00

Most of the time when a "political/religious" email that I don't necessarily agree with is forwarded to me I simply hit "delete." However, I have come to understand that this is a mild form of avoidance and maybe even, elitism.
Somewhere in my mind I entertain the thought that I am far too enlightened for this type of thing and that he/she who sent it simply hasn't "arrived." Recently, though, I have come to understand that the sender was probably thinking the same thing as he/she hit the forward button.
So today when this email came, one that suggests some people love the soldiers and some don't and that the defining feature of either group would be based on our acceptance or rejection of crosses in cemeteries....I realized it is wrong to hit delete.
We have got to start talking about these things. An email is easy. A conversation is not. Thanks to the internet, we are a nation divided by spam.
So I hammered out a reply and have pasted it below. I am not going to let up on this kind of thing. This is my crusade. We can not hide behind our computer screens, erroneously harboring disdain for those who do not think like we do. It is time to talk!

Here are my thoughts...
This is a spam email and filled with half-truths according to the verification sites. I pastor a church filled with chaplains from all military backgrounds including the Navy and again, this is not true. What they are not allowed to do is proselytize non-Christian service men and women (and non-Christian chaplains are bound by the same guidelines).
So why is it going around? Why might there be something "not so good" about it?
In my opinion, it is a lie developed to create divisiveness within God's America and world.
Some churches don't allow symbols to be used (ie crosses, statues, paintings) because we humans tend to place more importance on those than on what they represent...have you heard the word "idol"? That's what it means.
Jesus never intended for us to be warring with one another over him, his cross, or gravestones. He said "let the dead bury the dead." In essence..."get with the living, there's work to do!"
We Americans are allowing what divides us to take leadership over what unites us. We are trusting in the idea of America (and what we think we've lost?) more than in the God of America. And emails like this one emphasize that. They are covert "hate mail." They single someone out to be the enemy. And Jesus said "love you enemies" plain and simple.
We must begin to rebuild ourselves as a nation under God and that means do what God said to do! Don't talk about it, war about it, forward emails about it. Do it!
Satan is innovative and clever and uses the words of God to trick, convince, and deceive. If he wants to take our country down, wouldn't the best way be to use God in a way that divides us from within?
Begin talking with those who are different from you. Have dinner parties, coffee dates, work days. Listen and share and begin to understand why they are thinking the way they are. Let them know the same about you....lovingly. I promise, neither of you will walk away the same.
Most of us will share God's Kingdom together after death. What if we decided to begin that Kingdom and that sharing now...in love, rather than indulge our earthly loyalties at the cost of our eternal ones. God is love. And when we love, we are like Him.

And no, I don't want to be dropped from your "forward list." I read your idea. You read mine. And at the end of the day let's pray for one another in love and celebrate that as different as we might be....we are MORE than conquerors, we are lovers.

In The Land of Giants

2009-03-09T22:44:00.003-06:00

An amazing man died last week. Okay, lots of amazing men - and women - died last week. But this one was my friend and a member of my church. He was smart and kind and organized and adventurous. He flew airplanes and ran marathons and played the guitar and raised children who grew up to be fine adults and he used his hands to form burled walnut into a lovely jewelry box that he gave his wife on their thirty-fifth anniversary....a box that now holds his ashes.
The brass plate on top of the box reads you are the wind beneath my wings.
Funerals are part and parcel to my work.
Butchers butcher, bakers bake. Candlestick makers make and pastors bury the dead.
There is a place we have learned to go to, a mental and emotional land without feeling where we set ourselves aside in order to do the work at hand. But there is a high toll paid for the journey there -- our ability to grieve.
Today I sat on the podium with two other pastors, credentialed men of high learning and experience beneath whose table I am not worth to gather crumbs....
This was the kind of people who also sat before us, who came to pay tribute, who traveled from near and far to honor the passing of one who lived well and long.
Life is filled with glimpses of the good, sneak peaks of heaven, sacred moments that we can miss if we are not careful. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

Earth is crammed with heaven,
and every common bush is on fire with God;
but only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

Let it be known that today I stayed in the now and let it all in. I took off my shoes, opened my eyes, and beheld the good fruit of a good tree, the ripples from a rock tossed well, the tracks of a man bound for glory.

Objectify This!

2009-03-09T21:02:00.007-06:00

Curious. I spent fifty years of my life with auburn hair...okay, brunette led to auburn. They were in the same general field of the spectrum.
After I passed the half-decade mark I felt that it was time to stop exposing my scalp (and therefore my entire ecosystem) to the extreme toxicity of hair color every six weeks.
So I surrendered to my dominant color: white. But while white is the mode 'o day on the first half of my head, the rest of the follicles did not get the memo. A lot of those guys are still living in the land of the lost. Which means I still have to add some color now and then....and while I'd love to possess the beautiful white mane sported by Emmy Lou Harris, I am forced to live out these days of my life a blonder shade of pale.
It is odd.
Blond jokes just don't register.
I hear them through brunette ears. It takes a minute to realize they are at my expense.
And just recently I was at an event at which a man, a big fat bossy man....made a comment about me via my hair. He had met me before and apparently the meeting was fresher in his mind than mine. And when I asked his name (for the second time...ouch!) he snidely eluded to me as an emissary of my unforgettable ash-blond apogee.
Excuse me!
Remember me for my brains.
Remember me for my wit.
Remember me for my amazing ability to communicate.
But do not objectify me.
I'm not a square on the palette. I'm an amazing human evolving from giddy girl to grounded grandma and I am not going to be put into your tiny mind's pigeon hole labeled women with blond hair.
If I have but one life to live, let me live it as a...woman with her own sense of self. Not as one you have created via your limited ability to grow.
I took feminist studies and thought those girls were a bit radical. But guess what! You, sir, have tilted the scale to their favor
So objectify that, buddy boy. . I am more than the sum of my beautician's ventures into creativity.
I am my own woman.
And you are a jerk.
Oh, and God bless you, Mr. Jerk. I am a pastor, after all.

A Conversation With A Very Smart Guy

2009-03-07T10:48:00.008-07:00

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Locke's Classroom. Mr. Locke aka Neal is a Princeton seminarian and we are having a conversation.
Check it out!

Jesus Who?
March 3rd, 2009 by Neal Locke
This post was inspired by Pastor Ellen (one of my last remaining Methodist Pastors) who emailed me the following question as she prepares for a class:

Did Jesus know who he was and what he was going to do on earth? At what point did he know if he did? How does that connect w/fully man and fully God?

It’s a question that we’re dealing with right now in my Systematic Theology class, and one we dealt with last semester in my Early/Medieval Church History Class. And once again, I’m on the verge of throwing up my arms and yelling, “WHO CARES?”........(continue)

To which I answered....
Oh, Neal! We live in the same spiritual neighborhood and so I find myself wrestling with the temptation to simply let it go vs. pursuing the issue! Ultimately, the question becomes...why do we want to know? Is it for the sake of dogma, is it a ruse for justifying faith or the lack thereof? Or is it to know Jesus better, understanding that this could be a side trip on the path to wisdom?
Ever the psychologist, I am using current profiling techniques in my class to get a fix on Jesus as he was in an effort to move my people past the Jesus they've created in their own image. That said, I anticipated this question so I polled you and a few other brainiacs to get a span of opinions (which, we know are like...shall we say belly buttons?).
I love your rant and I agree...what Jesus did is so very important and often gets overlooked by pamphlet-toting Jesus freaks and textbook-toting academics alike.
But to step completely away from the conversation, from the searching, from the pursuit of knowledge is to alter the trajectory of the Kingdom in a most dangerous way. Better, I think, to see that the ingredients of your argument are not mutually exclusive or finite. The argument, in and of itself, points to that truth.

Man, I love this stuff. But I think I better go do some trench work...the Kingdom comes!

Home Again

2009-02-28T13:29:00.009-07:00

It was late in my 17th year as I walked through a sorority dorm at ENMU that I caught the soul-searching song of Carole King drifting down the hallway:
Snow is cold, rain is wet, chills my soul right to the marrow.
I won't be happy till I see you alone again, till I'm home again and feeling right.
She had me at Snow.
Those lyrics came back to me yesterday.
A bride and her groom stood before me and I needed somehow to explain to them the amazing power of this thing called love which they were just now professing before God and a great cloud of witnesses.
Just then it began to snow.
This bride's father had died in a snowy car crash years hence and his ashes were interred on the hill above my little church. In our counseling sessions she explained that having the wedding here was the closest she could come to him walking her down the aisle. She told me she would have the photographer snap pictures of her on the hill by his crypt and our wedding coordinator warned her that it might be snowy and if she did such a thing her dress could get stained as she made her way up the trail.
She said she hoped it did snow. Her best memories were of playing with her dad in the Colorado snow....
Snow is cold, rain is wet, chills my soul right to the marrow....
There we stood in the midst of a miracle.
We simply paused, stared out the window, and absorbed the awe of a moment no one could explain.
No explanations were needed.

Finally Made It To Blue

2009-02-28T12:34:00.004-07:00

What's blue?
I love Annie's New Mexico sky photo. Has there ever been a bluer shade of blue?
I remember "Love Is Blue" from junior high mixers...oh boy, do I remember! I was the girl stuck to the wall -- praying somebody/anybody would ask me to dance while simultaneously scared to death somebody would.
And something old, new, borrowed, blue at my wedding -- well, that depends on which one we're talking about. Wedding #1, it was my bridesmaid's dresses. I still remember Carolyn and Kim and Debbie in those big floppy hats and their baby blue empire waist/Neru collared granny dresses with fistfuls of daisies...God, I miss the revolution!
Wedding #2 was a simpler event: backyard, justice of the peace, a few family members, our kids. What was blue?
Maybe it was my baby girl's beautiful eyes...so recently returned from almost certain death after a prolonged illness.
It could have been my heart...mourning the loss of my mother, not yet cold in her grave.
Blue was possibly the icing flowers on the cake that honored the start of our first year and the end of my husband's parents' 40th. Who could have known they'd have just three more?
Traditions are meaningful only when we make them so. I can't think that on the day of that second walk down the aisle they held much allure. I was beyond them. I had moved into practical survival mode and there was no room for frills. I had no pennies in my shoe or lace garter on my leg. I know we clinked champagne glasses but not long after that was done I was putting my new children to bed -- drying their tears as they wept for the lost home of their divorced parents.
That was thirty-something years ago and the beat goes on.
I read that psychics who claim the gift of the third eye, the ability to see auras, understand the blue emanations from a person indicate their deep rootedness in spirituality. People with blue auras tend to become social workers, teachers, writers, psychologists.
Or preachers?
I met an old Jewish lady named Gretchen several years ago. During the war her parents fled Germany with her in tow. Her father had been a famous artist there and the one thing he carried with him across the snowy mountains was a cask of cobalt. She explained that his signature etchings were done in the deepest of blue derived from this semi-precious element.
I spent an afternoon with her and when I readied myself to go she ran to her back room and returned with a cobalt blue pottery plate, formed by her own hands on the wheel that sat in the corner and fired in the kiln on her back porch.
It was flawed, she confessed. But she could not bear to throw it out. The blue in the clay was from the last of her father's precious stash.
An imperfect blue plate sits on my shelf and I love its story, its significance, its likeness to me, my days on the planet, my journey through time.

Some Thing Borrowed

2009-02-13T00:18:00.002-07:00

It was the kind of world a kid knows isn’t normal but accepts because it’s all he or she has ever known. Yep. That was the world I was born into. And so when things got crazier than normal…(vs. normaler than crazy)…I just left.
Indeed I did.
At the ripe old age of 7, 8, 9, and beyond when other children were fast asleep, you would often find me climbing out the bedroom window and onto the wavy tin basement door to embark on a nocturnal scavenger hunt for hope.
Hope was the commodity I borrowed from those who lived in the houses up and down the streets I walked when I was very near the edge of that wonderful childhood condition called resilience.
Hope emanated from the warm yellow light that streamed from the windows of those homes. Peering in I borrowed the peace, the comfort, the safety, and the fraternity that those inside took for granted.
It was of no consequence whatsoever that most of those homes were filled with strife and anxiety, unrest and fear. The little girl standing on the sidewalk looking in could not have known this nor would she have wanted to.
The borrowing was what kept her life between the lines.

Some Thing New

2009-02-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

New is the smell of fresh leather seats in a two door convertible bought off the showroom floor… odometer reading: .0001
New is the crisp resilience of a white cotton shirt still on the rack at Brooks Brothers, never worn and never washed.
New is the sparkle of a brilliant white diamond set in platinum and placed on the well-manicured finger of a June bride.
And new is the idea that these pricy stereotypes are farcical and illegitimate, far from genuine and less than real.
Thirty years into a marriage of inconvenience I think of those early days, the steamy moments, the new-ness of being in love.
And I realize that those feelings of excitement, immediacy, intensity, and heat…were, in a word, biology. Without them, I would not be here.
But somewhere between the then and the now – a more perfect union has come about and I know that new is a concept I had yet to know.
New is my husband every day, every day.
He is a man in motion, moving through his experience of life and becoming a human I could never have anticipated. This sexagenarian sharing my home is funny and cute and creative and cool. He is his own person and my person at once. And he is more of a person than he was at thirty-something.
He is in is element cooking meals, mopping floors, chopping wood, or wiping a grandchild’s tears…mounting a motorcycle, enduring a chick flick, or weeping at the grave of yet another departed friend.
His element is not dependant on the frivolities of life dreamed up by Hollywood or Madison Avenue or other untried amateurs.
His element is far more remarkable and interesting and this is truly new because I did not see it coming. No, not at all.
New is not worrying that my drooping jowls and sagging butt are a liability in my lover’s eyes.
New is understanding that love is not a flash in the pan tryst, but an investment of self whose returns are measured in memories, history, honesty, transparency.
New is in the eyes of the beholder and I behold a new beyond any new I could have created, left to my own devices.

On The Bible:

2009-02-11T00:37:00.002-07:00

"It is a signpost and not a hitching post. It points beyond itself, saying, `Pay attention to God, not me.'"
William Sloane Coffin

Some Thing Old

2009-02-10T23:22:00.007-07:00

For D
I read about her death.
An accident, they said.
But between the lines were hints
of the unmentioned empties they found in her closet, her cabinets, her trunk, her heart, and the note she left for nobody and everybody….
the silent scream.
She was the girl I wanted to be with the parents I wanted to own me.
She had the life I would have died for….
the one for which she died instead.
Old is the path I trod to her grave.
Old is the resolve of her mother who never gave up, never gives up the key that could have, would have freed her from the chains that bound her to the darkness and wed her to the demons who loved her scars and hated her possibilities.
Old is the voice of her father who finally abandons the code talk of his secret sins and asks for a second chance…. could I please have another chance?
Old is the belief that it is better to let sleeping dogs lie, that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, that all things work together for good for those who…blah, blah, blah.
Old is my criteria for measuring the quality of life.
Her children will have to wait to know the answer to the question they can’t stop asking: why?
Their coming of age will be a coming of truth.
And I wonder if the truth will set them free or set them up.

Tuesday's contribution to Lisa's Blog Carnival

Knock Knock Knockin' On Friday's Door

2009-01-22T21:14:00.002-07:00

It's been one of those weeks that feels like a year. The inauguration, MLK Day, the sermon, work, lots of sick people this week, lots of bitchy people this week, Vivian goes into the hospital next week, Annie is drowning in life and I can't save her...get the picture?
My last thing of the day today (it's Thursday which is my Friday) I went to visit a little old lady in hospice. I don't know her, don't know her family, haven't got any of her stories in my mind...it's a little awkward.
I really don't want to go but I dig deep and grab the God-stuff that gives me the edge and even though it takes me 45 minutes to find her house because it's on an odd street and the GPS isn't working, I get there.
Her son-in-law has a bad cold and won't shake my hand because he doesn't want to infect me (great, now I'm going to get his freakin' virus). He shows me to her room and leaves us. I sit down and try to make small talk. I notice there's a baby monitor by the bed and realize someone's probably listening to whatever stumbling/mumbling I'm uttering and giving me an "F" in pastoral care.
And then I look out the window and see the trees and the mountains and the sky and I tell her it is beautiful out there and she sort of "tunes in" and begins to tell it all.
She zeroes in on me with these piercing blue eyes that shine like those of a 16 year-old and she speaks in a language I do not comprehend. She is too old and too worn out and too close to heaven and I can not tell what the words are but I can feel the spirit of them and I know that she is going home and telling me about the journey.
All I do is sit and listen and smile and nod and say "uh-huh" now and then. She carries the conversation until she is spent. Instinctively I pull out my vial of sweet oil and make the sign of the cross on her silky white, rice-paper thin brow and I pray that she has an easy transition to the next place. And she smiles. And the darkness departs. And all is well and I am so glad I am right there. And I think she is glad, too.
On the way out her son-in-law asks me to come again soon. She has been more responsive to me than to anyone in weeks. I tell him to up his vitamin C, rest, and get well. And I wonder if she'll be alive tomorrow.
In my car I breathe a prayer....thank God it's Friday...uhhh Thursday, whatever.

Doubt

2009-01-12T16:47:00.002-07:00

Jesus put his hand on the plow and faced Jerusalem. Umm, not exactly. He grinded his teeth together and set his jaw and then plowed. I don’t think that’s it either. He set his face and headed to J-town. Yes!*
Interestingly, at some point in the semester most every male at seminary preached this scripture in preaching class. It’s a testosterone-filled verse that says: a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Even if…okay not if but when it isn’t at all what he wants to do.
And maybe the reason so many men get into this concept of Jesus is that for once, they have a picture of Jesus that looks a lot like they feel but can't articulate.
Grit your teeth, dig in, and do the thing you don’t really want to do whether it be 9-5 at a crap job or mowing the grass on Saturday so the HOA stays off your rear or picking up a gun and heading to a foreign land in the name of duty, honor, and country.
Doubt is not a simple word in the manly vernacular.
Think about it. Men can doubt whipped cream stuff like Oprah, acupuncture, or women’s intuition…
But men are not allowed to express doubt about meat and potatoes stuff like….oh, I know! Duty, honor, and country.
Doubt = feet of clay
Doubt = fear
Doubt = lack of commitment
And those equations all point to a plethora of outcomes, none of which matches a man’s idea of integrity.
Doubt ≠ integrity
Think about it. John Wayne, Clark Kent, and John Glenn did not doubt.
And then there’s Jesus who is setting his face and looking to Jerusalem and the operative phrase here is that part about the face. I never set my face before walking in for a massage unless it's the deep-tissue Swedish varietal offered by a body building champion named Sven.
I never set my face before entering a 747 bound for the Caribbean unless I happen to spot the pilot, co-pilot, and flight attendants through foggy cockpit windows laughing hysterically as they enjoy a pre-flight toke and smoke.
Face setting usually precedes something I really don’t want to do and even though these men never got to it in their various sermons, I’m thinking Jesus really didn’t want to go to Jerusalem.
Yuh think?
Jesus had doubts.
Clearly not of God, but of himself, his ability to do what was required, and most importantly…of those around him:
His disciples sticking power
Rome’s leave no prophet behind policy
The synagogue’s peace movement
The crowd’s anti-capital punishment stance
And rightfully so!
None of them held firm.
Jesus doubted absolutely those things he chose not to control.
Even when it came down to the act of being the sacrificial offering, Jesus faltered.
Remember his anger at Lazarus’ tomb? Death pissed him off. The Bible tells us he snorted like a mule and cried tears of regret. Why? Because the trajectory of the world was so off-kilter from the original plan. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be!
There’s a shadow of doubt in that frustrated cursing of the fig tree event….what does a man have to do to get a decent fig around here anyway?
And there were those shaky moments in the garden….is there any other way to do this???
What’s my point?
Doubt isn’t the problem.
Lot’s wife wasn’t turned into a pillar of salt because of doubt. It happened because she couldn’t go forward. She froze up. She shut down. The world around her was erupting. Sulfur and ash were exploding from the ground and raining down in thick and heavy clumps. She failed to grasp the future and move on in spite of her doubts. That’s what caused her instant and eternal mummification.
Stepping into the abyss of uncertainty, crossing the bridge as it is built, believing that the God to whom one prays is working it all out for a communal vs. a singular good and loving the all more than the me….is what that setting of the face was about.
Ultimately, doubt is an introspective and cleansing precursor to serious action. A pause during which one does or does not choose to cauterize the escape route and embrace the path of great resistance.
Ultimately, doubt is a wise man’s tool for discernment, an honest man’s bridge to wisdom, and a discerning man’s lens into honesty.
A set face comes with the territory.
*Reference: Luke 9:51-62

To Be of Use

2009-01-05T13:23:00.001-07:00

A Poem by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Cosmic Connections: A Christmas Eve Meditation

2008-12-24T11:38:00.003-07:00

It was Christmas Day in the afternoon. Presents had been opened and their detritus had been cleared. The yule feast was in the rearview mirror and a young boy could finally embrace the desire of his heart: a giant bucket of Legos left under the tree by Santa.
I am going to build a Tower. Said the boy. But not just any tower….the tallest Lego tower EVER!
Great. Said his sleepy-eyed dad from the couch where he lay watching football. Have at it!
The boy began stacking the colorful plastic bricks and as the tower grew taller, his dad became more awake. Before long, dad and son were on their knees together in the middle of the floor, strategizing and structuring the world’s greatest Lego tower.
It seemed like they had been at it for just a few minutes when mom came in to announce bed time.
But the tower….we aren’t finished with it! Cried the boy.
It will keep. Said mom as she hustled her son off to brush teeth, wash face, and settle in for a long winter’s nap.
Dad remained. A man on a mission.
When are you coming to bed? His wife asked.
Soon….he replied in the way a pre-occupied man replies…..soon.
The next morning his son woke up and stumbled downstairs to find every Lego brick had been used by his dad to build what did seem to be the tallest tower ever made in one’s own living room. Next to it sat his father…eyes filled with anticipation for the kudos that would surely pour from his son’s lips.
Dad …. We were supposed to do it together. Said the boy and then he walked away.

Relationship. It’s more than sharing genetic material or sitting in the desk next to another person day after day after day. It’s more than an annual birthday phone call or Christmas card. It’s even more than living in the same house together for 30 years.
Relationship is about investment….of presence, of self.
Relationship is about being there...together.
Relationship is a connection, a connectedness.

In the stories of Christmas we read about a God who had been denied relationship with his own creation by their acts of disobedience. That cosmic rip in the universe that began with Adam and Eve extended through time and space to create a great gulf between God and God’s own. Amazingly, we read that God took the initiative, understanding love more than anger or hate or resentment or revenge….entering into a whole new place: a human body….that of a baby who would grow to become a man. He did it all for relationship, to connect once again with his own dear children who had gone off on their own….building towers and living lives and following their momentary desires.
What a mess we made of things.

Much like the dad who worked through the night to fulfill his personal quest for success, thus missing the opportunity for connection with his own son who was now heading into the kitchen to eat a lonely breakfast.
An hour or so later, the dad came to his son’s room with a gift, all wrapped up in Christmas paper.
The son, a bit confused but clearly interested, took the package, opened it and found a whole new bucket of Legos.
Let’s start over. Said the dad.
And so they did. Dad and son spent the whole morning stacking tiny plastic bricks to make a tall, tall tower right next the one made the night before. And when both towers were complete and stood side by side….the son said, we aren’t finished.
He gathered a few more Legos together and built a simple arch which he used to connect the two towers…forming a bridge.

Did you know Legos were invented by a Danish carpenter in 1940? His name was Kirk Christiansen and he called his new toy Lego as a play on words because in his language it means “play well” and in Latin, “I put together.”

That is the act we celebrate tonight - a distant father, separated from his children because of their own poor choices…. made a decision: to come and be with them in their brokenness, their disobedience, their self-appointed and self-determined exile. For God so loved us….God couldn’t stay away. God reached out….bridging the gulf, putting together what had been torn asunder.
God, in Christ, is the bridge that says this is a relationship -- one of such monumental importance that I would cross heaven and hell, all of eternity, the entire cosmos …..to be with you. And he did just that.

Based on an anonymous story I heard years ago....credit offered up to whomever told the story first!

Advent of The Way

2008-12-07T17:24:00.001-07:00

A Parable of Expectation
The Kingdom of heaven is like a church who received a message from God saying My son is coming to be with you. Prepare ye the way.
The members of the church became excited. God’s son is coming here…to our house of worship! And then they asked, “What does it mean: Prepare ye the way?”
Some people said: we must prepare a feast!
Others wanted to learn and perform beautiful music.
Some suggested the church must be made more presentable
and there were those who wanted to announce to the entire community “the king’s son is coming! Please, be our guests. Come and join us so you can be in his presence as well!”

In the spirit of expectation and anticipation much busy-ness ensued. No expense was spared – only the best would do for the son of God.
Great prayers began to be prayed….prayers of repentance, prayers for and of forgiveness, prayers of gratitude.
Hearts were opened and everyone shared one enormous hope: that he or she would have the great privilege of serving God’s own son when he came to visit.
Men did what lots of men do: they repaired what was broken and moved what needed to be moved. They hammered and sawed and drilled and dug. They painted and leveled and sanded and polished while all the while women came along side and did what lots of women do: they cleaned and sorted and washed and swept. They dusted and arranged and organized and shopped.
Cooks cooked and singers rehearsed. Teachers prepared and leaders led.
And amidst all of the preparations friendships long forgotten were renewed, wounds long neglected were healed, grudges long nurtured were abandoned and forgiveness long overdue was offered and accepted.

Perhaps most remarkably, on the day the guest of honor was to come strangers were welcomed and the hungry were fed. The poor were included right along with the rich. The blind were led by the sighted and the lame were wheeled in or carried in the arms of kind friends and family.
The sick were given places right up front in hope that the holy one’s healing touch could reach them. And all the people were one in Spirit because of Him who was expected.

They waited and waited and waited even more.
And when it seemed that all had been in vain, they cried in one voice: “O God, where is He who was promised? We long to see, to know, to touch. To serve and to be whole!”
The still, small voice of God answered:
“My children - my dear, dear saints,
My son has been among you all the while.
When you gathered together…. he was there also.
When you served your brothers and sisters, it was he who was served.
When you welcomed the blind, the lame, the poor, the stranger you welcomed him.
When words of reconciliation and restoration and healing and love were spoken they resounded in his own ears and in mine.
When the hearts of a people are one and they seek not their own good but the good that is born of love, my spirit dances and all of heaven is glad.
Beloved,
My message was simple: prepare ye the way.
THE WAY is not a path or a place or a pageant.
THE WAY is not a doctrine or a dogma or a decree.
THE WAY is not a sermon or a sonnet or a song.
THE WAY is the heart. And to prepare THE WAY is to let love be all there is..
When this happens “paths are made straight, valleys are raised up, every mountain and hill is made low, and the rough ground becomes level. The glory of the Lord is revealed so all mankind will see it.”
This is what the Kingdom of God is like.
And He who testified to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon. Amen.”
Come, Lord Jesus. We are expecting you. Even now.

The Problem With 11/5/08's Defining Moment: The Definition Is Racism

2008-11-15T15:35:00.003-07:00

This election has fleshed out a dirty American secret: racism is alive and well. All around the country racist events have increased since November 5. Clearly, there are those who are not happy about the outcome of the vote (see AP article ). People who call themselves American who are not willing to accept that the American system has spoken and to abide by its words.
So they are acting out in the most unattractive (no, that's too nice a word...) ugly ways.
Hard as it is, I can't help but believe this is productive. America is vomiting up its disease and while the process is messy.... it may just reduce, if not eliminate, the prevalence of a most covert cancer. Was Barack Obama the the cure? In part.
There have been a hundred therapies to bring us to this point. My prayer is this: that we who do not hold racist sentiments, regardless of how we marked our ballots, will have the courage to stand up and be counted as the antidote -- that we stand up and speak out against every racist reference that comes into our realm of experience whether it be a veiled remark, outright slur, or explicit action. I pray that we love the sinner and hate the sin. I pray that we peacefully and deliberately use this opportunity as a rising tide instead of killing deluge.
Americans have been taught better. And it is time for us to expect better. We can turn the tide of racism now.

If It's A Dream, Don't Wake Me

2008-11-11T22:55:00.003-07:00

I remember a song from the sixties. Yes, a folk song...a protest song...a song of hope. That's what they sang in the sixties (so a lot of folks think, but I'm thinking the Beatles were pretty big then, too). Anyway, it was called The Strangest Dream. It was written by Ed McCurdy and sung by lots of artists including Arlo Guthrie, The Kingston Trio, and Simon & Garfunkel.
In the song he tells about this dream in which the entire world agrees to sign a treaty agreeing to end war. Forever. It tells of the important men in a big room signing the papers and that once they were signed they joined hands and prayed grateful prayers.
And then the song says, the people in the streets below were dancing round and round.
Imagine that, people dancing in the streets for joy because of some momentous, world-changing decision. One that incited peaceful, gleeful, hopeful celebration.
I saw a day like that.
November 4, 2008 after the presidential election was called for Barack Obama.
Annie called from Manhattan and said listen to this! She held her cell phone out the window of her apartment that sits just half a block off Broadway at 116th. And I could hear the sound of many voices, shouting, singing, laughing.
She said they'd shut down Broadway completely. That people had spontaneously come out from their homes into the street to simply dance and be glad. On the television we caught glimpses of this celebration along with those in other parts of the country and world.
Imagine that.
I am told that the night Tom Brokaw broadcast from Berlin the fall of that dreaful wall that NBC news caught footage of east German school children singing that song. People danced then, too.

There are these rare moments in life, moments born of liberation, in which our spirits are totally caught up with those of others....and all we can do is dance.
We had such a moment.
Praise God.
We had such a moment.

We Are The People That We've Been Waiting For!!!

2008-11-04T22:07:00.001-07:00

He is the one up front. But we are the ones who work the change. Are we up for it, America???

Breaking the silence....

2008-11-04T21:11:00.002-07:00

It is 5 minutes past 9:00 mountain time on November 4, 2o08. History has been made. I am living and breathing and laughing at a moment that time will acknowledge as "oh so big!!!"
Barack Obama has been elected president of these United States of America.
I am beside myself with joy. Hope springs eternal. Possibilities abound. An era of discord and tyranny is behind us.
I know, I am dramatic. But I am caught up in the images on the screen....fresh young faces of all shapes, sizes, colors dancing, smiling, shouting, and proclaiming that a new age is dawning. Change is not coming, it is here! I am caught up in the tears that flow from the eyes, the soul, the gut of freedom lovers and fighters from my own generation. I am caught up in the moment.
I know this is frightening for the old guard, my friends' and family's guard.
Be assured, dear friends, God is in control.
As I type, John McCain speaks his words of concession. He praises the choice of his countrymen and women. He applauds us all and he welcomes this new wave.
So do I.

For Becky, On Her 60th Birthday

2008-07-02T11:17:00.006-06:00

When I was a little girl you were mean.
Okay, not really mean. You just had a trajectory that wasn’t in line with mine. You were responsible -- I was aloof. You were goal-driven – I was fun-driven. You were the big sister – I was not.
But I need you to know that you were and are a great big sister.
I remember so many lessons you taught me: how to do my hair, how to clean a bathroom, how to get along with girls who weren’t easy to get along with.
I remember so many ways you inspired me: to play guitar, to go to college, to write.
So many of my firsts came from you:
My first bologna and paint sandwich-making lesson, my first night in a college dorm room, my first bridesmaid dress….
I remember we don’t come to the forest to kick the plants and that Edwin Garcia is one of the coolest guys in the world and that you don’t want a crucifix over your bed because you could never have sex with Jesus watching.
I remember my first bra was a hand-me-down from you.
And that I was too big for it. But it didn’t matter…it was a bra. It was yours. And I wore it to your high school graduation that was held outside in the football stadium and I stood up through the entire ceremony hoping that everyone would notice I was wearing a bra.
I remember you came to see me and my new baby and we took pictures of our little girls on the grass and on the bed and in each other’s arms -- all pink and pretty.
I remember you sent flowers every time you couldn’t make it to one of my rites of passage so that I would know you knew I was crossing to a new place.
I remember you sat with my girls in a Pizza Hut in Walsemburg for two hours waiting for me and my husband who were fighting through those early years of marriage and when we finally got there, you didn’t bitch me out.
I remember your face twisted and tight as you fought the grief at our mother’s funeral.
I remember your face beaming with the love of God as you took in all that the gifts of the Spirit at your candlelight.
I remember your face all happiness and pride and joy for me as I came up the aisle at Duke Chapel in my robes.
We have seen the best of times and the worst of times.
We have run from one another, run towards one another, run with one another.
We have lived lives, given lives, and handed lives off to the next generation.
We played together in that old dirt basement that still haunts my dreams with images of spiders and spooks.
We stood together surrounded by rocky mountains and sang songs and worshiped and prayed.
We flew together in a big yellow balloon over the land of enchantment – our very own tierra madre.
And, like starlight, we go on.
We are daughters. We are wives. We are mothers. We are grannies -- but not old and angry ones like Tempie.
We are sisters.
We are friends.
In my mind’s eye I see us – indentured servants, forced to clean mom’s beauty shop – lighting cigarettes and placing them in ashtrays; reading the latest issues of Cosmo, left there for the grown-up ladies to read while their hair was being made a whiter shade of blue; dancing in our nighties while the The Purple People Eater played on KTNM.
Two very pretty, very smart, very unusual girls.
Who, but us, could tell these stories?
Blessings upon you, dear sister.
I thank you for us.

Good Karma for the Bag Lady

2008-06-29T12:31:00.005-06:00

We are having a completely abnormal weather day in El Paso. Wrapping up a June filled with post-hundred degree days, it is almost noon with a pleasant seventy-eight cool ones (degrees, not beers).
It’s Sunday, a day for worship, so a 3 mile walk to the post office was set aside for my God-time. Nice weather, beautiful views, tunes on the iPod….goods of creation for which I am grateful.
Walking through the arroyo, Sinead O’Connor’s If You Had A Vineyard from her CD Theology was streaming into my head…what a great song… lifted from the book of Isaiah, but representative of modern-day Israel and Palestine. It moves my soul. Anyway, I guess it made me really look around me and of course, this area looks a bit West Bankesque. And I saw all this trash the wind had blown into our Vineyard, the Vineyard we have been given.
And I thought maybe as an act of contrition I should pick some of it up.
Instantly I was provided what I needed. There before me was --- no, not a ram --- a trash bag caught in the bushes! It came from the land of Walmart and I took it as a sign that I was on the right track. I began to gather trash.
Unanticipated perk: I got the best workout ever! And it felt GOOD. I was using my body, caring for my world and inadvertently, loving my neighbors. And it wasn’t part of a thing – you know, a church workday or a boy scout merit badge project. It was just something I did. I doubt anyone even noticed me as I filled the bag after bag that conveniently blew into my pathway.
By the time I got to the post office I had yes sir, yes sir, three bags full of the refuse of humanity which I promptly deposited in government-issue trash cans. And after dropping my mail in the appropriate slot, I walked out to the parking lot to see my work was not finished.
So I continued.
Next unanticipated perk: I got a reward….a tangible one! A 41 cent postage stamp someone left in the little booklet he or she had tossed down. Ha! A 41 cent stamp with a purple heart medal on it! That’s a sweet surprise….kinda like mother earth sending out a little karmic love.
Thanks, mom!

Not All Memories Sweeten With Age

2008-05-31T10:14:00.007-06:00

I really didn't expect the reaction I had watching HBO's docudrama, Recount. I thought that I had so neatly packaged and packed the Florida election debacle that the movie would be a bit like taking in a review of Watergate on the History Channel -- not our proudest moment, but in the rearview mirror enough to feel some distance, have some perspective.
I even had a mindless paper-sorting project in front of me. Docudrama, it practically screams multi-task! Silly me.
Two hours later, paper-work forgotten, I found myself in an HBO-induced fog repeating the words: it's only a movie, it's only a movie, all the while knowing in the deepest regions of my psyche that it wasn't just a movie.
I'm guessing I got a very small taste of the PTSD experienced by an adult child of abuse after watching Mommie Dearest. It was far too fresh a wound to rip the bandaid from.
I remember the night of the election as the stations began calling for Gore. I had a feeling, early on, that something was up. The conservative commentators weren't buying it and I could hear in their voices that they knew more than they were allowing. I still wonder...did they smell the rat in the room or had there been a preemptive meeting of select minds?
I want to say it took weeks to get past it, but the truth is I never recovered. Neither did our country. Neither did the planet.
This was a crock heard round the world and the echo of its report still reverberates in places like New Orleans and Iraq.
Reviewers of the movie question its accuracy, criticize the portrayal of Warren Christopher as an elitist who waved the white flag of diplomacy far too early in the game. Democrats -- they never learned to play street ball. I think that's what got so many of us in a quandary over Hillary. The girl's a fighter...do we want a fighter?
I heard an interview with David Boies, the attorney who represented the Gore argument before the Supreme Court. Throughout the whole movie he just kept hoping for a new ending. Yeah -- me, too.
Re the film as an artform -- the best thing they did was casting. Tom Wilkonson played a villainous James Baker so well I wanted to boo and hiss when he came on screen. John Hurt became Warren Christopher and Kevin Spacey's torment as Ron Klain, the man who just wanted to be loved, was right on.
As far as I'm concerned, though, the Emmy goes to Laura Dern as Katherine Harris. Okay, I'll admit it...there was a lot of material to work with, Katherine was an easy read. But Dern held nothing back. She was the image of Sleeping Beauty's thoroughly evil and foolishly vain stepmother; and history's mirror reflects to us a woman ill-prepared to oversee a Girl Scout Cookie drive, much less an election.
If there is wisdom to the timing of this movie, maybe it's to warn us that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Beware, Mr. Obama, beware. There be beasties afoot and you are in their sites.

Hatred: A Force That Gives Life Meaning

2008-05-30T17:47:00.005-06:00

Foreign Policy's Passport reports that The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg had an interview with John McCain. Check this part out:

JG: What do you think motivates Iran?

JM: Hatred. I don't try to divine people's motives. I look at their actions and what they say. I don't pretend to be an expert on the state of their emotions. I do know what their nation’s stated purpose is, I do know they continue in the development of nuclear weapons, and I know that they continue to support terrorists who are bent on the destruction of the state of Israel. You'll have to ask someone who engages in this psycho stuff to talk about their emotions.

Help me out here. What is this guy talking about? I am not an expert on emotions? What the heck is hatred? I look at their actions, what they say......what drives actions and expression? To his credit, JM has integrity. He is the poster child for a political ideology that can not/will not connect with reality, emotion, feeling, or psycho stuff. Hatred - motive....rhetoric - BS....election - competition....presidency - power.
Total eclipse of the mind.

Tooth Fairy Goes Global

2008-05-30T16:56:00.003-06:00

In an attempt to impress my grandson with geography as opposed to capitalism, his parents have made arrangements with the tooth fairy to bring him foreign money. Cute. Maybe even interesting.
He lost his first tooth and was delighted to find coins under his pillow. He was unfamiliar with the currency so he left the tooth fairy this note.

Here's my thought. I remember being a kid and getting the occasional peso from my Uncle Rex who was a rodeo clown. He'd drop by now and again and he always had Mexican coins to give my brother and me. We thought we were rich. They were coins. They were heavy. They had big numbers on them.
But the moment was blown when someone explained that Mexican money wasn't worth as much as American money. Bummer. No good. Nobody will take them. Won't even buy a piece of bubble gum.
Is that the way European kids feel when the tooth fairy brings them foreign money from the U.S.? I had to ask.

Not Losing Is A Little Like Winning

2008-05-27T22:04:00.004-06:00

It was Scrabulous. And she was waxing my you know what.
I was dying. She was so good. How did she learn to get all those double letter/side-by-side word points anyway?
I’m her mother. I should have been ahead. I taught her everything she knows!
And yet…I was dying.
Thank God it was a long-term game.
You can do one of those if you have a Facebook add-on for Scrabulous. The game goes on until someone runs out of tiles. You play it sort of like those old farts at the park play chess…one move at a time – each a week apart. Our Scrabulous game lasted at least ten days.
It gave us time to think about it, to weigh our words.
Her words weighed more. She really bested me playing horizontal combos like SENE against words like TOFT and PHONEY with ALONE at the vertical to make mega-points. I was stuck in monosyllable-land and my score reflected it.
The word that saved me was RUBIGO. Where did I get that? A color retrieved from somewhere in the almost lost wells of my memory. It just happened to fall on a red triple word score square.
It was a momentum turner. She was easily sixty points ahead at the time.
But step by step, inch by inch I moved forward until we reached that point where I had three tiles and she had five.
CENT was her choice and it placed her thirteen points ahead with one tile remaining.
The three in my cache were less than stupendous. Each was a single pointer: R – U – N
I worked at it forever. And finally I saw an opening. Vertically, there was a space where I could spell URN while connecting with a horizontal T at the top to spell UT and a horizontal BAR at the bottom to spell BARN. All together I would make thirteen points. Not enough to win, but not so little as to lose, either.
But who ever heard of UT? Is it a word????
I had to try. I entered the letters and pressed Play.
The screen whirled around verification mode and then accepted my play.
Game over! A Draw! Hallelujah! I didn’t lose!
She didn’t reply for two days.
It was as if it never really happened.
Heck! Not losing was like winning as far as I was concerned. I just wanted a little victory relish to top it all off. But she didn’t concede a thing.
I finally had to ask.
What, that?
Yes, that.
Well, I don’t really even get it. It was a draw? How did that happen?
Uh…because I’m so good? I came back from the dead. I caught your little baby butt and danced all around it....
I didn’t say any of that. I was cool.
But I still have the screen saved and I look at it frequently.
Life goes on, this I know.
And not losing helps the passing just a bit.

Post Script

2008-05-15T11:58:00.003-06:00

I did get one email at exactly 11:09 a.m. It was from my daughter.
It was just a link to an interesting site....something she thought I'd like.
Not profound.
And yet....if you seek it you will find it. Hmmm.....
She took time to send it on because I might like it.
She thought of me.
She knows me that well.
Wow.
Cool.
(I never learn, not really).

11:09 a.m.

2008-05-15T11:27:00.003-06:00

Crazy! That’s what I’m telling myself. You're Crazy!
It’s all my sister’s fault. She sent the stupid email.
The STUPID email I opened and read.
You know the kind: this is your guardian angel and she brings you the promise that you will hear from someone about something very important at 11:09 tomorrow morning. Send this message on to seven of your closest friends so they can be blessed as well.
Argghhhh! I fell for it. I sent the thing to seven friends.
I needed a message!
It’s 11:10 a.m.
What’s the message?
Is it that you can’t fleece God?
I can hear him now: Silly girl, don’t you know? I will not be mocked….or manipulated!
One night a few years ago I was praying under the stars in northern New Mexico. It was a fervent prayer, a deep-seeded groan that and I so desperately needed to hear from God…to know that God was listening and was giving me personal attention.
At just the right moment, a star shot across the heavens, leaving a trail of space dust so incredibly thick that it hung in the sky for several moments. It was like a love note from God written on heaven’s chalkboard.
I loved it. I just knew that God had sent that star in answer to my prayer.
I don’t remember what I was praying about.
I remember the sign.
The problem with signs is that once you get one, you look for the next one. It got so that I couldn’t look up into the night sky without hoping God would send another star shooting across just to say “hi!” I approached the stellar landscape expecting divine hieroglypics and each time, walked away disappointed. It got so I couldn’t just look up and love the handiwork of the skies because of my need for more.
Finally, I realized the only way I could overcome this frame of mind was to go on a star fast. I wouldn’t allow myself to look up. That way I wouldn’t be disappointed. For months when I went out at night I intentionally willed myself to look straight ahead, only looking up on nights that were cloudy or on which the moon was so big and bright that the stars were almost imperceptible.
Eventually, I came back to a mindset from which I could look to the sky just to see the stars, their incredible and beautiful light – the miracle of them simply for their own sake.
Maybe that’s the message of 11:09 a.m.
It was a moment in which I could simply be, a moment to appreciate and relish…even cherish apart from the millions that I speed through unattended.
That little sixty second span was the one thing I had for sure right then.
And I missed the treasure looking for the sparkly….
Ahhh…grasshopper, therein lies a truth.

In Process

2008-05-02T22:23:00.003-06:00

I read about the Navajo and their Nizhoni….the way of beauty. It is a life-style that says how we live is more important than what we produce. Imagine that.
I work toward outcomes.
I need measurables.
I set goals and objectives and I want to see results.
That’s what they told me, anyway. So many years ago when my young mind was being molded and my skills were being honed. They put me on their conveyor belt of knowledge that said the end is the means.
I have spent a chunk of life believing this rhetoric, living this system, anticipating their end.
Problem is….I got to the end and it’s not so pretty.
I keep looking back wishing I’d given more attention to the moments…each delicate and intimate moment that passed. I wish I’d noticed the people more. I wish I had listened their stories. I wish I had a story that said I am more than the end of my days.
That is why I began reading about the Navajo and their intentional style of living.
I am impressed with the notion that each moment of life is It. It is all you have.
And It holds all that came before and all that goes ahead.
It is a definition of the one who holds It.
For a Navajo It involves being who one is…wholly. Compassionate, moral, dedicated, and beautiful. It means honoring those who brought you to the now. And It means honoring those will come after.
It is more caught up in the herding of the sheep than the market value per head
It is more caught up in the sheering of the animals than the price per pound of wool.
It is more caught up in the weaving of the blanket than the item when it’s finished.
It is celebrating the first laugh of a baby, calling all the friends – many of whom happen to be family – together to honor that very moment when life has been known and appreciated and loved by the most tender among us.
I am in awe of this Nizhoni, this way of beauty. I have breath and life and moments remaining in me. I am giving myself over to a new way of being.
I am no longer content to be measured by....any system of measure.
I am so much more.
Right now.
Right this very moment.

Answering the Hard "Ask"

2008-04-09T10:52:00.006-06:00

A student-pastor in children and family ministries recently asked me for an interview via email. It was part of a class assignment. She said she chose me because people "say wonderful things" about me and considering her vocational goals, I seemed to be "a good fit."
Blah, blah, blah...I wonder if she still feels that way.
The first couple of questions were easy -- why do you do what you do, what is the purpose? But then she asked how I, in the role of Pastoral Counselor, could interface with her, in the role of Christian Ed Coordinator at a church.
I just couldn't sugarcoat my answer and it is my fervent prayer that years from now she will look back and find the good in it.
Here's what I wrote:

Here's the naked truth.
Each of my classes at seminary got a folder in which I would keep my notes. Yellow folders were the best…they denoted happy class! Black folders were not happy. My Christian Ed class folder was black.
The reason for that is that I have long felt that Christian Ed in the church has been reduced to a cutesy babysitting service developed so that adults can attend worship uninterrupted, a substitute for parental guidance (ie “we came back to church so our children could learn morals"), or a Christian club for the easy, cool, pliable kids that works to stay on top of the newest, coolest movement/curriculum/camp/conference/song -- where numbers in attendance is the marker for success.
You’re asking yourself: could she be more rude?
In that climate, how do we work together?
Be around to pick up the pieces.
Those of the kid who didn’t fit in, whose parents don’t understand why church didn’t “do the trick,” who took alcohol or grass to church camp and got sent home; or the adult who grew up believing in a fairy-tale Jesus who should have rescued him or her but didn’t; or the outcast who still isn’t invited to family events because he married a person of a different race, religion, or gender; or someone who decided one day to claim her inheritance and go to a foreign land but now just wants to come home.
I feel Christian Ed needs to be overhauled entirely to include full families worshiping and serving together. I feel it should include working in the neighborhoods where we live, getting to know our neighbors so we can love them, going to the most marginalized in our communities (10 blocks away --not across the globe) to serve them on days other than Christmas and Thanksgiving. It should include getting dirty, exposed, and real.
Our children and adults need to be challenged with the true Jesus who wasn’t the nicest, most regular kind of guy. He was a revolutionary who challenged the culture of his day -- the religious people of his day and he got killed for doing it. Those are the footsteps in which we are called to follow. We need to help our people climb out of the box of passive recipient and into the adventure of critical thinker.
Instead, we grow them up to be pew potatoes and ecclesiastical bureaucrats, rather than wild-eyed, honey-eating, goatskin wearing Johns and Janes crying in the wilderness of planet earth.
So how do we work together?
We set one big goal: to make my job be obsolete.
More probably, you send me referrals and teach a class here and there on things like grief recovery, parenting, and communication.

Passing Up Peace

2008-04-07T09:48:00.002-06:00

Sunday was stunning. The wind didn’t blow, the thermometer registered an ideal 80 degrees and the sky, absent of clouds, was that pristine color of blue that is seen only in the Southwest. We had the kayaks loaded and were destined for the Rio Grande. The gates at Elephant Butte dam are open and the water is flowing high.
Conditions were perfect, in ways I could not know.
For the river that would be traveled this day was the Styx, not the Rio Grande.
I was outside when the phone rang. So often I ignore the phone.
Just because it rings doesn’t mean I have to answer, right?
But some spirit thing urged me toward the house and going that way I could hear snippets of the answering machine broadcast, “Need you, Pastor..... Mom....heart attack.... doctors.... ....hours to live....call....please.”
I called.
And I changed into preacher-lady clothes and headed for the hospital.
The mom of the message belonged to my former next-door neighbors, a family who has moved twice since living next to us but we still call neighbors. They are good people…horse people.
Horse people are connected to the earth by a different rein.
Horse people possess more the wisdom of beast than that of man. They understand connectedness with other as a result of years in the saddle, responding to nuance—the flinch of a muscle, the twitch of an ear. Horsemen can spot the slightest change in the disposition, the health, the state of being of their regular mount.
Yet completely miss a similar shift in a human with whom their days are shared.
We sat together, this family and I, around the bed of their dying mother.
She had come to the border area eighty years hence.
Her husband of sixty years rests beneath its rocky desert crust.
She was ready to search for him in worlds beyond this one.
The nurse turned off the machines.
And we waited.
So much is learned about a family in moments such as these. The smooth exterior of self, maintained for the world at-large, erodes and the reality is laid bare for all to see. Raw family truths are out there and at such times, age-old pains and unforgivenesses stored in the gut, nurtured in the cauldron of memory have an opportunity to be released…to simply go the way of the dead.
A tear, a touch, the caress of a hand, a word spoken in love. The offering is made but must be accepted.
I watched the players dance the dance of possibility.
I felt the brush of the olive branch, tenderly offered.
I realized the tragedy of its refusal.
The tensing of body, the back turned in reply, the head bent in sorrow.
The moment was past.
The waters were stirred and healing was so nearly there.
One had but to breathe it in.

On The Other Side Of The Dream

2008-02-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

When I became a minister I wanted to build a church...a big church, a mega-church, an in-your-face, Willow Creek! kind of church. Real Christian of me, huh?
I was sooo far off-base.
But in fairness to me (and most of the pastors who are still wet behind their pulpits), ministry is a competitive field in which one can easily get caught up in the stats. I think the only guys who keep better track of the number of vehicles in the competition's parking lot are car salesmen. It's a dirty secret, I know. And maybe one you didn't want to hear. But I think it's time to let some light shine on that darkness.
What changed?
I worked hard and long with some great folks who didn't mind the trenches. And as time went by I came to believe in them and their ability to change the world one person at a time, more than I believed in the idea of me on a stage building my resume' a hundred people at a time.
I started spending less of my time reading the industry's best seller list and more with the best seller of all time, God's Word. And in my reading I was reminded that Jesus never rented, bought, or built a church building, never formed a fellowship committee, never analyzed the market, never subscribed to a current trends newsletter.
I started spending less of my time in meetings and more meeting with God, letting the Spirit teach me and lead me and heal me and love me. And soon I came to understand the knowing that comes with being still.
I started spending less of my time thinking about money and more thinking about what Jesus really meant when he said I have come that you would have life...more abundantly. And that is when I ditched the dream for the pearl.
You've heard it said that some folks are too heavenly minded to be any earthly good?
I was too churchly minded to be any heavenly or earthly good.
The makeover was slow and painful and it tried my faith sorely. But it was fruitful and maturing and it grew my faith surely.
What I know now is how little I know.
What I hope now is to mirror the source of my hope.
What I dream now is going beyond the dream...to a reality in which God's house is a house for all people, where God's people are a people who work for change, where God's change includes a change of heart and direction and definition in those to whom God has trusted the Bride.

The Last Ornament

2008-01-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about you, but I am personally soooo glad the holidays are behind me. Truly, I’m no Scrooge. I don’t have any problems filling up with child-like excitement when I hear the first strain of Joy To The World just after Thanksgiving and I love putting up a tree and baking goodies for my neighbors.
But the timing of Christmas with the entry of the new year just after is really an extraordinary coincidence, don’t you think? I mean, we work so hard to make the yuletide so “right.” We want to be with family and experience Hallmark moments. We set very high expectations for what it means to do Christmas.
As a result, if those expectations aren’t met, we feel something must be wrong…with THEM, with US, with IT. Did we say the right thing, wear the right thing, buy the right thing?
And of course, there’s the whole gift event. Wow. Christmas has become our economy’s annual last, best hope. If 75% of Americans decided to limit their gifts to one homemade item per person, we would go into a depression (emotionally and fiscally, I fear).

My point….the “door number 3” event of the holidays is a remarkably cleansing and refreshing crossing into a new year. The old is behind us. We re-enter the fray anew. While we were on break some mystic hand erased and oiled the cosmic chalkboard.
There’s a fresh grade book with empty columns to fill with test scores from a whole new set of experiences and maybe, just maybe it will be better….I’m going to work to make it better!
But first I have to get closure on the old year. And that comes via the ritual of putting away the Christmas decorations. It’s a semi-holy event for me. I find enormous satisfaction in taking the ornaments off the tree, ceremonially placing them in their clear plastic storage boxes. I wind the light strings around cardboard and wrap them in used grocery sacks so they won’t get tangled while they wait for their next illuminatiion. In my mind I pull out the map of my house and recount all the niches and nooks where I set angels, nativities, santas, and such. I want to round them up and bring the full herd in.
That’s the important part….the full herd. It is a personal challenge to get each and every one of those critters back into their storage container in one big sweep. Part of the ritual is to place those full and organized boxes of Christmas back in the attic, never to return for ten and a half months. It’s a challenge, a personal goal, a need I have.
Alas, it remains and illusive ideal.
Every year it would seem that all the ornaments got together in advance and elect one of their own to be that season’s stealth hold-out. I can just imagine that little guy making himself really little while I pass by on my quest for the perfectly put-away Christmas. And I know he breathes a sigh of relief knowing he has accomplished his mission when he sees me heading out to the garage with closed boxes and a satisfied smile on my face.
And I hate the moment I find him a day or so later. It just sticks in my gut.
This year it was a nasty little angel in a red calico dress wearing a crooked halo and holding a wooden sign that jabbed me with its message: “peace.”
Fat chance on that one, honey. You were my peace but you screwed that up when you didn’t reveal yourself, when you hid behind the magazines on the end table, when you made winning the “Christmas in the rearview mirror” war more important than the message on your nasty little sign.
I didn’t give her what she wanted.
I didn’t put her back in the box with her compadres where they had planned to hold a massive celebration and recognition event for her. I put her on the vanity where I do my hair and make-up so she would have to look at me every morning and think about what she had done. I want her to know that actions have consequences.
Problem is, I am the one doing the thinking.
About that word on her sign: peace. And I remember that once angels made a historic journey past the stars and planets to hover in a frozen sky where they shouted that word, not as a blessing but as a command. “Peace on earth!” they proclaimed.
“It’s time has come! There is a great one entering your space who will show you how to do it. Get it right this time!”
Hmmm….I wonder what the new year wil bring.

When Secrets Collide

2007-05-01T10:45:00.000-06:00

In Annie's blog The Same River Twice you'll find a link to an amazing article about our country's latest phenom: The Secret.

Yes, we're all caught up in the idea of thinking intentionally, aren't we? I have to admit...I have been guilty of sitting quietly in my easy chair while visualizing a 120 pound me eating cheesecake without gaining a pound, a 120 pound me bounding effortlessly up Mt. Kilimanjaro, a 120 pound me.....you get the point.
I want to believe, oh yes, I do. I have tried all sorts of things -- clicking my heels together and repeating "There's no place like home," staring at my reflected image assuming its best Jedi stance, saying, "May the force be with you," throwing salt over my shoulder, avoiding ladders and opened umbrellas in the house, god blessing every sneeze....I want to believe that there is some mystic, supernatural link to having all the good luck and none of the bad!

Here's a dilemma:
Suppose my intentions and your intentions are for the same item and there's only one to be had? Does it come down to a dual of intentionality, a measure of one's Secret Quotient? If you win and I lose, does that lead to Secret envy?
Of greater concern, what if my intention is the perfect opposite of your intention and they bump up against each other in some cosmic waiting room. Do both get canceled out like adding a +1 and a -1 on the blackboard of the universe?
I'm being a little silly. But only a little.
See, while I think there is something to positive thought and good intentions I also think somewhere in the Bible it says 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Okay, maybe not the Bible. But somebody said it and somebody agreed or it wouldn't have made it so far.
Your good intentions may not be so good for the guy next door or the planet, or even you in the long run!
My great concern with The Secret is the same concern I have regarding the Prosperity Theology which has become so rampant among Christians today. Christian people claim to follow a man who had maybe one change of clothes, no house, wasn't listed in Fortune 500, didn't have a Dun & Bradstreet number, and hung out with penniless losers. So when we begin to embrace any type of thought process that endorses getting more stuff and having more money I fear we are dancing with the root of all evil (and that is in the Bible).
Jesus had a Secret, alright, and it was lived out every moment of his life.
Gandhi had a Secret, too. And so did Martin Luther King and so does Jimmy Carter.
Their Secret is less about consumption and materialistic gain and more about sharing the wealth--meaning the wealth of truly good intentions: caring for one another, loving the unlovable, forgiving the unforgivable, being grateful for the most undeserving individuals or moments. This is the secret to so much more than we have been hearing about lately.
Sadly, I believe that the intentions of our times have had a great effect on our universe. The fruit born on our collective tree is how we are known. And it's not so pretty, really.

Consider these words by James Allen:

Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,

And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes

The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,

Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:—

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

Environment is but his looking-glass.

Quoth the Window, "Nevermore."

2007-04-30T14:11:00.000-06:00

There is a bird outside our window who has an urgent message to share. Clearly, that’s it. Because why, otherwise, would a bird work so hard to get into my house?
That’s what I began to think as day after day passed with this incredibly beautiful bird throwing itself against the window again and again. I’ve never seen anything like it. The bird is a cardinal, I think. This in itself is a curiosity because we never see this type of bird around here. They’re more of a eastern U.S. phenomenon.
The bird has bright red feathers from its chest to its tail and a bright yellow beak. When he spreads his wings to fly he explodes into color. This is a sight I am frequently privy to as the bird spends many hours of every day perched on a branch just outside the window and regularly opens those wings to fly right at the glass, banging against it with its beak, wings, and chest again and again. When he tires he rests on the branch for a while and then he starts all over again.
What does he want?
I remember my ancient Middle East studies….Egypt. The bird icon represents the (ca or ba?) soul of the deceased. And I always have a foot in that spirit place so I can’t help but ask…is it a messenger? Is this bird trying to tell us something…warn us, prepare us, come inside and be with us? Does some lingering memory of a previous life abide within it and remind it that this is a place it once ate and drank and laughed and cried?
I also know it is spring…ahhh, spring. When a young man’s fancy turns to….you get the point, right? And maybe this bird’s fancy has turned to that, too. But being a rare breed in these parts, it has had difficulty finding a mate and thinks the one reflected in my window is looking pretty good. In which case, frustration levels must be running high about now.
Is it a pet bird someone lost and it thinks it’s home? Is it trying to get back inside where it’s safe?
I went outside and looked at the window from the bird’s point of view. Perspective is everything, right? The reflection creates the illusion of another tree. We all know the grass is always greener. Maybe the leaves are, too? In which case, this animal is demonstrating a most basic principle of insanity…to keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for different results.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of this event is the cat’s reaction. She sits on the rocker by the window praying for the day the bird breaks through. Does she sense that fresh meat is just a ¼ inch pane of glass away?
Whatever. I’m spending way too much time and brain-space on this.
My efforts at discerning the bird’s intentions are beginning to take on a trajectory paralleling the bird’s actions. Tragedy in futility. Or futility in tragedy.
Give it up.
Sometimes a bird is just a bird.

Forty Days and Nights

2007-04-30T13:18:00.000-06:00

Forty days....that's how long we are told Jesus was in the wilderness. Forty days does not actually translate out to what we would think. For the writer it probably meant "a pretty long time." Jesus was out there without food or water. It probably felt like a really long time.
And, we are told, he was tempted by the devil while he was in the desert.
Hmmm...tempted by the devil.
When I read accounts of the temptation I see that Jesus was being offered alternative career plans. Was it really Satan, or was it Jesus just trying to make his mind up about what he wanted to do with his life.
Yes, He was God.
But he was also man.
Maybe it was a wrestling match between the two and Satan just got the press (which happens a lot...ie "the devil made me do it").
Why do I bring this up (I thought you'd never ask)?
I've been away for a really long time. An ancient writer might say forty days. I rose out of the waters but not of baptism. Rather, I emerged from a near-(spiritual)-death experience, drowning in the raging torrents of the church. It's not a pretty place. And tougher pastors than I have disappeared under its waves, never to be seen again while others resurfaced to tread the earth in a zombie-like state, reciting age-old creeds and acting out the rituals of the seasons. But if you look really close you'll see the light (ie this little light of mine light) has long gone out. It is a sad, sad testimony to the state of religion today.
The shepherd falls prey to wolves.

Who are these predators? A wide swath of broad generalities might include:

The pastor's own ego

What a dangerous thing to believe our own press. The sheep love us, the church fathers love us. We are good at what we do. We want to rise to the top of our denominations' career ladders. And so we carve the trail up a slippery slope, sure that we are doing God's good work when we are mistaken. Oh so mistaken.

Those above

And I don't mean the angels. I mean the hierarchy. Motive is everything, am I right? What is the motive of administration? To administer as opposed to minister. There's a difference and one often gets in the way of the other. I just don't remember a single verse of the Bible in which Jesus said "Woo-hoo, guys! We turned the corner with a 30% growth in attendance last month. In no time at all we'll be the fastest growing religion in Palestine and you'll still have jobs!" What he did say was "Feed my sheep."

Those pesky sheep

Yes, the sheep. The very ones we over which we are given charge also sign our paychecks. It's hard to wield the crook against the hand that feeds, houses, clothes, and insures you and your family. And so we learn to walk softly and abandon the stick altogether. We choke on the rebuke and swallow the admonishment that might just turn that sleeping herd into a world-changing force for good.

That and more collided with my idealistic vision of the church as the greatest hope of the world and well, it overwhelmed me. I was drowning so I did the only thing I could to save myself and my faith. I rose out of those waters and I entered the desert.
Oh, what a lonely, lonely place.
It was there I wrestled. With Satan, with God, with the voices in my head.
And it was there I was fed.
And now I return, at least to my writing. Here I will pour out the stories of my journey. Here I will reveal the heresies and truths revealed in that empty terrain. Here I will continue to be Pastor Ellen.

"Progress" by Andy Thornton

2005-03-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

A woman wakes in rural Africa with the first light of dawn. She rises and walks a mile to the nearest well, returns with the water-carrier on her head to begin making breakfast for the family. The wood fire is lit, the grain is mixed. 3 hours after waking all are fed and cleaned and the brushwood home is ready to be tidied.
A woman wakes in Britain, turns on the tap, makes coffee and toast and asks "what will I do with this, another dreary morning?"
The men of Papua New Guinea decide that today their village will eat honey. They spend the morning walking through the forest to the area known for the best bees nests. All afternoon they climb trees to gather honey in order to treat their families that evening: 2 bags of fresh honey.
To you £2 in a 5 second grab from the Tesco shelf
The men of Britain enter the daily cycle of work. Shifting information in cyberspace and accumulating through global investments, they stop to grab a lunchtime sandwich before returning to the deadlines and the pressure. Somewhere at home is a list of convenience goods waiting to be bought, an expectation of Christmas toys, a series of leisure items waiting for the paycheque…
One world buys time, buys its goods cheap, and sells its busy soul.
Another finds time, finds a few free treats from nature's garden, and shares its simple soul.
Such is our humankind.
And in between is the chain of global economy. The Indonesian worker sweating 14 hours for £2 a day, slaving for the Nike swoosh, the scorched Brazilian rain forest making space for the affordable Macdonald's burger cow, the African soil sold for the export crops while subsistence fails to meet the people from their poor scrap of land allocation.
Something, somehow is going wrong.Someone, somewhere is paying the price.Somebody, sometime must know, what is progress?
And I am caught in the cycle.
The finest artists, the cleverest minds, the greatest humorists in our land are all caught in the cycle. They make me want the luxuries that keep others wanting for the basics. They make beautiful items that are affordable to me but are dream-goods for those that make them. And so I spend my days working to afford the things that promise relief from the cycle, yet keep me in it.
I hear that it costs less than the price of a family car to transform the life of hundreds of people in an African village. For £8,000 you can install mechanical irrigation. Their homes, their crops and their livestock are revitalised by clean and plentiful supplies of water. Disease decreases, the land yields more and varied crops, and they have sheep and cows to rear and sell. Families stay together rather than having to lose their men to the cities to try find work. All for the cost of a car.
I imagine myself being stuck in a queue on the motorway. Car after car stretched out to the horizon. I am bored and frustrated, each vehicle ahead of me is like a symbol of my anxiety and lost time. And each vehicle is the equivalent of a New World for hundreds who are waiting for progress.
I wish they could meet each other. As I watch, the queue becomes surrounded by thousands of animated African people. Each group carries away one of the cars to be sold for their own regeneration, and the car owner is thrilled to be so important to their community. Instead of being bored and frustrated the car owners are now celebrities to their African hosts. I am happy because now I can drive on… the road is empty… except now my car is surrounded, and I have a choice. Which way is progress?
Something, somehow is going wrong.Someone, somewhere is paying the price.Somebody, sometime must know, what is progress?
Before I can be part of my society's progress I must know what will serve my own progress towards God.
I am told I must follow my instincts, listen to my inner voice. How do I hear it when my desires are so processed by my environment and culture?
I know that I will be most satisfied when I succeed on my own terms and when my terms are in harmony with the way of my Creator.
I want to invite people to meet me in this space, and let their stories change mine.
African woman, so much in need of fresh water, come and talk to me.
Indonesian child working all day for my cheap leisure goods, come and talk to me.
Forest dweller, so in harmony with the environment my people destroy, come and talk to me.
Jesus Christ, present in the cries of the poorest, come and talk to me.
Today I call you Lord again,
So tell me, what must I do?
And what is progress?

Coming Out of Some Prehistoric Closet

2005-02-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

NewsweekUpdated: 12:51 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2005Feb. 8
The ongoing campaign against alleged gay icons in animated cartoons continued today as a newly formed conservative group demanded that television stations stop broadcasting "The Flintstones" at once. Harland Devane, leader of the group Focus on the Flintstones, said at a press conference in Washington, D.C. today that his organization was issuing the demand because, "Quite simply, everything about 'The Flintstones' is way too gay."The conservative activist distributed a memo itemizing over 50 ways in which the self-styled "modern Stone Age family" series promotes homosexuality, but left little doubt that most of his concerns centered on the relationship between the two main characters, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble."Their relationship is more flagrantly homosexual than anything in Oliver Stone's 'Alexander,'" Devane said. He pointed out that Fred and Barney are virtually inseparable, are never seen wearing pants and live together in the suggestively-named town of Bedrock. He also noted that the two men work together at a quarry wearing hardhats and construction garb, an oblique reference to the construction worker in the classic disco band "The Village People.""Do I believe they are gay icons?" Mr. Devane said. "I abba-dabba-do." He added that Focus on the Flintstones' efforts will not stop at banning the cartoon series from U.S. television stations, telling reporters that the group is also "taking a close look" at Flintstone-related consumer products such as Flintstone vitamins and cereal. "We are very uncomfortable with Fruity Pebbles," he said. Elsewhere, President Bush announced a budget of $2.57 trillion, most of which will go to paying for last month's inauguration.

Ashes To Ashes and Dust To The Rescue...

2005-02-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

Ash Wednesday is a day that few people consider remotely significant. But in my world it's important. Curiously, I rather appreciate this ritualistic acknowledgement of man's absolute depravity and even anticipate it. Not like I anticipate Thanksgiving...I mean, that's about really good food and laughing all day with family. And not like I anticipate Christmas, because Christmas is a drudge anymore...so much work and pressure and money.
No, I anticipate it like I anticipate a hot bath after backpacking a week in the mountains of northern New Mexico. I've been on a long, hard trek and I've got a lot of road grime built up in my most secret places. My body aches from the exertion and celebrates those aches for the achievement. But I just need to stop and be still for a while and consider where I've been and what I've done and how I might do it better next time.
That's how I anticpate Ash Wednesday. And in my new role as Minister of Worship at a large church in my community, the task of preparing ashes for the imposition landed right on my desk.
Just know that I've been challenged by this task before and never gotten it quite right. My first time out, I ceremonially burned the palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration, ground them with a pestle, and at the appropriate time dipped my thumb into the mixture and tried to smear the ash on penitent foreheads. It didn't really work. What ashes did stick to my thumb flaked onto penitent eyelashes, noses, and white blouses.
The next year I repeated the process, but this time I kept a small dish of baby oil next to my ashes and dipped in it from time to time to guarantee a better "stick." By the time I'd imposed 5 or 6 of my sheep, I had a wad of oily ash on my thumb thick enough to flick across a badminton net and play back again.
Not to be confounded, the next year I repeated that whole process but added a bowl of warm, soapy water and a towel so that I could wipe my thumb from time to time. This was not a bad solution, but the altar was starting to look more like my kitchen sink than a sacred reliquary.
The search continued this year and I promised God I could do better. So I did what most seekers do, I "Asked Jeeves," who promptly sent me to Lutheran-land. Those people know how to do ashes. I learned that I was to add to the burned, ground palms a little mineral oil...not too much, and then emulsify the concoction by hand, which I did. Except I added too much mineral oil.
"Oh God, it's 4:00 and the service is at 7:00. And I have no more palms to burn. What do I do?" I sort of panic-prayed.
And it is no less than divine providence that caused me to look out the window and catch site of the drooping palm branches in the backyard, some of which had frozen in January's cold snap. I grabbed my scissors and a BIC lighter and soon holy smoke rose from the bar-b-que grill as I prayed over the smoldering palm leaves that had waved in the wind vs. the sanctuary last Palm Sunday, assuring myself that God had my back on this one.
I added the newly ground ash to my messed-up mix and it didn't make a dent in the oily mush. I burned more palms. And still, I found the test rub on my spouse's forehead looked more like an adolescent oil slick than a nice, black Ash Wednesday smudge.
"What do we do?" I asked my husband/lab-rat.
"Confess and repent." He said, wiping his brow and inching out the door.
"Flour! Flour would soak up the oil, and it's organic!" I said, but as I reached for the canister I remembered something else: dirt.
"Dirt?" you ask.
Not just any dirt. I am a native New Mexican which means that I keep holy dirt, miracle dirt, "tierra bendita," from the churchyard at Chimayo in my medicine cabinet. Legend has it that sprinkling this dirt over the lame can make them walk or placing a baggy of it under the mattress of the dying will bring them back to life. I figured it was bound to restore my ailing ashes.
Now, I'm not saying there was a miracle in my kitchen that afternoon. What I am saying is that I sprinkled a goodly amount of my special ingredient into the oily mush, working hard to think pure and holy thoughts so to infuse a spirit of love to the mix. And just for good measure, I added a touch of lavender so that the scent would be earthy and soothing. Finally, I put it all in a mortar dish and set off to church smelling like I'd sat around a mountain campfire all afternoon.
It was a good mix after all. The pastors were doubtful when they first spied it. But as they came face to face, thumb to forehead with pilgrim after pilgrim seeking penance, forgiveness, restoration, and relief...the milagro came about. Peace reigned. And for many-- ritual, once more, brought definition and structure to otherwise chaotic and unpredictable lives.

Sometimes I Sits And Thinks...

2005-02-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

The Public Thinker
By BOB HERBERT

Published: February 14, 2005 (NY Times)
Arthur Miller, in his autobiography, "Timebends," quoted the great physicist Hans Bethe as saying, "Well, I come down in the morning and I take up a pencil and I try to think. ..."

It's a notion that appears to have gone the way of the rotary phone. Americans not only seem to be doing less serious thinking lately, they seem to have less and less tolerance for those who spend their time wrestling with important and complex matters. (read on)

Conservative Eye For The Cartoon Guy

2005-02-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

At a black tie dinner attended by high-profile Republicans during inauguration week, James Dobson "came out" against the most threatening of characters: Sponge Bob Squarepants. I must admit, I'm not a fan (of James OR Bob) but I DO like that song Bob is being accused of doing his do to....you know, "We Are Family!" According to Dobson, Sponge Bob is actively recruiting the gay agenda in his new music video as he "gets down" (rhythmically, not sexually) with Pooh, the Rugrats, Barney, and my personal favorite, Bob The Builder.
The video is part of a tolerance project developed by the We Are Family Foundation, the leaders of which have suggested that Mr. Dobson has possibly made an error...confusing them with the website, "WeAreFamily" (waf.org), whose purpose is to provide support to gays and lesbians, particularly those who are youth.
In view of this information, Dobson's spokesfolk made their position clear: "We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids. It is a classic bait and switch." (Paul Batura, Focus on the Family)
And how is this insidious message being conveyed? By encouraging young people to take a pledge, a TOLERANCE pledge, which says:

Tolerance is a personal decision that comes from a belief that every person is a treasure. I believe that America's diversity is its strength. I also recognize that ignorance, insensitivity and bigotry can turn that diversity into a source of prejudice and discrimination.
To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own.
(from Tolerance.org)

I find myself thinking of the parable Jesus told about the guy who threw the big wedding banquet to which his hoity-toity friends did not come:

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’" (Mt 22:8-13)

Beware, Mr. Dobson. Heaven might be a white tie event.

Politicians In Christian's Clothing

2005-02-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Republican Gospel on Gay Marriage(from Salon.com)
It's no secret that the Republican Party has been working for some time now to court America's black voters, once considered a reliable pillar of the Democrat's base. At Karl Rove's behest, the Bush administration has been forging alliances with prominent black evangelicals and the communities they represent, using the issue of gay marriage to get in the door. In a meeting organized this week by the Traditional Values Coalition, a far-right lobbying group with ties to the White House, 70 evangelical clergy sat down to draw up a "Black Contract With America on Moral Values," chief among which was opposition to gay marriage, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The right-wing Heritage Foundation, presumably an ally in the cause, has its own take on the matter. According to the L.A. Times, at the end of February Heritage will cosponsor a gathering of black conservatives in Washington designed to counter dominance of the "America-hating black liberal leadership" and to focus African American voters on moral issues.
As columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote recently, the GOP is banking on conservative attitudes about gay marriage among blacks to help grow its constituency in key swing states from the 2004 election, including Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin. In the past Bush has awarded large sums to black churches through his faith-based program, to help the Republican Party court black voters in general.
But too much focus on the fight over gay marriage might also start to work against the GOP, especially if other key issues fall by the wayside. At a meeting of black Baptist denominations last weekend in Nashville, gay marriage was far down on a long list of priorities that included education, health care, the job market and other pressing issues.
"While African-Americans have expressed certain sentiments that reflect opposition to an expansion of the gay homosexual agenda, there is still much more concern about bread-and-butter issues in terms of the public agenda that they would like to see their churches pursue," said Rev. R. Drew Smith, a Baptist minister who directs the Public Influences of African American Churches project at Morehouse College in Atlanta, according to the Chicago Tribune.
At one point Rev. Jesse Jackson addressed the delegates, who represent 15 million Americans. According to the Tribune report, he warned delegates to watch out for political trickery. Thousands of hands shot into the air when Jackson talked of a higher minimum wage, stable Social Security, affirmative action and an end to the war in Iraq, though no hands went up when he asked how many churches had blessed a same-sex union."How did that get in the middle of our agenda?" Jackson asked. "That's called a wolf in sheep's clothing. Beware."

Pumping Down The Volume

2005-02-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

Regardless of your personal take on the Right To Life/Pro-Choice debate, it is important to be aware of an insidious decision made last week that cuts across both sides. The slice was made in South Carolina where the voice of the pro-choicers is being silenced and this silencing has just been reinforced by the U.S. Supreme Court (see article below). As much as I'd like the world to look like I look, think like I think, and support the ideals I support....I realize that just isn't the system into which we have been thrust. It is the conversation that brings us together. It is the conversation that grows us to higher ground. It is the conversation that cultivates answers to the question of how we all live together peacefully on this planet. The U.S. Supreme Court is turning a deaf ear to that conversation and in so doing, negating a constitutionally endowed right for some to be heard. This is wrong. It's not about the issue, it's about the action. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Court Declines License Plate Case
Appellate Rulings Conflict on Allowing Antiabortion Message
Associated Press
Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A03

The Supreme Court declined yesterday to consider whether states may offer license plates with antiabortion messages, leaving lower courts divided over whether the programs in a dozen states unconstitutionally restrict dissenting views.

Without comment, justices let stand a lower court ruling that South Carolina's license plates bearing the slogan "Choose Life" violate the First Amendment because abortion rights supporters were not given a similar forum to express their beliefs.

A Voice Crying In The Wilderness.....

2005-01-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

Dr. Robin Meyers said it all at a peace rally last November at Oklahoma City University:

As some of you know, I am minister of MayflowerCongregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open andAffirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest OklahomaCity, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages ofthe Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for sixyears, and hold the record for the most number of angryletters to the editor.Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I havewatched as the faith I love has been taken over byfundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whoseactions are anything but Christian. We’ve heard a lot latelyabout so-called “moral values” as having swung the election toPresident Bush. Well, I’m a great believer in moral values,but we need to have a discussion, all over this country,about exactly what constitutes a moral value — I mean whatare we talking about? More.....

Reality Bytes

2004-12-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

Up until now I haven't been a big watcher of reality TV. It was just too....REAL. I work in a field that exposes me to the creepy, crawly things you see when you look under the rocks of people's lives. That's work. TV is recreation. I don't want to confuse the two.
But---there's always the exception. That would be: "The Biggest Loser."
I find I am attracted by these truly human humans who so desperately want to be thin. The quest is moving and the producers have actually introduced some pretty healthy communication boundaries. This is especially important for people wrestling with body image issues.
However, this reality show is pretty much the same as all the others in one area: each week somebody has to go.
I hate that part because you have to watch all the behind the scenes conversations and manipulations. Alliance building, that's what they call it. The word "alliance" has taken on a life of its own in our time because of these shows.
And of course, the producers wisely frame each episode to highlight/emphasize the "bads" of the person who will be going that night so that by the time the vote comes down, you don't blame the others for pulling the lever that hurls him or her down the shaft.
I bet a lot of people watch and think, like I do, that they would do it differently. I imagine that I could just go into the house or onto the island and be nice. Love everybody. Be open and honest. Don't join in the alliance-chat. Tell my colleagues from the get-go, "I just want us all to get along!" And last.
I ask myself, "What if someone went onto a reality show and was Christ-like? Would it work? Would they last? Would there be some effect on the others? Like maybe they'd all be so moved by the beauty of true agape love that the whole group would buck the producers and say, "We're all winners and we're all staying and we're going to split the prize money equally!" Or better yet, "We're going to give it all to the poor!"
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! What a dreamer, huh? It's such a neat and sweet idea until I remember.... it didn't work for Jesus, not because of Him....but because of his team-mates. They couldn't handle truth; consequently making him the poster child, the Alfred E. Newman for all those who have been "voted off the island" since.
Yes, he went first. But he did it with such style!
Not only did he lead the way out....he also introduced to us the concept of the "surprise come-back!"
Gives us a whole new context for the word "Survivor."

Flag Envy

2004-12-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

So we drove to San Francisco for Thanksgiving. We crossed the edge of Texas, part of New Mexico, all of Arizona, and a good chunk of California. And you know what I noticed? American flags, many of which were a decent and appropriate size. You know what I mean....just big enough to be noticed without screaming any kind of message about excess or vulgarity or..... inadequacy?
What am I talking about with this inadequacy thing?
Think about it: most of us raise our eyebrows and sort of smirk when we see a middle-aged guy in a red corvette. In the back of our minds we're wondering, "Is there some compensation thing going on here?"
And in many cases, there is.
So when you see the great big American flags....I'm talking those 300 to 500 square foot babies that hang over car dealerships and truck stops....don't you wonder? What are we compensating for here?

My Apologies To Squash Lovers......

2004-11-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

THANKSGIVING STORY (from Mikey's Funnies):
In a few days all America will be celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving, or as it is known outside the United States, "Thursday."
Families separated for months or years will reunite, and shortly afterwards remember why they separated. In a darkened gymnasium Richard Simmons will run his revenue projections, and consider buying a small Caribbean island. Throughout the nation, those wretched souls condemned to the public school system will breathe a bit easier, eager in their anticipation of four days surcease from education. (The students are pretty happy about it, too.)
Yet running through this gaiety is an undercurrent of bewilderment. In this decadent age we live in, far too many of our unlettered countrymen think Plymouth Rock a music style from the 70's, or the Mayflower a potpourri ingredient. Accordingly, in the best traditions of journalistic public service and overweening arrogance, my column this frosty morn shall be dedicated to answering your questions about Thanksgiving.
Q. Gosh, you're right, I, the average reader, am dumb as a post. What exactly are the origins of Thanksgiving?
A. Thanksgiving is, of course, a holiday invented by grocers and farmers to allow them to sell huge quantities of disgusting "traditional" foods that no one in his right mind would eat otherwise, such as squash. The average squash is a triumph of minimalism wherein Nature manages to convert mud into a plant without bothering to change its taste and texture. Attempts to improve the mud-like flavor of squash by the addition of delicate seasonings and spices have produced dishes that taste, at best, like delicately seasoned and spiced mud. A master chef, faced with the necessity of making a palatable squash dish, would throw in his funny hat and become a short-order cook at Denny's.
Q. That's quite a conspiracy theory. Where do the Black Helicopters fit it?
A. They transport the squash.
Q. I should have guessed. But seriously, what are the origins of Thanksgiving?
A. The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of gratitude by a group of early English settlers known as the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were Separatists who had come to the New World to practice their religion without government interference, and since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms did not exist at the time they were allowed to do so.Unfortunately, the Pilgrims neglected to acquire a few skills (such as elementary agronomy) before setting off on their voyage, and as result nearly starved. The local Indians, who at the time were practicing their ancient sustenance methods of hunting and fishing, took pity on the Pilgrims and taught them to farm the native flora. In a display of appreciation, when the first harvest was taken in the Pilgrims held a huge feast and invited the Indians over for dinner, after which they all fell asleep on couches while watching football.
Q. OK, but when did Thanksgiving become a national holiday?
A. Thanksgiving Day was adopted as an annual holiday by New York State in 1817, marking the first official celebration of Thanksgiving as a regular event, and the last time a New Yorker said "thank you" for anything. In 1863, President Lincoln appointed a national day of thanksgiving, and every subsequent president has followed suit.
Q. Speaking of turkeys, is it true that Ben Franklin thought the turkey should have been our national bird instead of the eagle?
A. Ben Franklin was indeed a proponent of the turkey as our national bird. Since he was a member of the Hellfire Club at the time, though, his motives were somewhat suspect.It must be kept in mind that the modern domestic turkey bears little resemblance to its feral ancestors. The wild turkey is a cunning and elusive survivor, a challenging quarry for the most skilled of hunters. Farm turkeys, on the other hand, have been selectively inbred for generations in an attempt to improve flavor and increase breast meat production. These efforts have had numerous side effects on the birds in question, including reduced intelligence, difficulty in maintaining balance, and the creation of the Spice Girls.
Q. Is there a final message you would like to give to your readers on this Thanksgiving Day?
A. Enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner. You can have my squash.

One Man's "Good News" Is Another Man's "Worst Nightmare"

2004-11-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

In light of an apparent power surge on behalf of evangelical Christianity in the United States, Gina b at Mom-Blog has a lot of questions, even doubts. Me, too.
It seems that a lot of us who have identified ourselves as Christians are feeling "out of the loop." Why?
Because the radical judgmentalism, provincialism, and plain-out mean-ism that seems to be emanating from the "right" has little to no resemblance to the message of Christ we so deeply love and desperately need now, more than ever.
Isn't it odd? We call ourselves a Christian country, we have a national leader who eschews all things Christian, we have a majority of people in the nation (okay, maybe a majority) who claim that Christian values are all the stuff. Why am I so uncomfortable?
In a word: Incongruence.
The pieces of this puzzle just don't come together to make a pretty picture. And I keep thinking about this guy, Jesus, who had been anticipated for so long by so many. The prophets spoke of his coming for generations. The leaders of the synagogue expected him to arrive and fix everything. The people prayed for his arrival to set things right. And when he came.....they didn't recognize him.
Why?
Because they had already seen him....in their minds. And this guy who was born in a manger under questionable circumstances and parented by blue collar working class folks just didn't look like the guy they had imagined.
This guy hung out with poor people and sinners. Their guy hung out with the leaders of the synagogue.
This guy didn't even own a house. Their guy had a palace.
This guy preached love and forgiveness and pacifism. Their guy had an army and used it.
This guy talked about a kingdom that would come peacefully. Their guy was gonna kick some Roman butt and inaugurate a kingdom of power.
No wonder they didn't recognize him.
To add insult to injury, the only people this guy really went after were the leaders in their church (aka synagogue). He didn't go after the tax collectors who ripped them off or the prostitutes and lepers who brought down property values in the neighborhood. He even chatted casually with Samaritans.....long-known as "persons of interest," if you catch my drift.
What this guy called "good news" sounded more likes secular humanism or a social welfare agenda or a right-wing cult. God forbid he should become influential.....he could upset the political apple cart of Palestine, his ideas could put an end to our socio-economic system, his theology could cost a lot of bureaucratic Levites their jobs!
Let's kill him!
And they did.
But this guy--this Jesus--said something really profound about those people then and these people now...."Not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' are of the Kingdom." And I believe with all my heart that that is NOT good news. It's horrible news. But it's truth.
Because this guy--this Jesus--knew then what some modern theologian since declared: "In the beginning God created man in His image, and man has been returning the favor ever since."
It seems to me that the image of God of 21st century values, God of 21st century morals, God of 21st century politics is created by a backlash of fear and uncertainty in the face of accelerated social change rising from, but not limited to: a redefinition of the family, convolution of the news by media in order to win ratings wars, technological explosions opening the way to a brave new world, and a rapidly encroaching globalism which threatens long-held ideas of nationalistic boundaries.
Looking forward, the world is a scary unknown. Looking behind, the world seemed safe.
We'll take safe. And of course, God agrees. Image is everything.
So we'll elect people who we are sure God agrees with and oust heretics like Arlen Specter.
And all the while this guy--this Jesus--is sitting on the hill watching and weeping, saying, "O America, how often I have longed to gather your people up as a hen gathers her chicks....but you are not willing."
"Willing? America is not willing? What does it mean, then, to be WILLING????"
Simple, but not easy.
Jesus inaugurated his ministry by going to the temple and reading from the Torah. It was an awesome event because he picked up the scroll and read words from Isaiah announcing a time of "jubilee"....a concept everyone in the room that day would have understood.
He read: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
No army, no war, no palace, no overthrowing the government.
"Peace on earth, goodwill to man." That's what the angels said when he was born.
It wasn't a cute slogan to be printed on Christmas cards years later.
It was an order. "Do it!" the angels proclaimed.
When I consider all this and put it up against the agenda of today's Christian right, I find they are very wrong. They have missed the whole point just like the religious people who hung Jesus on the cross.
So, Gina, if you are feeling like you aren't fitting in, like your idea of following Christ doesn't match up, like their circle isn't a circle you can't stand in.....it's okay. You are probably closer to God at this moment than any of us because you are so honestly and earnestly seeking Him.
He has a message for you.
"Draw near to me and I will draw near to you."

It's A Small World After All

2004-11-08T23:15:00.000-07:00

I have a little boxer named Max. Max went to obedience school and learned people rules for appropriate dog behavior. She sits, lays, heels, and stands at the door to signal when she needs to go out to pee. She doesn’t nudge, lick, or hump my guests. She doesn’t bark at our mail lady, garbage man, or every little bump in the night. Max is a good dog.
Max has a crate to sleep in. The trainer said it is a house training tool. A dog won’t soil where it sleeps.
Here’s the deal….the crate is for night. The rest of the day Max has the run of the house. She can go wherever she wants—outside, inside, upstairs, downstairs, living room, laundry room—where ever she wants!
Guess where she spends her day. The crate.
I guess she just feels safe and secure in that little space. Her life is defined there, it is predictable. There are no surprises in the crate.
Observing Max’s preference for life “in the box” has given me great insight into a certain human “type.” A kind of person who seeks, creates, pretty much requires life “in the box” because a box is safe.
A box defines what and who is good and bad, right and wrong, in and out.
A box is comforting. It sets parameters of predictability and security for one’s world. Inside the box is okay. Outside the box is not okay.
Politics, education, employment, recreation, relationships, intellectual pursuit, religion, normality, even sanity or lack thereof are ordained by the four walls of the box.
I believe that this kind of person knows there’s a whole world out there, a world of infinite experience and mind-blowing possibility, but it just doesn’t matter.
The good life, the right life, the surpriseless life is in the box.
It looks to me like we will all be spending another four years with a president elected by this type of person.
Somebody should be sure he knows not to soil where we sleep.

If You Can't Say Something Nice, Say Something Good

2004-11-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

Many of us in America over the age of 30 share a common shame, that of not handling the whole Viet Nam experience well. It was a time of huge social unrest. Paradigms weren’t shifting, they were being body slammed by a new reality that leadership and morality were not necessarily mutually inclusive. And as soldiers were returning from Viet Nam, Americans found that it was enormously difficult to separate the bad taste the war and its proponents had put in our mouths from those who had served there.
This was wrong.
In the context of the sixties, many a young man who enlisted to defend his country still heard the echo of James Cagney singing “I’m A Yankee Doodle Dandy” while envisioning a photographer from Life Magazine snap the shutter just as he kisses a nurse “hello” on Victory in Viet Nam Day while ticker tape rains down and crowds cheer in admiration and gratitude.
That day never came.
Instead, soldiers were jeered at and attacked by anti-war demonstrators. They were called horrible names and accused of atrocities previously not discussed in civilized conversation in order to protect children and “the gentler sex.”
The title “hero” never came to most who served in Viet Nam and to add injury to injury….many returned with broken bodies and minds and were not given the care they so desperately needed.
This was wrong.
We know it and we wish we had handled it all better.
Which brings me to my point.
We are compounding our “bad” by allowing our corporate shame to shape American reaction to Iraq in 2004. We are so determined to “handle it better” that we are enduring, rationalizing, actually overlooking travesties of leadership, political manipulation, and documented dishonesty from our nation’s highest office.
And here's the lie that allows the lie: To do anything less would be to suggest that these brave people offered up life and limb for nothing.
How do you face the mother, father, spouse, child, or friend of a fallen soldier with that message? How do you even suggest it to a man or woman, husband or wife, son or daughter who is returning from that hell hole forever scarred by the sights and sounds of battle?
Based on the Viet Nam debacle, we dare not insult our country’s defenders. And so we hold our silence.
Our mothers’ voices collectively echo in our ears: “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.”

This is so wrong.

Our “saying nothing” is shouting a message we will regret as deeply as we do our post-Viet Nam screw-ups.
We have been given the impression that our patriotism is directly linked to our approval of this war and our approval of this war is directly linked to our approval of those who are fighting it.
This is “fuzzy thinking” and it enslaves us in a haze of inaction.
I remind you that it is truth that will set us free.
Embracing the truth of unnecessary sacrifice could take us to a new day, a day in which those who have given up so much for so little would be shored up by the previously zip-lipped masses and together get really pissed off….pissed off enough to assume a new paradigm which says,
“There IS meaning to the sacrifices of time and family and innocence and life but it’s not the meaning assigned to them by the powers that are. The blood of our brothers and sisters cries out to us from the ground to say ‘No more, no more! Our sons and daughters will not be the currency of a war waged for opportunity, power, and the almighty dollar!’ One by one the lives of our soldiers count and they matter and they add up to one word and only one: 'ENOUGH!'”

(Capitol) Crime and (Capital) Punishment

2004-11-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

"Ex-governor serves self-imposed ‘life sentence’ to end death penalty"
Hmmm.....a politician with a conscience. How's that workin' for ya? Check it out at: http://www.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=2&mid=5940
(UM News Service)

Healthcare: Separate And Unequal

2004-11-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

Health Care Satisfaction (reprint from WebMD):
A five-nation survey revealed that Americans are more dissatisfied with the quality of health care than are other industrialized nations.

Among the findings:

One-quarter of Americans paid more than $1,000 in out-of-
pocket expenses last year.
Four in 10 adults have gone without needed health care because of cost.
One third say the health care system needs to be rebuilt.
While America spends the most on health care, U.S. citizens report greater difficulty receiving care and longer wait times. Do you get what you pay for? Take a closer look.

Hope Sticks

2004-11-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

On 9/11/01 I, like many others, went directly to my storage closet, took out my American flag and hung it in my front yard. I did this as an act of solidarity with my brothers and sisters who were so horrified by the scenes of buildings toppled and human beings suddenly struck down. I did this to say to the survivors and those who had lost loved ones "I share your pain." I did this in utter ignorance of what was to come.
I took that flag down just a few days later and have not hung it since.
First and foremost, because I understand my citizenship in a greater Kingdom, one that does not respect borders and bureaucracies, principalities and powers. A Kingdom with no flag, but a banner...the banner of peace.
And I took that flag down because I did not want to be identified with an administration that so shamelessly marked itself by its agenda. An agenda of acquisition, domination, isolation, and corporation. I wanted no part with men and women who chose to build their kingdom via the exploitation of a flag stained by the blood of 9/11's victims.
And I, like many others, suffered the presence of this administration and its puppet king enjoying one illuminating hope: he will not be re-elected.
My husband and I were moved to tears of patriotism for the first time in a long time by the words of John Kerry as he brilliantly declared that "faith without works is dead." And again, we wept as we cheered with 17,000 others in Las Cruces, New Mexico at a Kerry rally. We wept a third time as we stood in a crowd made up of Native Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, whites, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, neighbors, friends and strangers in Taos, New Mexico singing "Give Peace A Chance."
Hope springs eternal....or at least until November 3.
I, like many others, met the post-election dawn with feelings of grief, disbelief, and dread. I did not turn on the TV or the computer or the radio. I had no desire to see the face or hear the voice of the man who would be king yet again.
Sometime that afternoon I went to the sink to wash my face and saw the round Kerry/Edwards sticker that I had taken from my shirt after the Las Cruces rally and pasted to the mirror optimistically believing it to be a talisman of hope, hope that had now been dashed against the rocks by 51% of my fellow Americans.
In anger I ripped the sticker from the mirror, wadded it up, tossed it to the floor, and left the room.
Only later did I notice that not all the sticker had peeled away. Part of it remained and still does today.
And that little piece of the sticker shouts at me that my hope was not and is not a gutless sensation easily cast aside, cheaply sold, or malevolently stolen. Hope is a light and it calls us to move from a place of mortification to a place of expectancy. In so doing, we move.
Having moved, we can not go back. We can not find the exact place we once stood. We are forever changed.
And having thus changed, a little piece of that hope sticks. It remains. And it is the yeast that will work in the hopeful of our country to give rise to a revolution that is much needed and long overdue.
I am sickened by the message of healing that comes from the agent of the disease. I am wary of the olive branch extended in the name of American unity. I am horrified at the perversion of God's Name in the mouth of one who proclaims war just.
But more than anything, I am hopeful for the stirring I feel in the guts of our country. A stirring that will not lay down, sit down, or be voted down.
In all of the rhetoric-shouting and speech-making and futuristic-idealizing I caught a glimpse of a better world, a world for which I am not only hopeful but to which I am committed.
So today I will go to my closet, take out my flag, and I will hang it from its pole upside down, as a sign of national distress.I will keep it there to denote my personal belief that we can do better. In the greatest country, the richest country, the most educated country on planet earth.... we can and must do better!

Being A Christian Does Not Mean Your Brain Must Be LEFT BEHIND!!!!

2004-08-29T13:31:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of the Right,
When you joined the church did some misbegotten elder or deacon or Christianity 101 instructor give you the impression that henceforth and forevermore your brain must be checked at the door?
Who is the beatified "big brother" who has frightened so many of the brethren (and the "sistren?") into closed-mouth acceptance of and compliance with absolutely vile misinterpretations and half-truths regarding what it means to be the people of God?
Why is it that so many called "Christian" are choosing the way of conformity, the path of least resistance, the road most traveled when the One whose Name we bear not just chose, but embodied non-conformity, the path of greatest resistance (unto death), the road UN-traveled?
There is a mindset in some of our churches today that is frightening...the idea that we must blindly accept the hermeneutic dishes that are prepared and served up to us every Sunday morning (and Wednesday night)as gospel!
Years ago a friend gave me a flyer from her church. It had a simple message: "Jesus Came To Fill Your Heart, Not Steal Your Mind." At a time in my life in which I was questioning and seeking, this message opened the door to Christ for me. Importantly, when I walked into the door I didn't stop just past the threshold. That's not what Christianity is about.
"Further up and further in!" was the cry of C.S. Lewis as he peered into eternity. "The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside."
Jesus stood before a group of rigidly fixed church leaders one day, trying to help them understand the nature of God and God's expectations of us. He said, "If you stick with my teaching...you are my disciples. And then you will know the truth and the truth is what will set you free!"
It's an "if/then" deal. "Stick with the teaching" implies that learning has taken and is taking place. Learning, studying, exploring, questioning, and expecting answers is a process that is enormously holy. Please, people of God, try it! In so doing, a supernatural experience comes about in which the Spirit, Comforter, Teacher opens you up, takes you to new levels, equips you with the promised truth.
Judgment and fear are antithetical to that process.
Beware the naked man who offers you his shirt!

I don't care if it rains or feezes, long as I have my hand-carved Jesus.....

2004-08-02T22:52:00.000-06:00

I had a lunch meeting today with the pastor of a congregation I preached at for a while as a sort of "step-pastor." This pastor is in the Reserves and we all know what happens to Reservists in this man's America. So while she was gone I preached for her folks plus my own and those at the Rescue Mission, too, each Sunday -- for a year.
We met at a little bistro in the mall and when I got to the table, there on it lay Jesus. Yes, I saw Jesus at the mall. Actually, it was a crucifix--a remarkably beautiful hand-carved work of art done by a New Mexico Artist named Alex Vallejos. One of the members of her flock is a personal friend of the artist and had it made for me as a thank you gift for taking care of them while their pastor was away.
I was moved. This is no shabby little token of appreciation. It's a collector's item to be passed down through the family for years to come. Jesus--bleeding, writhing, dying--on a 20"tall cross of pinon wood.
When lunch was over I took up my cross (Jesus and all) and headed for my car via the ladies room and a quick stop-off at Sears. It was as I was manuevering through the crowded restroom toward the one empty stall that I became aware of the effect my gift was having on others.
I live in El Paso, Texas. 9 out of 10 people on the street, or in the ladies room, are Roman Catholic. Jesus-on-the-cross art carries a lot of baggage for these folks.
I spoke at a women's retreat a few years ago and on that particular day I was wearing a small crucifix around my neck. After the talk a woman came up to me and said quite cryptically, "I'm glad you're one of ours."
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"One of ours...." She answered, touching the crucifix around her own neck and raising her eyebrows as she conveyed her message.
"Oh!" I got it. "I'm not Catholic, but I am one of HIS." I said, touching my own crucifix.
Protestants don't really get into Jesus-on-the-cross art. They like the empty cross. They say it is a sign of hope and victory. I think they're just hemophobic.
A sweet protestant saint tells of going to the jewelry counter at Walmart in her west Texas home town. She had lost the little gold cross she wore around her neck and wanted to replace it so she asked the man at the counter if she could look at the crosses in the display case. He said, "Sure, lady. Do you want a plain one or one with the little man on it?"
I had one with the little man on it...in the ladies room and I was taking it into the stall where I would, well--you know--and so did they.
It was an odd moment.
I was careful to lay him down gently on counter after I had finished my business. And I washed my hands much more thoroughly than I might otherwise have as the curious looked on.
Leaving the busy restaurant and making my way into the mall, I became very conscious of my cargo. How do you carry Jesus at the mall?
Do you tuck him under your arm?
Do you hold the cross by the base and let it swing by your side in rhythm with your step?
Do you face him against your chest and cross your arms over him, hoping nobody will really notice?
Or do you just grasp that cross in your extended hand and march through the mall boldly as if you are repelling vampires?
I probably should have asked for a to-go bag at the restaurant.

Spring Thaw....

2004-07-31T11:14:00.000-06:00

Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
doctor, lawyer.....whatever.
Work is hard. That's why they call it work. There are good days, not-so-good days, absolutely "this sucks" days, and if you're lucky...at the end of any particular 365 day cycle you do the math and find that the good outnumbers the bad and somewhere in that equation gain a sense of satisfaction--maybe even fulfillment.
Notice that ministry is not on that list.
Ministry is an "other." I'm not sure I knew that until late last spring when I departed my church for a one-year sabbatical.
Sabbatical. There's a word. It relates to the Jewish concept of the "sabbatical year." The Law required that every seventh year fields and orchards were to be given a rest...nothing was to be grown on them. It's a great concept for dirt and for people.
But our world isn't wired that way. We left agrarian thinking behind somewhere around the industrial age and haven't looked back since.
Production and results, production and results... that's the mantra. Not production, results, rest.
I broke the cycle. I am resting. After year 8. I was overdue....and frozen.
The big freeze was a gradual process. Layer after layer it came ever so insidiously.
It is the art of the minister to slowly and surely internalize the pain of a world that is broken, a world that so desperately needs a Gilead.
With arms wide open the minister receives the broken and applies the balm and massages the wounds.
Brokenness comes in many varieties.
Some are penitent and needy, sad and empty, alone and complaisant.
Some have thorns, barbs, or hot wires just below the surface.
Some are like the walking dead.
This looks like a job for superman. And it is. But beware the kryptonite.
That slow-growing shell around the heart, the mind, the self that compartmentalizes all of the stuff--- the pissed-off parishioner, the critic, the finance committee, the relentlessly non-productive meeting, the impersonal institution of the church, the wedding that shouldn't happen, the funeral that shouldn't happen, the unemployed dad, the abused woman, the dying child, the battlefield of the family, the battlefield of the community, the battlefield of the world---and deep freezes it beneath some kind of psychic ice field.
Oh, there are days of bliss. Spiritual bliss, personal bliss, familial bliss, communal bliss.
But it's the freeze that gets you. That defense mechanism against the anti-bliss.
The reason it's so bad is that most ministers don't know it's there....sort of like unhallowed black ice.
I have a friend who took a leave from ministry and entered counseling. His therapist put him on paxil. 6 weeks later he said to me, "I was depressed, clinically depressed. But I didn't know it until I found out what it felt to be not-depressed. Depressed had become normal."

There are lots of voices crying in the wilderness, but what are they crying about?
I went to Canada.
I preached on Sunday, packed on Monday and Tuesday, and left on Wednesday. Two months ago.
I rode alongside my husband across God's glorious earth and was not moved by the beauty of the sunset, the majesty of the mountains, or the radiance of the waters.
It took time....time to freeze, time to thaw.
In the fullness of time, a primordial memory began to haunt me...a sensation with which I had lost familiarity: warmth. A warmth born of absolute honesty, nurtured in absolute trust.
Warm conversation. Warm laughter. Warm silence. Warm prayer. Warm heart.
In the breaking of the ice came a realization of its existence and in that realization comes a question.
How many of my brothers and sisters in ministry suffer under similar strain and know not what they do?
I am making my way back from a distant and frozen land and as I come I consider that question and what to do with the frightening truth of its answer.

It's The Eleventh Hour...Jesus, Do You Know Where Your Church Is?

2004-04-24T15:31:00.000-06:00

In response to Jay Tolson's April 19 article at US News.com, Forget Politics. It's All About The Music, I have a thought or two.
Tolson embarks on an article that appears to be about the success of American churches to assemble so many people to worship, despite the reality that percentages of Americans worshiping have dropped from 40% to 25% since the 60's. Still, it is an enigma that so many would be so willing to give up their Sunday mornings. What are they all doing?
He proposes that the casual observer would assume that American Christians are involved in politically-conscious or social service outreach; this deduced from the highly publicized activity of the nation's religious right.
However, the casual observer would be wrong.
In reality, the majority of congregations are actively involved in cultural activities including education, the various components of worship, and the consumption of art and culture--particularly music and theatre.
In the words of that great icon of religious wisdom, The Church Lady: "Isn't that special?"
Without a doubt, we are enriched by the gifts of art and music and acting. But I am not sure that these things make up the "rock" upon which Christ told Peter He would build His church.
Not at all!
Jesus was a great leader, an agent of change, a man of wisdom and insight. As such, He set forth an agenda right out of the gates, the great manifesto of His Kingdom. He stood on a mountain surrounded by many, many people (see this shot from The Life of Brian) and offered up "a new thing," in the timeless eloquence of His Sermon On The Mount.
Jesus covers a lot of ground here: the hierarchy of the Kingdom, clarification of the Law, the relationship of God to man - man to God - and man to man. He is profound as He explains that the litmus test for success in His economy is fruit.
Good trees bear good fruit.
Bad trees bear bad fruit.
Cultural trees bear cultural fruit.
"And by their fruit you will know them."
The fruit that Jesus desires has only a little to do with great music, writing, and/or painting and much to do with great sacrifice of self for the sake of others. That Chaves' survey reveals that the church today is less involved with social outreach than it is with cultural activity disgusts me.
Many are ready and able to point out the concept that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of sexual sin, but look more closely at the words of Ezekiel: "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."
Perhaps the results of Chaves' study suggest a new bumper sticker for good church people. Something like: "Take A Homeless Person To The Museum Today" or "Seek Ye First Season Tickets At The Symphony."
Church people are leading the church to a place Jesus never proposed, but sadly imagined. To His beloved disciple, John, He dictated seven letters to seven churches. Among those letters is a message to the church in Ephesus: "You have forsaken your first love."
Assuming that the "first love" of the Bride of Christ was Christ, Himself, it is time for some intensive marriage therapy in order to get this relationship back to its center, its purpose, its animus. Is it any wonder that those outside the church believe that those within are hypocritical and insincere?
Bottom line: church people ARE called to be patrons, but not of the arts. Webster defines patron as: a person chosen, named, or honored as a special guardian, protector, or supporter.
Imagine, if we of the church actively pursued becoming patrons of our fellow man, of our earth, of the Kingdom Jesus envisioned? That would be art.

HOW ABOUT "EVERYBODY FOR EVERYBODY"?

2004-04-17T12:47:00.000-06:00

Saturday April 17, 2004

Announcement from the "Christians For Israel" website: Remember Israel Rally on May 6th
By Dr. James Hutchens

May 6th, The National Day of Prayer, Christians for Israel will hold a rally from 12noon till 4pm in front of the Capitol building with the theme, "Terror, A one way ticket". At the rally we will bring bombed out Israeli bus no. 19 and place it on display in front Capitol, where it will be shown during much of the month of May.

You know what bugs me about this?
I'm a Christian and nobody asked me if I am or am not for Israel. They just looped me into a generic body that IS for Israel. Don't you think there ought to be a policy against that kind of presumptive labeling? I mean, if somebody doesn't like ....fruit....they could start hanging around with other people who don't like fruit. And those people could even be a club, you know? They could even be the "West Rochester Fruit Haters" if they want because that would be a good representation of who they are (so long as they live in West Rochester).
But they should not decide to call themselves "Americans Against Fruit" until they poll every American and are sure that we all are...against fruit.
They could be called "Some of the Americans Against Fruit."
And that would be a lot more honest than calling themselves "Some of the Americans For Vegetables."
You see, when we decide to label ourselves by what/whom we're FOR....we're usually setting out what/whom we are NOT FOR.
If I am a Christian for Israel....then the chances are pretty good that I consider Palestine my enemy.
And you know Jesus said about that...we should LOVE OUR ENEMIES.
So maybe the better and more Christian name of this group might be: "Some of the Christian People of America Who Are Trying To Understand And Love Palestine While We Also Love Israel."
Maybe while they're having their "Remember Israel" rally on May 6 they could have a "Let's Pray For Palestine" rally, too. Maybe they could bring caskets containing the remains of young Palestinians who were shot by Israelis or deeds to Palestinian homes that were taken away from families with no compensation during the reoccupation.
And they could set all that up next to their blown up bus and put a big sign in front that says, "Why can't we all just get along????"
Why can't we be for everybody?
God is.

P.S. Just in case you're letting any of that Biblical stuff about Israel being God's chosen people get crazy in your head right now, I suggest you go back and read the Prophets and when you're finished with that go back and read the words of Jesus and when that's done, check out the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.

HOW DID THEY KNOW???

2004-04-13T11:38:00.000-06:00

These guys at Blogger are some kind of amazing.
Have you SEEN the advertising above my blog?
FemForté
Guaranteed natural relief for hot flashes and night sweats. Hot Flash Relief
Immediate relief from hot flash discomfort. Order free sample now!
Have they profiled me? Do they actually read my posts?
And how good is this stuff, anyway?
Hmmm...maybe I should give it a try....

What Are We Supposed To Remember When We Remember The Alamo?

2004-04-12T20:02:00.000-06:00

Having just returned from 5 days in San Antonio for the Men's Final Four, I was especially interested in seeing the new release of John Lee Hancock's movie, "The Alamo." As a little girl, my Daddy Tom used to bounce me on his knee singing, "San Antoni-antonio!" and my mother would swoon whenever and wherever she heard Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys sing "San Antonio Rose."
I was 7 years old when my mom and I boarded a Greyhound bus bound for the Hill Country of Texas. It was summertime and I wore a pink sun dress adorned with red roses, chosen especially for our destination. After what seemed an eternity in the back of that dielsel-fumed mode of transport, we set our feet on the black dirt of Texas and my mother wept for joy.
I still have a picture of her and me taken in one of those cheesey bus station photo booths. She wanted to memorialize the moment. There I am, all baggy-eyed and wrinkled from the journey...long brown hair pulled back behind a white plastic headband...cheek to cheek with my mom who's looking every bit "The Rose," herself.
We stayed the night at my mother's cousin's and the next day, walked the hallowed grounds of that mighty shrine to Texans and freedom: The Alamo. It was a big deal. We bought cheap souvenirs and took lots of pix, read every placard and studied every relic. We savored the shade of the great old cottonwoods and paid homage to remains of Bowie, Travis, and Crockett at San Fernando Church nearby.
It was a time of innocence.
I returned to the Alamo last month hoping to re-connect with some of that sweetness. The first thing I noticed: It's not a very big building, is it?
Somehow it seemed so LARGE back then. But I was so small.
Unexpedtedly, I found that my hunger for stories of conquest and battle had been replaced by a nagging idea...that men fought then and fight now for visions far less grandiose than freedom and that those folks we have dubbed as heroes because of that fighting....maybe weren't the superior beings our elementary school textbooks played them out to be.
Battle sickens me, as does its apotheosis.
And so I approached Hancock's movie with a great deal of curiosity. "How," I wondered "will he treat the subjects...Sam Houston, Davie Crockett, Jim Bowie, and General Santa Anna? How will he honor the righteous cause of the Mexicans who sought to stave off the influx of manifest destiny knocking at their northern portal? Will he acknowledge the pre-Texas days of men whose lives had been lived as phonies and swindlers and drunkards?"
He did okay. Rising star, Patrick Wilson, stole my heart as William Travis. The cinematography of the battle was remarkable and the landscape is much more authentic than that of the old John Wayne version.
The real surprise is Billy Bob Thornton as David Crockett. He is a fine actor.
There is this scene in which those under seige have grown powerfully tired of the Mexican army's penchant for playing the trumpet "decuello" before firing on the mission every night. In an attempt to cope, Crockett, a closet fiddle player, stands on the walls of the fortress at sunset and plays a descant to the trumpet tune...a la Nero as Rome burned. Consequently, his melody is so enchanting that the Mexicans choose to forego that night's bombardment. In response to the absence of canon fire Crockett replies, "It's amazing what a little harmony can do."
Too bad it wasn't all fiction.
It really happened.
And I saw the movie just down the street from my home in El Paso, Texas, just 3 miles from the international boundary separating Texas and Mexico.
And after the movie I relieved myself in the ladies room with Mexican women in stalls on either side of mine.
And I saw the reflection of their faces in the mirror as we washed our hands.
And they saw mine.
And we tried desperately to just be nice to each other as we spent those moments together...knowing...that we were remembering the Alamo very differently.
And yet the same.

When it comes to aging, we don't have to be cheerleaders all the time...

2004-03-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

In response to "TroysMom" who sent the following entry to DrWeil.com and to date has received 192 "you go, girl" comments:
I am 51 and very health~oriented and healthy. My "problem" is that of accepting aging.....it's an actual hang~up I'm dealing with....I'd appreciate other people in my age group and their viewpoints that may help me through this phase. Perhaps it's part of entering Menopause?
Pastor Ellen's little words of wisdom:
Dear TroysMom and company,
You guys are remarkable...thinking positive, living in the zone, keeping the bar high...and I'm asking myself, "Am I in a bad episode of The Emporer's New Clothes?"
I mean, none of you came out and actually said it: "Menopause sucks!"
Bottom line, de facto, es verdad!
My clothes, mattress, and car upholstery are all salt-stained from the massive streams of sweat that have poured from my body since the hot flashes and night sweats kicked in.
My husband installed a remote control for the fan so he doesn't have to get up 30 times a day to turn it off and on depending on the hormonal whims of my endocrine system.
Estrogen, yes? Estrogen, no? Oh my gosh, if a man had to endure this, we'd have all the drugs the pharmaceutical industry could throw at us (albeit some really bad TV commercials to tout them)!
And what about that monthly visit from my grandmother? I endured that little inconvenience for 35 years along with all the other girls, believing that the best thing about it was that it got me out of P.E. class now and again.
But now that my little friend isn't visiting so often, I am curiously sad. Yes, she was a messy guest...just like my teenagers. But I missed them when they left, too!
Yeah, yeah, I know Dr. W says we'll feel much better about the whole thing if we exercise, eat well, get plenty of rest, and supplement with B12 & soy....but every now and again it's good therapy to just tell it like it is!
We have wrinkles and our breasts aren't perky. We look in the mirror and see not only our mothers, but our grandmothers! We value our bran and prunes on a roadtrip more than our bikinis and sunglasses.
Veritas (and metamucil) vos liberabit.
I think I've written my way to an epiphany.... that while this proces of aging is slightly disconcerting, it's mega-cool. We are still "becoming." In a universe where creation lasts more than 7 days, we are works in progress!
No longer "period pieces," we have become "classics."
And we get discounts on Wednesays at all the stores in the mall.
It doesn't get much better than that!
Okay, it does get better.
Peace, dear sisters.

WOW WOW WOW!!!!

2004-03-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

SOCIETY IN DISARRAY
excerpt from: Metaxis and Recovery: Towards a New Vision of Health
by Jeremiah D. McAuliffe, Jr. MA and Jeffrey C. Wilson MD PM

"Underneath the guise of civic religion and American crypto-quasi ritual we still have a basic unrest, an essential longing. We need to be accepted for who we are, we have real feelings of having "missed the mark," we experience the need to be made whole. We have desires for a deep transformation of our selves and desires for vibrant social connection.

As a group of individuals, a society, we have lost our vision of authentic transcendent realities. Our spiritual energies have been shunted and mis-directed into a myriad of other activities. We pay homage to materialism, money, competition and social status rather than knowledge, growth, fellow-feeling and discovery of our uniqueness. We substitute patriotism or civic allegiances for communities based upon authentic spirituality and universal human attributes. We prefer secular ceremonies such as football games, bingo tournaments, the new year's eve party, or the fund-raising dinner rather than ceremonies by means of which we can share and be guided in our needs for transcendence. Our needs for transcendence are channeled into functional projects such as building efficient machines, bigger malls or more powerful computers rather than spiritual projects such as shared learning, artistic expression or growth in social understanding.

The proliferation of pseudo beliefs and crypto rituals from which we derive our communal and individual identity negatively effect not only ourselves, but the entire world. The fascination with what is visible, material, empirical and sensual is contagious. The human is offered the promise of temporary transformation through a wide assortment of banalized pseudo beliefs in the power of material accoutrements. The tendency is to sacralize our own way of national life. When this way of life is based upon the myth of wealth then the role of the businessman functions as the high priest in the massive civil religion of America. The quest for God becomes not a transcendent quest into awareness of the mystery, but a shopping trip to the local mall.

It is through the stories, images and symbols that comprise our national myth that we seek solutions to our human quest for fulfillment. Unfortunately, the symbolic environment in society has become one dimensional. Our culture's sense of reality is in many ways insane, self-destructive and empty. We are tempted by dreams of material prosperity to abandon the age old pursuits of folk traditions and common sense that bespeak of the transcendent yearning of the human and of the centrality of the mystery to that yearning. We are trained to be pragmatic. We worship the value of empirical reason. We over-achieve, out-compete and alienate our fellows. We become isolated in our autonomy.

We are a culture starving itself to death. Our love affair with the objective and the productive over the past two hundred years has produced a society of external plenty and inward poverty.

We fail to transcend the various social crisis such as racism and disparity of wealth. Our meager attempts to survive social boundary and limit are usually through rational and physical approaches. Mystery, awe and wonder are absent. The major symbolic structures of the human--language and culture--have been stripped of their potential to speak of the transcendent mystery. Transcendent symbols of wholeness have been destroyed or lost.

The personal alienation and social isolation we find in America now extends to and threatens the survival of our whole planetary community. We live under threats of nuclear holocaust and the destruction of our environment. We place greater value upon efficiency of production than upon the quality of people's lives. Our spiritual hunger for connection to noble purpose and uplifting meaning is not only neglected, but is actively rejected unless it has a functional purpose. We offer each other, and our children, the meager sustenance of training for competition, power and control. We espouse so-called "success" and "career climbing" over trust, fidelity, compassion and vision.

American culture is degenerating. Materialistic beliefs in wealth and power have largely replaced the original transcendent beliefs in freedom and expression. Our "sacralized" American way of life is limited. It flattens out our experience of the world, of our openness to awe, mystery and love. It is but a collection of pseudo-spiritualities that mislead, misdirect and end in frustration. It does not provide healthy guidance to our longing for transcendence and quest for meaning.

Humans are both free and determined. Our freedom is quite limited. It is not something that is always present--it has to be developed. The degree of our soul making capacity and skill is the degree of our freedom. To a large extent we are determined by our history and traditions. It is only through soul making that we are able to break through these determinisms, and then only to a limited degree. The thinker Hans-Georg Gadamer has written: "Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live." The problem is that the majority of us never come to an understanding of ourselves through self-examination. "

Some Texans Boycott Girl Scout Cookies

2004-03-05T00:04:00.000-07:00

CRAWFORD, Texas (March 3) - Some families are boycotting Thin Mints and Do-Si-Dos and other Girl Scout cookies. Troop 7527 is down to just two members after the other girls were withdrawn by their parents. And Brownie Troop 7087 is no more.
Why are folks in this conservative Texas town where President Bush has his ranch so mad the Girl Scout organization?
Planned Parenthood and sex education.
HOW'S THAT WORKIN' FOR YA?
Oh Texas people, don't you know selling Girl Scout Cookies IS birth control? Think about those cookie sales and all the time and effort they require...any girl in America could not possibly keep up with orders, collections, distribution AND an active sex life! Okay, I'm kidding.
But apparently we think we're doing quite well around Crawford, Texas without Planned Parenthood.
Hmmm...I wonder what the stats would tell us about that....
In 2002, 659 women in McClennan County, Texas (county in which Crawford resides*) had abortions---112 of them under 20 years old and 4 under 15
1078 unmarried women gave birth (looks like these folks haven't fully bought into W's views on marriage)
261 teenagers gave birth
McClennan county ranks 6th in the nation for percentage of teen births...that's 6th highest out of 3,066 counties in the whole U.S.**

I guess that Girl Scout sex ed wasn't helping.

Well, hey--just in case you Crawford moms want to keep selling cookies out of that new and improved organization for girls you're cooking up, try this time-honored, foolproof recipe:
Mix 1/2 c Lard and 1/2 c Butter until creamy. Mix in some flour, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, vanilla, and baking soda. Work this over until it is thoroughly mixed, then blend in more flour. Add about 3/4 of a bag of chocolate chips, mix it all up, and bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
Remove cookies from oven and let cool.
Place cooled cookie between teenage daughter's knees and be sure she keeps it there until marriage.

*Yes, I know...Crawford is one small town in a county that includes Waco, Tx. It's gotta be those wild and crazy Waco girls skewing the figures!
**Source: 2002 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

2004-03-02T22:52:00.000-07:00

My very own blog!!!!
My first entry!!!!
I've considered this moment for a while and always expected that I would begin some great statement, a sort of "blogifesto" of sorts that might change the world...or at least the internet world...as we know it.
But my first entry has to be about this day.
I set up a class at the Rescue Mission where I preach each Sunday morning. This class is based on the 40 Days of Purpose book by Rick Warren. I wanted to offer the study to the folks going into the Residential Treatment program. What better time to consider what you're here for than while you're trying to kick a heroine, cocaine, or alcohol addiction?
That was part of the equation.
The other part involved who came as my helpers--affluent people. People who go to church every Sunday and believe that the world is basically black and white. Republicans.
And therein laid the chemistry. Because as those good people sat with those good people, something miraculous happened. The scales fell off their eyes (not the homeless guys' eyes, the homed peoples' eyes!) and they saw something they'd never seen before.
"Those people" out there on the streets, struggling with poverty and addiction and life on the downside of things...they are people. And they are worthy of our time and attention.
It is just too easy to revert to a "bootstraps" mentality, expecting people to pull themselves out of the miry clay. It is not easy to sit with them in the dank and skank of the Rescue Mission as you listen to their life stories and not be moved by the reality of "life in the gray regions of humanity."
What does that mean?
It means that it's not all black and white. The day Eve took a chunk out of that apple black and white went away. Gray won the day. And we are left not to deny it, contend with it, or endure it. We are left to love it...and all those who are carried in its wake.
One of my people wrote me an email tonight after she got home. Her words:
"WHAT AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE THAT WAS! I LEARNED SO MUCH FROM THOSE PEOPLE AND FROM YOU. HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO MISERABLE SOME OF THIS WEEK WHEN I HEAR FROM THEM? I HAVE HAD SOME DIFFICULT DAYS THIS WEEK AND TONIGHT TAUGHT ME I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT DIFFICULT WAS! THANK YOU FOR INVITING ME TO HELP. I WILL BE THERE NEXT WEEK."
Lifestyles of the poor and disenfranchised! Who woulda thought....

2004-03-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

This is Pastor Ellen's daughter, Annie. This blog is her gift from me. Soon she'll be blogging away her life, so watch this space!