Getting What We Deserve

A sermon I delivered in class this month, based upon Job 2:1-8 (NRSV). I preached off of notes and pictures rather than written text, so this is just an adaptation of that presentation.

I invite you to read Job 2:1-8 first, noting that the Hebrew for "(the) Satan" also translates to mean "the accuser."

By the time we catch up with Job in the beginning of Chapter 2, he's already lost his numerous sons and daughters and all of his livestock and property. Job was a well-respected man in his community, and having all of these things had helped to shape his high social status. They're the kinds of things that made other people in the community look at him and say, "That Job must have done something right to be so blessed."

And then, just when it looks like it can't get any worse, he even loses his very health.

For the people of Job's time and place, all of this loss indicates one thing: Job must have done something wrong and now he's getting what he deserves. People believed that God would dish out rewards and punishments, an idea well established in Deuteronomy, which the storytellers and early audiences would be thinking with here.

But for the life of him, Job can't figure out what he could have done to be suffering this series of unfortunate events. His friends use common sense and religious tradition to make their point, but in the face of all of this logic and theology, Job only knows that this doesn't line up with his own experience. He has to rethink what he and his community have believed about God.

This is what Job's integrity is really about - being authentic. Not just doing good things or praising God (and by Chapter 3 Job won't seem as patient as we might think); but also standing by what he knows to be true.

Even if we don't experience the same losses that Job does, we 21st century Christians have plenty of voices competing to explain suffering to us.

Some voices ask, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Some say, "You're too bad to be forgiven."

Some voices pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and then urge people to be stoic and to bear pain and hardship - even the kinds that humans cause one another - because somehow God derives glory from this.

Being apathetic or desensitized to pain is not the mark of strong faith. Seeking the power of God, even in the midst of human weakness and crisis, can be the mark of strong faith. Having the strength and compassion not to condemn someone for their own suffering can be the mark of strong faith.

Unfortunately, we - the church, the world - may have come up with even more ways to justify suffering than to alleviate it.

Over the course of history, religious peoples have:

...claimed that the pain of childbirth was inflicted on women because of Eve's part in the Fall,
...identified illness and disability with demon possession,
...blamed victims for bringing acts of violence upon themselves,
...speculated that AIDS arose to punish homosexuality,
...sanctioned genocide and slavery in the name of God,
...and - just like Job's friends - touted the adage that "you reap what you sow."

It's time to realize that suffering, like grace, is not so conditional. It's a realization we need to face for all of those people like Job whose hardships only become worse when accusations rain down on them.

Accusations.

And it's even more than that: it's important for everyone who has ever been told that they are "undeserving" in one way or another - too innocent to face pain, too guilty to find grace.

Because if we don't acknowledge that bad things can happen to people in spite of the good that they do, how can we ever accept the idea that grace can come to people in spite of their sins and mistakes? How can we accept forgiveness for what we ourselves have done?

Do you know that you are forgiven? For everything. No matter what.

We must believe that grace is just as real and unconditional as suffering is - and ultimately more triumphant.

The Gospel of Matthew says that God causes the sun "to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

So what's the point?

Maybe the point isn't our righteousness or whether or not we deserve what comes our way, but that God aches with human suffering, and rejoices when we find grace and hope in spite of it.

If You Wanna Get Your M.Div (Song for Kirk)

A parody based on Wannabe by the Spice Girls

Dedicated to Kirk, who planted the idea in my head (and who recently celebrated a birthday - happy belated birthday, Kirk!)

Yo, I'll tell you about Kant, if you really, really want
Yeah, tell me about Kant, that's really what I want
I'll tell you about Kant, if you really, really want
Yeah, tell me about Kant, that's really what I want
I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)
I wanna really, really, really wanna Div-a-Div ah

If you want a future about the past
If you want Divinity, better study fast
Now don't go wasting your precious time
Stop procrastinating, make your next outline

I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)
I wanna really, really, really wanna Div-a-Div ah
If you wanna get your M.Div, you gotta get to the end
(Gotta get to the end)
School can last forever, research never ends
If you wanna get your M.Div, count to 84
That's how many credits will get you out the door

Oh, what do you think about that
Holy Communion meal?
When they lift the bread up is Christ Jesus real?
(Is he for real?)
It's not that I think
That it's absurd
Transubstantiation's just too big a word

Yo I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)
I wanna really, really, really wanna Div-a-Div ah

If you wanna get your M.Div, you gotta get to the end
(Gotta get to the end)
School can last forever, research never ends
If you wanna get your M.Div, count to 84
(To 84)
That's how many credits will get you out the door

So, Worship, Ethics, Theology
You wanna feel naïve? Take two terms of History
Read the Word in Bib Lit, and if your schedule fits,
Then take Greek like a geek and get your Logos on
Peace and Justice don't come for free, there's tuition fee
And by year three, ha you'll see

Cram for your exams and turn up all your jams
Cram for your exams and turn up all your jams

If you wanna get your M.Div, you gotta get to the end
(Gotta get to the end)
School can last forever, research never ends
If you wanna get your M.Div, count to 84
(To 84)
That's how many credits will get you out the door

If you wanna get your M.Div
You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta
Cram, cram, cram, cram
(School can last forever)

Cram for your exams and turn up all your jams
Cram for your exams and turn up all your jams
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Cram for your exams and turn up all your jams
Cram for your exams and Div-a-Div ah
If you wanna get your M.Div

I'm Not Gonna (An Anthem for Amanda)

A parody based on Love Song by Sara Bareilles

I once heard that Sara Bareilles' anti-Love Song was written not for a romantic partner but for the music industry.  Bareilles wanted to compose songs for the sake of what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it.  It got me thinking about the kinds of compromises people might make in their professions – especially moral and creative compromises – and the choice to draw the line somewhere.

So this parody goes out to my friend Amanda and candidates for ministry of all denominations, with a special shout-out to the United Methodist Church's District Committee on Ordained Ministry (DCOM).

I haven't had the pleasure of going to DCOM yet, but I've heard a lot of stories about people considering ordination who have reservations about one issue or another that might prevent them from being ordained.  Often this means a conundrum for the candidate: How much can I disclose about what I believe, who I am, or what has happened in my past?  What language will I use in prayer and worship?  Will I speak to God differently while in the presence of my superiors and my parishioners?

I've heard about people who struggle with using patriarchal or lordship language for the divine; people who belong to the LGBT community or who would otherwise ordain or wed them in their pastoral role; and people who have different understandings of what it means to be welcoming, inclusive, or ecumenical and what it means for the United Methodist Church to brand itself with the slogan "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors."  I've heard about people who challenge the desperate need for quantity over quality: attracting members but falling short of fortifying them and nourishing their souls.  I've heard about people who have lost their ministerial jobs or new opportunities because of health concerns (usually mental health), including one man who was at the top of a committee's list to become their next pastor until they discovered that he'd previously been institutionalized.

The fact that this man and others in all of these situations wrestle with how much to "tell" those who make decisions about their ordination or employment begs a few questions:

Do our churches want clergy who fit a certain image, even if someone must lie or withhold information about themselves, their personal histories, their health, their beliefs, their ideas?  To what extent will they support the virtues of authenticity and honesty?  To what extent are they willing to have diversity among the clergy – not just of race and age and so forth, but also of perspectives and abilities and experiences?

Please substitute the theme "I'm not gonna pray to 'Lord Jesus'" with the ordination-threatening issue of your choice, i.e. "I'm not gonna say I'm a straight man," "I'm not gonna call God the 'Father,'" or even something as broad as "I'm not gonna keep out the outcasts."  It's really about being authentic while pursuing your vocation more than any one theological conflict.

Heading to D-COM
Where you tell me
To breathe easy for awhile
But breathing gets harder
Even I know that
My ministry?
It's too soon to see
And my future's in your hands
(After the part I say what I need to)

Blank stares on your faces
No easy way to say this
You mean well, but you make this hard on me

I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this
If I'll be ordained
I'm not gonna lie just to stay
If you want an honest clergy
Then I pray you don't desert me
When I stand
Before you today

I've learned the hard way
That we all say things you wanna hear
God's called on us
But it's still your call
You can still say who's in
What counts as sin
Fill the church with your closest kin
Hello to high and dry

Convince me to please you
Make me think that God wants this, too
I'm trying to let you hear me as I am

I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this
If I'll be ordained
I'm not gonna change just to stay
And after all, I think it's wise
That I refuse to compromise
My conscience and lie here today

Promise me you'll leave the light on
To help me be
Whom God has called on
'Cause I believe there's a way
To accept me because I say
I won't pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this

Is that why you want a "Lord Jesus"?
'Cause you're used to it, 'cause it serves you, you see
I'm not gonna pray to "Lord Jesus"
'Cause you tell me it's make-or-breaking this
If I'll be ordained
I'm not gonna lie just to stay
If there's lordship language in it
I don't want it for a minute
And some silently agree but
I believe that our dear Jesus
Would want me to speak up today

An Open Letter to My Classmates in Prison

A letter written to the inside students in a course that I'm taking as part of my Master's degree. The course emphasizes that students from Drew and those within the Correctional Facility are all classmates, studying together. It is not traditional "prison ministry" but in fact a partnership.

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Dear Inside Students,

I am an Outside Student who may never know what it is to be an Inside Student, or even what it is to be on the inside. Studying in a prison setting is a new experience for me, and I admit that it was just a little bit easier to do it because I was going in the company of friends I already knew and faculty I already trusted.

Maybe you didn't know anybody when you first went in. I imagine it might have been difficult not only to be sentenced but also to be sent somewhere without a familiar face, especially the kind of loved one who knows who you are so well that they can remind you from time to time when you're down and out. For better or for worse, my identity is wrapped up in the relationships I have, the jobs I do, the clothing I wear to portray a certain image of myself—professional or casual or colorful or quiet. So much about these parts of your life might have changed when you got to the premises—old relationships reshaped by new circumstances, new relationships forged, new jobs assigned, personal fashion minimized. Individual identity as we know it in the contemporary western world is difficult to express under such limited parameters. This, at least, is my understanding so far, though I would rather hear your experience from your perspective, and I hope to do so over the next few months.

It's just that, as you began to talk about some of these things, even as briefly as we spoke before we moved on to discuss our actual course material for the term—music's role and expression in different world religions—I began to realize just how much certain elements of your current experience remind me, in some way, of my own. With that, I began to realize how much you could teach me and nurture me in even a few short hours. And lest you think I'm just getting sappy and waxing poetic here, let's just say the potency of the whole thing knocked me on my ass. So that's why I'm writing this. Because, sooner or later, potential energy turns kinetic. Sometimes.

You see, I had never been to prison before this week, but I've been locked up for about five years now.

The officials who give names to such things call my prison grounds Depression. I and others here have known it to be Hell.

Maybe you are locked up here, too. Maybe you know many prisons. As far as I can tell, knowing one is one too many.

Whatever built the walls around you, I can't possibly imagine that I know what you are experiencing. No two prisons are the same, nor are two people's dealings with depression. Incarceration and depression are not the same. But they share common ground. I think you and I may share common ground.

I may have shown signs of anxiety and depression in childhood, but I was what The Powers That Be consider high-functioning in most aspects—yes, I was (am) awkward and content to spend inordinate amounts of time alone, reading or writing or messing around with art supplies to no remarkable end except personal relaxation. But I had some extraordinary friends and high marks in school and a surprisingly positive attitude, which all mostly outweighed the low self-confidence and the phobias and the panic. So maybe that's why the first major lockdown five years ago still took me by utter surprise.

Since then, I was paroled a few times—had brighter days, months, seasons here and there. For a little while I thought I'd even gotten out for good. But somehow I keep finding myself in Depression. It's not always exactly the same as before; the way that the pain and the exhaustion and the loneliness manifest changes a little every time, I learn a new lesson now and then, and what exactly I am able to accomplish while in the thick of it varies, but it's just a different circle of Hell. It's just a different cell on the same old block.

It's a place where sometimes it doesn't even matter that I have relationships and work and clothing to identify myself; because my relationships become strained with heightened conflict or in my isolation, my work suffers in the midst of mutism and fatigue, and dressing myself becomes either a mindless ritual or a burden. These are just outward signs of the inward loss of identity, an inner hopelessness in the realization that I am not me, or at least I suspect that I am not me but I'm having trouble remembering who I was in the first place.

Even worse, I begin to wonder, what if? What if this is me now? What if I am stuck with this me for the rest of my life? What if signs of healing and hope aren't even real, like a mirage in desert heat? What if I'm only healing because I'm too scared of being broken, and in my haste, I'll put the pieces back together wrong?

Maybe I don't need to worry too much about being hasty. These days I am undergoing some sort of really long, drawn-out parole process. One step forward, two steps back, and a splurge of two steps forward when even I don't expect it—makes it hard to replicate it when I want to. I am not quite in but I am not quite out, either. I still haven't figured out how to earn my way out, how to prove myself worthy of freedom. It seems kind of arbitrary, if you ask me.

I imagine it may take longer than usual, because this last bout really threw me for a loop. I've never been so thoroughly stripped of what I thought made me who I am. I've never been so voiceless and vulnerable. I've never had so little concentration and common sense—utterly unable to retain information, picking up a hot baking pan with my bare hand, falling asleep and boiling off a whole pot of water, forgetting things and forgetting that I've forgotten things. I've never failed so damn perfectly to care for myself with the most basic tasks or to complete the coursework that I've had my heart set on doing ever since I discerned a call to ministry, a call which thus far refuses to go away in spite of my inabilities and failures. And I've never felt so scared of the next time I'm going to end up here; scared that someday I won't make it out.

When I first sought help, a school administrator asked me to paint a verbal image of what I was facing. It was no easy task since so much of my depression was and often still is a sort of mutism, a struggle for words.

One of us, whoever it was, eventually described the proverbial pit. In the midst of this metaphor, she talked about how hard it can be to climb the ladder and get out.

I looked at her in genuine awe, because the part of my brain that was visualizing the pit suddenly short-circuited: "There's a ladder?"

Not in my pit! At least, I didn't see one there, even while actively seeking help. I knew I needed to start talking to people about what was going on, but I still didn't see the way out.

I guess I wonder if no amount or type of treatment is going to get me entirely out of Depression. And even if I do get out, I'm always going to carry around this record. It's going to make people look at me differently. It's going to make it easier for some people to know and trust me, but it's going to make it harder for others. The more I try to bury it, the more persistently it will sow doubts in me about what I'm capable of doing and whether or not other people love the real me. The more openly I speak of it, the more authentic I will feel; but the more authentic I feel in that, the clearer it will become that this struggling, fragmented person is in fact who I am.

Before we left for the correctional facility to meet you, we heard from a former inside student who said she eventually realized: "I wasn't who people in Blue said I was. It was a bump in the road that didn't define who I am or could be." She said that we outside students would be gift-bearers, bringing hope; bringing your minds outside of the wall—to our everyday world, to the worlds of the texts we read and the music we hear. She said it's easy for a person's mind to become trapped along with her body and to become immersed in despair and loneliness and uncertainty because of where she is.

What you may not realize is that I am in the opposite situation: my state of mind easily incapacitates my body, and I don't know how long I will live in this situation. I do know that partnering with you in this course that has everything and nothing to do with liberation—this foray into the music of the world's religions—is already helping to liberate me in some small way. That's because this program challenges the very definition of liberation.

In my case, my mind is locked up, and coming to see you and work alongside you means that my body is not imprisoned by the state of my mind.

It means that I have something meaningful to go and do; bright, friendly people to speak to and listen to, even when my inner consciousness tries to persuade me to shut down and shut people out.

It means that I will spend a few hours of the week with people who value freedom as much as I have come to.

It means that even my mind will be freed in a way I may not have known was possible; learning your insights and seeing the world anew through your lens, just as the outside students share our ideas and perspectives with you.

You may want the freedom of stepping off the premises more than anything else. Maybe a freed mind, as our orientation speaker called it, is just one small freedom you willingly accept for now. I want to step out of the grounds of Depression and free my mind as much as I want my next breath. But if it turns out that I reside here all my life, or if it follows me out the door like any complicated past that one would rather leave behind, it does not need to mean that I am lost to it.

That is what I have learned from you already. And I have learned that we are not so different, you and I, in at least this much: We are not who they say we are. And if someone has convinced us otherwise, then we must help each other to remember who we are and imagine who we will be.

See you in class,
The Outside Student Inside Different Walls

An Open Letter to Paul from a Woman Prophet of First-Century Corinth

A letter written in response to 1 Corinthians 11 in the voice of a woman praying and prophesying in first-century Corinth (minus my footnotes and further references).

Greetings, Paul! Grace and peace to you. I pray that this finds you well, and that your presence and wisdom continue to bless others in Christ's name. We Corinthians give thanks to God for your guidance and loyalty. We are a raucous bunch, but you continue to care for us. We care for you, too.

By the way, I covered my head while composing this letter so that the thought of me speaking to the scribe would not be too distracting to you. I know you advised us in your letter not to eat meat offered to idols (even knowing that we are no better for either eating or abstaining) if it might cause someone else to stumble, so I imagine that you would appreciate that I veil myself as I author a letter to you, even though I'm not in the habit of doing so. I would never wish for you to stumble, Paul.

Now, I would like to respond to a particular passage of your letter. But it's not the meat thing I wanted to write to you about. I think we understand that one pretty well, and anyway, it's just meat, right? Indeed, the purpose of my letter is the topic of women speaking in the assembly, covering our heads, and your intriguing logical wordplay about women coming from men and men coming from women. All of this, possibly more than anything else in your letter at the moment, has certainly got everybody at the assembly talking—especially we women—so maybe you can help us think through it. We don't mean to be contentious for contention's sake, but rather speak amongst ourselves and write to you for the sake of understanding in the community.

For ease of reading and discussion amongst ourselves, we have divided your lengthy correspondence into different chapters and verses (for instance, the aforementioned advice regarding meat is Chapter 8). Don't worry; I've enclosed herein a duplicate of your letter, fully marked for your reference. Feel free to turn to Chapter 11 and follow along.

First, my own greatest uncertainty: I don't understand your explanation that man was not "created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man" (v. 9), if we are also to acknowledge that each is made from the other (v. 12). Humanity was not made for hearts, but hearts for human bodies; and yet without functioning hearts, bodies would fail and humanity would cease. What's more, if either men or women were to cease to be created—or, perhaps, were all female children actually put to death before maturity —it would be the cessation of the other. Only the ultimate Creator, the God who could miraculously restore life to a body without a beating heart, could also create new life without both a male and a female parent. A boy-child who would serve as Lord and Savior to male and female both entered the world by way of a woman's womb, like you and I, Paul. Yet some think that Jesus' Mother, Mary, conceived him solely by the Spirit; if this is true, it means more than one woman's purity maintained: it also raises the importance of woman in the salvation of humanity and reminds us that we, females and males, are quite interdependent indeed, even in spirit. Therefore, I pose to you that your argument of male authority by way of nature is weak if you must rely on the concept that man preceded woman in the beginning and yet understand the cyclical nature of our human creation, let alone our salvation. I do agree with you, though, that "all things come from God" (v. 12) and that neither sex is "independent" of the other (v. 11). Your argument about origins substantiates that much.

Speaking of origins, what makes you conclude that man "is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man" (v. 7)? There are certain anatomical differences between females and males—from our facial features and builds to the genitals that most simply differentiate us at birth. Do we believe that God has genitals? A large nose; a tall frame? If woman is a "reflection of man," the "image and reflection of God," why are these features still different? Even ripples in the stream do not cause such discrepancies in the reflections we see. I have not seen the face of God, but I wonder if my face bears closer resemblance to the Creator in whose image all humanity was made than it does to that of a man—even my own father and brother. I suppose I cannot know.

Now I would specifically like to address the matter of covering one's head, an act which you have clearly set aside for women, lest a man disgrace himself. I'm concerned because I've heard that Jesus was crowned with thorns before his crucifixion. Did Jesus disgrace his head when he prayed to God on the cross, or when he prophesied to the criminal beside him? If he was disgraced, surely it was for the thorns given in derision; not for praying while crowned. Yet you say: "Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head" (v. 4). Logically, Jesus was indeed a man and a mortal one at that point, or else we may need to reconsider our understanding of his death and resurrection. Should Jesus have removed the thorns when he wished to speak (provided that his hands had been free to do so)? Should he have simply refrained from audible prayer and prophecy so as not to be disgraced? Paul, what would you have had Jesus do? What does it really mean to be disgraced, and are there not exceptions in which a disgrace by human measure may be instead a sign of glory for the Lord?

I have decided to listen to you, Paul, when you instruct us to judge for ourselves on the matter of whether or not it is "proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled" (v. 13). You reason that nature has given my long hair to me as a covering; that it is my glory. I can think of nothing more sound than to offer such glory openly to God. Furthermore, nature itself teaches me that I was created with vocal cords, but not with a veil. When I pray and prophesy, I typically choose to use only the former to invoke our Creator.

However, out of respect for the men in the room, lest they be distracted from God even as I speak solely of God, I will continue to remain clothed—and, if they are particularly weak men, I may even cover my head. Because we are so interdependent, so influential over one another, I realize that this may not simply be about my identity as a woman, but also about preventing man from being distracted by what you call the "reflection of man." (I hear that an unhealthy preoccupation with a reflection didn't work out so well for Narcissus.) Thank you for your insights into the limitations of men in our civilization and what we women might do in order to keep them safe and pure.

Before I forget, Paul, please send my love to your Mother. It's been so very long since we were together in Tarsus. Why, I think you were just a little boy still learning to talk. We had such a good time teaching you the power of words. Your Mother must be so pleased to see how eloquently you write today! No matter how much your life has changed in Christ, every time I read a letter from you, to this day, I swear I hear your dear Mother's voice.

Letter to Grandpa

I offered the following letter as the eulogy at my grandfather's funeral this week. Grandpa just recently celebrated his 91st birthday and lived with my parents and grandmother for the past two years. His health and strength, both cognitive and physical, deteriorated gradually due to Parkinson's Disease, and he received home hospice care for the past 10 months. (I wrote about him here in October 2010 as well.)

This gradual process was painful for him and for all of us. Indeed, it raised many theological questions for me. And while I still do not have all of the answers (nor do I expect to), I do believe I have been given the most important one. The one about identity - who we really are; why we love and are loved.


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Dear Grandpa (my godfather and my "Grandsprout"),

The earliest memory I have of you is walking with you in your vegetable garden in Brooklyn. One time, I found a stick there and you let me bring it home for our dog like some kind of souvenir. (Because I was visiting one of the coolest places I'd ever been, and I had to go out and share a part of it with somebody.)

That's how I feel about the love that you and Nana have shared. That needs to be passed along to everyone. It isn't just your garden variety kind of love. It is tenderly planted, lovingly grown, and devotedly protected. It has deep roots and widespread branches. But the best part is that you were always inviting us to walk in your garden. You and Nana both loved so many friends and family members, too.

You loved us with every bowl of soup and plate of manicotti, every fresh-baked loaf of bread, and every homegrown veggie. You loved us in the way you cared for your parents and your neighbors. You loved us in wanting the best for us, and in reconciling when it was time for reconciliation.

And then there is what I learned through all the people who have been loving you and caring for you. Your wife, your children, our extended family, our church congregation, ministers and chaplains, and our own personal fleet of angels: the caregivers and aides and healthcare professionals who may have pulled up in the driveway as strangers, but came through the door as friends, and left the house as family.

Because love like this means that there are no strangers, only more people to feed. (And we like that.)

As the dementia progressed, it was so difficult to see everything we thought made you "you" slowly begin to slip away - your sharp mind, your memories, your strong sense of self. We loved those things about you. But they weren't why we loved you. And I finally realize that there is a difference.

I believe that we receive grace from God not because of what we do or who we think we are, but because of who God is and what God does. And I believe that we are to love each other like that as best as we can: not because of who we think we are or should be, but because of who God says we are - that we are all meant to love and be loved. Unconditionally. No matter the circumstances.

The last memory I have of you is from Christmas. Nana and Mother and Dad and I were playing Apples to Apples and laughing so hard. And you were laughing with us. The joy we felt in each other's company was palpable.

Grandpa, we miss you now that you have continued on, but you aren't far from our minds or hearts. And I hope the joy that I feel in knowing that you are at peace today is just as palpable as our joy together on Christmas Day.

Love,
Sprout

Follow Through

A meditation on Mark 1:14-20 that I prepared for a service at a nursing home (actually an abbreviated revision of a sermon I haven't preached yet).


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What if the disciples' initial decision to follow is important--the event that starts them on their journey--but what if there's even more to this? The story of "Jesus and his disciples" could have ended at any moment had the followers stopped following. (There seem to be a few close calls when the disciples are not having their finer moments.) But because they ultimately follow through, the Gospels don't end at Chapter One.

Sports folks! I know you're out there. In baseball, golf, tennis, what makes a good swing? Is it only the moment that you lift your hands, or the moment of impact, or is it also the follow-through?

What makes your friend your friend? Is it that day back in kindergarten (or college!) that you were both so nervous about not knowing anyone that you made a pact to stick together? Or is it every day of your friendship since then that you do stick by each other?

What makes your spouse your spouse? Is it only the signed marriage license from the state? Or is it every day that you keep the vows you made to each other? If you were a traditionalist on your wedding day, you may have vowed to love and cherish your partner. "Love" here is a verb, and like the verb "follow," it beckons a choice, a commitment.

We also practice commitment to our communities and neighbors, to our work, to our rest and our self-care, or in devoting our time or energy to something with meaning to us. When we offer this kind of dedication to Jesus, we are not just following, but we are following through.

One more thing to mention: Being a person of commitment doesn't mean that we won't also need to make difficult choices and sacrifices. There are going to be activities and relationships in our lives that, for whatever reason, we will need to let go. Sometimes Jesus will call, and Zebedee and the hired men will stay behind.

But we may be surprised to see who has been called to travel with us and who else we'll find along the way. We are called to love enemies and strangers. We are called to love the enemy or the stranger that our friend or our spouse or our ex has become to us. We are called to forgive and to accept forgiveness, to heal and to accept healing. And we are called to share God's message with other people; to encourage others to take a life-changing swing at life and then follow through.

Because when Jesus called people to follow him, he called them to journey with him. He vowed that he would shape them into new people living with a new purpose, for however long they committed to the process and to him.

And so, when we have decided to follow Jesus, to see what he will teach us about who we really are, it is a decision that we must make again and again: to follow through, every day.

Prayer for the Life's Journey

A prayer I wrote to be read in unison in church, inspired in part by Mark 1:14-20.



O God,

You are not only Parent,
but also Dispatcher, Guide, and Companion.
You have called us into being.
You have called us into becoming.
You have called us to new places and new missions.
We pray that we might be receptive and ready.
We recognize that sometimes
our fear, uncertainty, and pride
can stop us in our tracks
or lead us in the wrong direction.
Please remind us to communicate with You
often along the way:
to speak, and to listen.

Amen.

The Impromptu Travel Companion

As I mentioned in the account about the time that I did not sleep in a ditch, I was, for the most part, a lone traveler.

Until Tim.

Short curly brown hair. Slight space between his two front teeth. Europe Guide Book glued to his hand. Backpack big enough to carry a limp body.

In a nutshell, the antithesis of me with exception to the friendly disposition - friendly enough that the likelihood of him actually carrying a body around seemed fairly low.

I'd taken what might be considered the Incognito Approach to backpacking. I dressed casually in plain prints and colors - minimal logos and lettering - and carried only the bookbag I'd used in high school. In any given place, if I looked enough like I knew where I was (not frequently the case, but nevertheless), I imagine I looked more like a student than a tourist.

And generally, that was more accurate. Between budgeting my trip and realizing that my own priorities tended to be less the museums and attractions than plain people-watching and wandering around town, I spent much more time "playing local" than tourist. True to the guide book in hand, Tim preferred to scope out good restaurants and famous landmarks.

On the other hand, he also liked to scope out the McDonald's in each place he visited, not to eat there but to check the price of a cheeseburger for means of comparison. Apparently you can tell a lot about a city by how much the fast food costs. I was slightly less interested in this undocumented study and slightly more willing to treat it as a scavenger hunt.

There was one thing that Tim and I had in common, though: we had each done the majority of our journey on our own. I'd found that traveling alone seemed more to my benefit than a liability. Not only was I more alert than one may be with a group, but also silent (i.e. less boisterously American), save for the occasional simple phrases to get around. I felt safe on my own.

Theologian Paul Tillich has said that "Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone." In between great times of meeting up with friends along the way, I was rather enjoying some glorious solitude.

And as any vacationing being knows, the moment you taste solitude is the moment something or someone stumbles upon your quiet place.

Cue Impromptu Travel Companion. How he went from "fellow tourist" to "impromptu travel companion" is essentially a tale of one man's spontaneous decision to co-opt an acquaintance's plan for a detour through Bologna, Italy, but don't worry, because in the end he turns out not to be a criminal, as far as I know.

So Tim 'n Kim hit the road. Or the train tracks, as the case may be. It might have made for a fun photo in a travel journal or backpackers' catalogue, me with my puny high school backpack and him strapped to that trailblazers' bodybag. It could have doubled as a jetpack if the thing wouldn't weigh him down so much.



On the train, I spent most of the time writing while Tim pored over his traveler's guide book. We were happily quiet company, but all it took for me to miss the glory of solitude was for Tim to ask about what I was writing.

Ain't nobody ask what I'm writing 'less they don't wanna live.

I am not usually what folks would call a "sharer."

I know, strange personality trait for a blogger, but the truth is this: my first blog? I told about three people that it existed. Socially, as do many people, I have very wonderful but very few confidants, which somehow carried over into my willingness to share my writing - even my fiction. In my first (and last) creative writing workshop, I dreaded shopping work, which is oddly a central part of the process.

And one of my college professors once asked, if I wanted to be a writer, why had I never tried to submit any of my work for publication? Was I not even curious? Was it a simple fear of rejection or was it actually that I refused to open up to the point of being a writer who avoided readers?

Blogging (v. 2.0) has actually been a challenge to myself to be more comfortable with articulating the silly and the serious to others; to force myself to complete short pieces of writing meant to be read rather than hoarded. It's taken me a long time to get to this point of openness.

And by all means, I think it's fine for people to be reserved. Privacy and dignity are obviously not shameful, especially in a world of "over-sharing." But some part of me - the part that began AmenAbility, the part that doesn't lose herself in her writing but rather remembers the world as she writes - was ready to be more open to people. And not just as the Giant Ear, a role that I quite like to take on, but also, perhaps, as a Voice.

Why has it been so difficult to embrace that?

So while it was easy to resent the Impromptu Travel Companion for interrupting the glory of solitude and for reminding me that I was the Awkward Loner hovering over a notebook like it might disintegrate if someone else so much as glanced at it, this unusual meeting was also a thought-provoker for me. Made me contemplate why I was so defensive about a fictional story. Because it wasn't already complete? Because it wasn't high quality and it would injure my pride? What, then?

It made me think that maybe, if I pour so much of my being into what I write (yes, even the silly things - especially the silly things), I don't want to wait until I've completed a masterpiece before I'm willing to share my work with other people. I'm all for promoting quality over quantity, but maybe there is something to sharing besides thinking that something is good enough for an audience, that something is done and thus needs no additions or alterations.

My life is thus far unfinished, too, and by no means a work of art. I expect it could use quite a few changes and, I like to think, many additions. It could end tomorrow or it could end years from now - I don't know. But I do know that I don't want to keep life contained and avoid living it with others, either.

So I'll take my chances.

Whatever He Says, It's That One

When my college friends traipsed into the dining hall one night, we wrote our names on slips of paper for the game show staff stationed in the entryway and then sat at a round table not far from the newly erected set. It was Deal or No Deal, a sort of traveling entertainment company that would host the game right there in Bates Common Dining with all but Howie Mandel and the chicks in evening garb.



Students were randomly selected to participate for the chance to win money, gradually eliminating numbered cases holding various amounts. A one-night campus event, you could say it was a limited time offer.

I'd never seen the show - I vaguely remembered that some kids I'd babysat liked it, but they hadn't even watched it while I was with them - so friends filled in the gaps for me when I was confused.

And then my name was called.



The round table of knowledgeable advisors suddenly seemed so very far away.

A few of us were organizing a relief trip to New Orleans at the time, and we'd discussed that if we won something, it would go toward the cause. But I'd imagined that, if any of us were even called, it would at least be someone who knew what they were doing. I tended to figure that my being randomly selected for a guessing game was even less probable than my being purposely selected for a dodgeball team. Either way, I guess it's a bit hit-or-miss. (OK, bad joke, I'm sorry. Please don't throw things at me! Heh.)

I must have looked flustered, but the host was reassuring: this round would be simple. Because we were nearing the end of the event, there would be a few modified rounds for set prize amounts, rather than the whole song and dance.

The host motioned to two cases.

Over his directions, I heard within, "Whatever he says, it's that one."

I glanced at the case closest to me.



What the host was saying finally registered: one of the cases had a card inside with the amount of $50 while the other showed 50 cents. Choosing correctly meant a prize of over a hundred dollars.

"So," he finished, "which case do you think has the amount of 50 cents?"

I pointed.

Anyone who had ever seen me pick out ice cream or decide what to do with the afternoon knew very well that I seemed a little too sure of what I was doing.

In actuality, I can't really say that I was certain. In the fleeting moment of time between standing by the cases and pointing at one, there was literally no deliberation in my mind, yes, but there was also no sense of "I know this." But the funny thing is, in that moment without certainty, I also had no doubt. I simply did not experience either certainty or doubt in the way that I had ever known either one.

And so it is in contemplating my faith - the beliefs upon which so much of myself is grounded, with or without tangible evidence - that I now remember that night.

I don't insist that it was God, though it was hella creepy in the sense that it was so unlike my usual inner thought processes. But of all of the times that I have had the it-doesn't-feel-like-me-thinking-this experience, this one seems among the least "holy." It would be easy enough to say that it was God's will for us to receive that money for our trip, or to shake things up in my faith life in just one more way. But I don't know. I'm grateful, regardless; I just think attributing anything to God is a matter not to be taken lightly. Wherever the words came from, the trip and my deepening faith were what they were, and that seems to suffice for me.

All that said, this spontaneous phrase still intrigues me to this day.

It strikes me that it was so distinctly, "Whatever he says, it's that one" - so unwavering in its basic concept that truth existed and it did not depend on the host or on me.

It also strikes me that it was something of a declaration of that truth, not a command or advice as to what to do. It even came before the man had said what was expected of me.

Sometimes we are spiritually guided or instructed. "Be not afraid."

But other times, I believe we simply hear truth, and we must act on what we have heard.

Not "Pick the one on the left," but "Whatever he says, it's that one." It just is. It just is. So now what?

When we're confronted with unusual proclamations of truth, especially when we don't expect them, perhaps we will need to pause and consider, mull the words over in our minds, discern their truthfulness and only then formulate a response. Or perhaps we will hear it and know what to do with it before we even realize the magnitude of what's happening.

Either way, true Truth seems to wait for no one to tell it that it's true - as though it's comfortable in its own skin. It can be told or heard, mangled or celebrated, denied or upheld. But at times like this I suspect that it isn't our embracing it that makes the Truth true.

A Prayer of Reconciliation

This is the prayer on my lips and fingertips this evening. Sometimes I like writing my prayers before or as I say them because something happens in my hands that quiets the "monkey mind" I can experience when praying the traditional, non-tactile way.

Persistent, redeeming God,
remind me that I am never broken
beyond Your repair;
and that those I love
and those I fail to love
are also within Your healing reach.
Thank You for reconciling us to You
and to one another.
Keep inviting us to participate,
for we ache and yearn
not only to be healed
but to heal.

Amen.