Coming Down

Tomorrow at sundown our Jewish brothers and sisters will celebrate Shavuot. This festival falls exactly seven weeks after Passover. Shavuot actually means “weeks.” The festival celebrates many things: the harvest, celebrating the first fruits and celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments.

In Exodus 34:18-36, we can read about the giving of the Law. Shavout or Zeman Matan Toratenu, the Season of the Giving of Our Law, commemorates the receiving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. If you have never been to synagogue on Shavout—go tomorrow night. It is one of my favorite services—honoring Torah, dancing with Torah, praising G-d for giving us the gift of how to live! It is beautiful.

One tradition around Shavuot is to join together in a reading vigil. One rabbi writes,

According to tradition the Israelites actually overslept on the morning of G-d's visit. To compensate for this negligence, Jews hold a vigil on the eve of Shavuot. They stay awake from dusk to dawn, keeping themselves busy with the readings of the Torah and the Talmud. A digest of readings has evolved called Tikkun Leil Shavuot, the "Restoration of Shavuot Eve," which includes selections from the Torah, the Prophets, the Talmud, and the Zohar.

Oh, that we Protestants who claim that Bible to be so important would adopt such a joyful ceremony. Think of it…all night readings, dramatizations and interpretations. Allowing the Word to speak through the word. Sometimes this holiday is also called Pentecost.

G-d gave the Law and Moses came down to the people who were prepared to receive… God gave the Spirit and it came down upon the people who were prepared to receive…

I do not believe the Spirit replaces the Word of God—moreover the Spirit is given to illumine the Word that has been given. Those of us who become too rigid and worship the text or certain passages in the text would do well to remember the freedom and power of the Spirit. Those of us who are free in the Spirit would do well to remember the freedom and power of the Word. Somehow the timing is not just coincidental to me.

God is the great giver of gifts providing us all that we need: manna, water, word, the Word and the Holy Spirit. Indeed Jesus was the first fruit of God. May we celebrate with dancing and tongues of fire. Lest we be caught sleeping, may we keep vigil and prepare to receive the Spirit anew. May we embody the Word come down from above empowered by the Spirit come down from above. May we go out with singing sharing our joy!

Shavuot and Pentecost Blessings! Julie

Unscheduled

The Al's are on a brief break. Stay tuned! In the meantime, catch up on the conversation so far. See the links, "Last Week in Brief" and "Catch Up on the Conversation" to your right.

Mixed Messages

As the storm clouds literally gather, promising 1) that there will be rain (always welcomed here); 2) that the heat and humidity will break and that there will be cooler, drier air; and 3) that there will be some spectacular lightning in this thinner air, I ponder at least two of Rick’s “fifteen propositions reduced to twelve.” I have particularly pondered the first and second propositions, that “Grace is unreserved; and joy is pure. …. It’s never not grace. Grace is never absent, and it is never adulterated” (I don’t like admitting in writing that Dee is right) and that “Joy is pure, always only itself—never mixed. There are not shades of joy.”

A couple of weeks ago, Sister Helen Prejean of “Dead Man Walking” fame passed through Casper. Casper College was putting on a student production of “Dead Man.” (Did you know that "Dead Man Walking" is now a book, a movie, a play, and an opera?). She participated in a panel discussion, made a speech, and then after the play, helped “de-brief” the cast and audience. Her arguments against the death penalty are powerful. That was no surprise. Dee would like her. She is tough and funny and direct with a wonderful N’orleans accent. That was no surprise. She told some great stories about Susan Sarandon. The best was that it was Sarandon would put the line in the movie and the play: Sr. Helen’s mother asked her what has led her to get involved with the murderers on death row. Her answer is that she is not so much “led as caught.” I liked that. It rang true with me. No surprise.

The surprise was what she said about art. The play is being produced at high schools and colleges because she said, and I am paraphrasing. She said that propaganda, on either side, speaks to the head. Art opens up the heart to all sides. She said it before the play and she said it after the play. And it was true.

At the end of the same week, the Tamburitzans of Dusquesne University (http://www.tamburitzans.duq.edu) passed through. For 70 years, students have performed eastern European music and dance. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Wyoming has no ‘culture.” The show was spectacular. And the art did as Sr. Helen said it would. It opened my heart to other places, other times, to the drama of human life caught in song and dance.

Yesterday at church, the choir sang Vivaldi’s Gloria with a small orchestra. I sang, too, probably the fifth or sixth time I’ve sung the work. It was quite good for a choir of 35 and a church of 350. People from other churches came to hear it—all with no advertising. People want to experience art because it opens their hearts to all sides.

You see, I think that while grace is unreserved and undeserved, joy is mixed. It is not always pure. Wasn’t it Frost who said that nothing gold can stay?

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Joy, I think, is like what Sr. Helen said about art. Joy opens our hearts. And with open hearts, we also become “caught” in a world that is less than perfect or pure, where nothing gold can stay, where we are given the grace to love and be loved by creatures who will die. The psalmist says that weeping lasts for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Joy, however, doesn’t replace the weeping.

My thoughts in a Wyoming thunderstorm.

Lynn

Fifteen Propositions Reduced to Twelve

i

Grace is unreserved; and joy is pure. Dee is right: “It’s all grace all the time.” It’s never not grace. Grace is never absent, and it is never adulterated.

ii

Nor is joy. Joy is pure, always only itself—never mixed. There are not shades of joy.

iii

There are shades of happiness. This may lead us to believe that we have some control over our happiness, though we must relinquish joy and grace to God.

iv

Unfortunately our strategies for happiness are almost always—if not always—self-defeating. For example:

v

We like to think of ourselves as complicated, because if we don’t we can’t tell others, “You just don’t understand me.” (Or think of others, “They just don’t understand me.”)

vi

As complicated people, we’re embarrassed by simple pleasures.

vii

But complicated pleasures don’t bring happiness.

viii

Here’s a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Recipe for Happiness, Kharabovsk or Anyplace”:

One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand café in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you

One fine day

ix

Happiness is not Paris. (It is Kharabovsk, or anyplace.) It is not fine wine. (It is coffee in very small cups.) It is not beauty.

x

It is not next year in Jerusalem. We may get to Jerusalem—or anyplace else (not “Kharabovsk or anyplace” )—by being restless. But it won’t make us happy.

xi

Even when we get there: we’ll still be restless.

xii

Our hearts are restless. Until they rest.

- Rick

Fear not?

I grew up in a world of fear. Eight- and nine-years-old were especially tough. The Cuban missile crisis threatened to incinerate my city and necessitated bomb drills in which our school’s siren would wail like the hound of hell, and we children would dash home with paper squares pinned to our shirts onto which our mothers would write the exact time we arrived—this, to help the school decide, in case of real attack, who of us had time to go home and die with Mom. Also, around this time, my city tumbled into violent chaos wrought by the civil rights movement. On one Sunday four girls died in a bomb attack on a church; less remembered but on the same day: a young black boy was shot dead on his bicycle five miles from my house. Also in that stretch, I watched my grandfather lose a painful battle with cancer and my President be gunned down in Dallas. In the next few years, more shootings of public officials; also, the Vietnam War, a dark dragon in the East to which young men from my neighborhood were sent, some of whom never returned; of those who did, few came back healthy. To my young mind, draft cards meant the dragon was waiting for me to turn 18.

When I reached teen years, I understood that the world was a dark and fearsome place. I felt as if my whole life had been spent in the face of fear. That was tough enough, but worse: somewhere along the way, I was convinced it was possible to escape fear. In church I heard the biblical words from God, from the prophets, from angels, from Jesus himself: “Fear not!” I always heard them with that exclamation point, as a stern commandment: “Don’t you dare be afraid! It’s just not Christian.”

So, when I became frightened, which was much of the time, I admonished myself “Fear not!” But oddly, this served only to increase my fear: “Oh my gosh, I’m not s’posed to be scared, but I am! A sin! I’m ticking off God!” which scared me all the more. Years later, in a London subway station, I was reminded of this on seeing a large advertisement reading “DO NOT SING THIS: I see a little silhouett-o of a man / Scaramouche, scaramouche will you do the fandango.” Being the catchy line from a rock hit familiar to my generation, it was impossible to obey the command. In fact, the rest of the day, the words and tune ricocheted in my mind. This was the problem I had (and still have to some degree) with “Fear not!”

Lately, though, I’ve begun to figure out something. My error is in believing that fear can be escaped, in believing that a faithful person can actually resist fear. Having heretofore believed that, I’ve always tried to resist or to run from fear, and this avoidance response has served only to heighten my fear. What’s more, even with a childhood full of violence, death and doubt, I was slow to learn that no matter where you run, fear lives there, too—even (perhaps especially) INSIDE the church.

During Holy Week, I was deeply convicted by Luke’s account of Jesus praying in the garden on the night of his arrest (Luke 22:41-43). Jesus is frightened, the sweat falling from him like great drops of blood. He asks permission to resist, to run from fear. But wordlessly the Father tells him that he must face and absorb the fear that presses on him. This, he does. And we see that only hours later, by the time he appears before the Council and Pilate, something profound has happened. Fear has lost its sting. Jesus has walked into fear; he has absorbed it; it no longer controls him. And, as a result, his faith has turned even stronger. Had he tried to escape, his fear would’ve weakened him

I’m reminded of an early summer morning when I was eight or nine years old. In my swim trunks, I’m standing at the edge of a pool. A breeze, still full of night chill, sweeps across my naked torso. I wrap my arms around me, my teeth chattering, my legs vibrating. The water will be shockingly cold, this daunts me. But I know that if I’ll just jump in, my body will adjust, the icy sting will fade. The water which once daunted me, will soon soothe me. Four-plus decades later, I’ll begin to see that my fears must be understood in much the same way.

Walking toward, jumping into fear—these are the only situations in which faith can really grow. Running from fear, buying that nonsense that a faithful person does not fear, this actually weakens faith.

Contrary to what I was taught, fear is not the enemy of faith. Fear is faith’s partner. That’s easy to say, though it’s not been an easy lesson to learn. And the toughest part: living it out.

Ger

One and At The Same Time

I do believe you are right Rick, we must claim the joy that is ours. If not we may be simply walking around with a “claim check” hoping the coat (joy) checker will find us. Whether we are found, or whether we claim joy, it is all grace.

So then, what do we say to this world living in despair? How do we speak of this joy? How do we witness to a different way of being without being discounted or called “poly-anna” or out of touch with the world? I don’t believe any of you are advocating simply singing in the streets, “I’ve got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart….”

What do we say to the grieving mother who’s child has just been killed by a drunk driver? How do we respond when we walk the 9th ward in New Orleans and see total destruction and another hurricane season coming? What do we do when our only black parishioner’s nephew is on trial for rape? Yes, we run from easy answers. We lament that happiness may be nowhere to be found, but how do we respond?

Sometimes I must confess that I am overwhelmed by the suffering of my immediate community and the tragedy of the world. I pray, yes. But I do spiral into despair—even though I know that joy is mine (and theirs) for the claiming. I do not believe there is a shortage or limited amount of joy, but the fatigue of discouragement and death squelch my joy.

I am praying that God will transform me and enlarge my heart so that I can at once hold sorrow and joy. I am praying God will increase my faith so that in the midst of despair, I can see and share light even though the dangers of night are all around me. I want to be authentic in acknowledging my pain and accompanying those who suffer and at the same time be buoyed up by the grace of inexplicable joy. I know it may be gift then. But I can I be about the practice of this now? I can I help others in my community practice authentically “putting on joy?” What spiritual discipline will help shape me in this desire? Lord, hear my prayer.

- Julie

Beyond God the Mother

As I write this it is just 24 plus hours ago that we passed through Mother’s Day, my least favorite creation of Hallmark, Inc. “M is for the million cards they market; O means only that its growing old…” My dissent can be traced directly to the fact that our mother died at forty three, when I was not quite five. At school and at church thereafter, I learned quickly to dread the second Sunday of May, especially when we were forced to make something cute or meaningful for our mothers, and when they gave prizes to the youngest mother (they don’t do that one anymore) and to the oldest mother and to the mother with the most begats under her, well, belt. I cringed inwardly when recitations of the irreplaceable importance of mothers were read. I wanted to be absent that day.

As far as my brother, sister, and I were concerned, our Aunt, our Father’s sister, slid almost seamlessly into the mothering role, though she wisely insisted that we address her by her proper familial relationship, and not as Mother. When I tried to turn those Mother’s Day pretties into Aunt’s Day pretties, I was met with looks of reproof or pity or both. It never seemed quite right.

I had been named for our Aunt, as it turns out, even though I was a boy-child. Rebellion ensued when that fact first dawned on me, but it lasted about a minute. Now I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My life with Aunt Dee was positive. She was a solid source of support, a great teacher, and a trusted confidant. My late mother, by all accounts, including my rather sketchy, barely remembered one, was a fine woman, multi-layered, and self-assured.

I cannot find the reference, but one of Wm. Faulkner’s characters, speaking way before women were ordained by anybody anywhere to any office of the church, says something like, “A minister is a kind of a woman.” I’m not too offended by that. In another place Faulkner observes that “A mare is more like a man than a woman.” In most respects those are unrelated comments, except that they both make a lot of sense.

Later this very week, the DaVinci Code comes to the big screen. I don’t think it’s much of a book, but it is the largest selling novel of all time, so what do I know? And the idea of the “Sacred Feminine” figures within its labyrinthine mixture of legend, foolishness, and just plain foolishness.

In seminary, I read Mary Daly’s shockschrift Beyond God the Father. I agreed with her that there are problems with the father language, especially when the image is built from our human experience of fatherhood, which can be problematic at best and abusively terrifying at worst. The light should be projected not from us to God, but the other way round. I understood all that, but thought the issue unresolved when she turned toward the feminine principle. God the Mother presents at least as much difficulty as imagery more masculine. An earthly father can be distant or violent. An earthly mother can be as mean as a snake or as cold as ice.

The primary punch that gives the Trinity its vitality is relationship. Father-Son-Spirit share relationship in spades. Always have, always will. Mother-Son-Spirit (or Mother-Daughter-Spirit for that matter) would tote that load too. So would Parent-Child-Spirit, though the abstract parent might not satisfy as much as the specific Mother or Father, and likewise, children only come in son or daughter varieties (okay, leaving aside real hermaphroditic cases). Abstractions counter revelation; they don't deepen the mystery, they just cloud pictures and obscure thoughts.

Like what I’m doing with this unfortunate burst of verbiage. It started with a rant against Mother’s Day, and all of a sudden we're back at Nicea pretending to unravel the core, trinitarian truth of our faith, and trying to take down the book that has made Dan Brown richer than Croesus while we’re at it. I’m not sure where I’m headed, except to say that sometimes Mother’s Day excesses began to look like Mother-worship. Father’s Day could go off that same cliff if it weren’t for the fact that no one takes fathers that seriously these days. Maybe that would allow new meaning to come to the word, this time from God’s side.

Relationship is all. Over job descriptions and modes and shifting states of being. Over one gender or the other or both merged. The Greek in us wants an elegant argument that leads to clarity. The Hebrew in us opens all windows on life, on messy, complicated, aromatic, boisterous, beautiful life. God is love, yes. God is life, too. And life is a dance, right? Perichoresis!

Happy Relationship Day. Happy Dance of God with God and with God Day. Swing your partner at the ball. It’s all right if it’s your Mom. Buy her a corsage if it pleases. Doesy-doe.

- Uncle Dee

"Be Joyful Though You Have Considered All the Facts"

The title of this post is a line from--you guessed it--a poem by Wendell Berry. He is certainly someone I miss seeing now that I am in Wyoming. I still have his poetry which I cherish even more now.

Anyway, I was going to write about something else until these last two glorious days. I'm sure some of you are tired of my weather reports. Bear with me as I discover this new place. May may have come in like February. Now, mid month, everything is blooming. I have lilacs outside my back door. The green is creeping up the mountain side toward the snow that still sits at the peak. The sky is deep blue and cloudless. It will be a brief greening and flowering. I know that, for I have been here two weeks short of a year.

In short, Rick and Julie, I am claiming joy. For there is no other word to describe this day and this place and my place in it.

And so, Wendell Berry:

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

Lynn

My Way

I wrote last Friday that I was going to think this Friday about happiness and joy. I also wrote that while I didn’t think they were the same, I wasn’t convinced that one was qualitatively better than the other.

Since then, Julie has written about “wearing joy” for Eastertide. And she has drawn this distinction: Happiness has to do with feelings or emotions. Joy is deeper. So, “we can know joy even when we are unhappy . . . .” Joy is also a gift, “not something we can acquire or even aim for.” Indeed, it may well come, by God’s grace, when we are looking the other way. Thus, we are “surprised by joy!”

Moreover, joy lasts. The gift of it, which is from God, is “abiding.” Paraphrasing Romans 8, Julie says, “Nothing can separate us from joy,” though we need to pay attention—even when we are looking the other way—in order to discern the constant “joy and presence of God” with us.

Wendy Farley also distinguishes joy and happiness—or, at least, joy and pleasure—though she doesn’t think our “problem” with regard to joy is only inattentiveness. (This is in The Wounding and Healing of Desire.) Farley thinks we resist joy, because it is not easy; it may even be dangerous. At least, we perceive it to be. “Pleasure is easy. We do not have to dedicate much energy to the capacity for pleasure. We do not have to do anything special to taste the deliciousness of chocolate cake. We only have to put it in our mouth. But joy moves into the deepest parts of us. It is like a ferocious, tender lover who adores us so intensely that it will not be satisfied until every corner of our body and soul has been drenched with delight. Joy requires the strength to receive joy.”

But is God a ferocious, tender lover? The phrase reminds me of the first line of Emily Dickinson’s poem

God is a distant—stately Lover—
Woos, as He states us—by His Son—
Verily, a Vicarious Courtship—
“Miles”, and “Priscilla", ”were such an One—

But, lest the Soul—like fair “Priscilla”
Choose the Envoy—and spurn the Groom—
Vouches, with hyperbolic archness
“Miles”, and “John Alden" ”were Synonym—

Here’s what I think—just to start an argument. I think Julie is right, but. I almost have to say she is right, because she says (very well) what I have always heard—and believed—particularly that joy like grace is a gift from God, and so it abides. We persevere in it, not by our own perseverance, but because as a gift of God, it can’t be taken away from us. Joy claims us.

But, we also claim joy. By that I mean we tend to pay attention to joy, to talk about it, precisely when we are unhappy, because we’re unhappy and we know we oughtn’t to be. If we truly believe what we say we believe—that God so loves us that in Christ he has redeemed us for all time—then we have no reason to be unhappy. Any of the time. (So why are we?)

Still for the sake of argument: Wendy Farley is wrong on several counts. First, she undersells pleasure, though I agree with her about chocolate cake, it’s no more than frisson. But apparently, she hasn’t been drinking good wine; she hasn’t been reading Emily Dickinson; she hasn’t been listening to Stan Getz; she hasn’t been looking out my fogged-up bathroom window across the roofs of the Deaf School and into the Blue Ridge.

So, she suggests that God must be ferocious to bring joy. It’s an interesting image, joy as ravisher. It’s an effective image as well, if we’re not happy. God comes to dispel—to rip away—not only the clouds of unknowing—as if that weren’t enough—but also the fog of our self-absorbed woe, so he may rapture us.

Does he? I’m not so sure. I find God incredibly patient with human self-absorption and unhappiness, our melodramatic melancholy, that stupid certainty we have most days that you-know-this-is-just-a-pretty-crappy-life-a-good-Merlot-Emily-Dickinson-Stan-Getz-and-the-Blue-Ridge-Mountains-not-to-mention-the-whole-salvation-and-eternal-life-thing-notwithstanding. But that’s my experience.

And it’s only my experience. There’s no reason God couldn’t also be ferociously, kick-butt impatient. Or, in other circumstances, a “distant—stately Lover—“ albeit with a trick up his sleeve. (Or maybe two: don’t forget the Spirit.)

Frankly, I don’t know why we’re unhappy, but I suspect that sometimes it’s because we are unable—or unwilling—to experience a full range of pleasure. We write our own experience large; then, we become trapped in it. We become so convinced that God works in certain ways, our ways, that we cannot see—or hear or taste or touch or smell—that he’s working in others as well.

- Rick

Arms wide open, I've run a twisted line

It’s been more difficult than I had anticipated to depart American culture (and our version of the church) for three years and then to leap back in and pretend as if I’d simply stepped out for a smoke.

Trying to get back in the groove, I’ve done things that eager, post-modern Americans do. I’ve sought to sponge up life via the internet. I got satellite radio so that I might pass my driving time choosing from the gamut of options—Howard Sterne, C-SPAN radio, the BBC, the O’Reilly Factor on FOX, NPR, Canadian Broadcasting French language service, numerous sports channels, and 100 music formats.

This morning, driving to work and punching around on the radio, I settled on NPR’s Fresh Air with host, Terry Gross, who was interviewing Douglas Brinkley—friend of celebrities, Tulane professor, author, and, oh yeah, historian. Brinkley’s written a new one—published only two weeks ago—titled The Great Deluge : Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Toward the end of the interview, Doug mentioned that while writing this book he found himself listening to certain pieces of music that inspired him. Terry, a music buff, couldn’t let that pass—asked him, “What music?” Brinkley mentioned a couple of Dylan tunes, a few others, and then said, “and Willie Nelson’s recording of ‘The Maker.’” He paused a moment and said, “I encourage everyone listening right now to go listen to Willie Nelson’s version of this song.”

I’m not a Willie Nelson fan. I’m not a Douglas Brinkley fan. But something about the passion in the latter’s voice when he urged all listeners to listen to this tune…. When I got to the office I jammed my laptop into the docking station, jacked up my speakers, logged onto “MusicMatch” (to which I pay about $13 a month in order to hear any of 1,000,000 songs I might choose) and tracked down “The Maker” by Willie Nelson.

Actually, I didn’t expect much (being neither a Willie Nelson nor a Douglas Brinkley fan). Then, the song came like a flaming arrow, expertly aimed at a deftly guarded place in my soul. In a way I can’t completely describe, it spoke to my own sense of alienation. My own sense of lost-ness in this world in which I’m neither an African nor an American nor a….what? To me it spoke a word of trace, a word of sacred connection...

It’s written by native Quebecois Daniel Lanois. Here are the words. Go listen to Willie sing them. Don’t listen with your head. Listen with your whole being….

Oh, oh deep water, black and cold like the night
I stand with arms wide open,I've run a twisted line
I'm a stranger in the eyes of the Maker

I could not see for the fog in my eyes
I could not feel for the fear in my life
And across the great divide,
In the distance I saw a light
Saw Jean Baptiste walking to me with the Maker

My body is bent and broken by long and dangerous sleep
I can't work the fields of Abraham and turn my head away
I'm not a stranger in the hands of the Maker

Brother John, have you seen the homeless daughters
Standing there with broken wings
I have seen the flaming swords
there over east of Eden

Burning in the eyes of the Maker
Burning in the eyes of the Maker
Burning in the eyes of the Maker...

Oh, river rise from your sleep...

Ger

More than Liquid Soap!

One of my favorite little quirks is to write down and list how US advertisers are co-opting Christian language, theology and music to sell products! The other day, I wasn’t looking at the television, but heard the tune, “Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free…” I started whistling it and when I walked in the room to see what was on TV, the box was trying to sell me a luxury car! I think our Shaker friends might disagree. You too can play this game with me. We can buy: Hope perfume, Love bug VWs and Joy dishwashing liquid!

In this season of resurrection, joy is the feature of the day. We sing, “Joy to the World, the Lord has come,” at Christmas and at Easter we belt out “Celebrate with Joy and Singing!” We teach our children that the liturgical color is white...(maybe it has something to do with the cleaning effect of dishwashing liquid). We wear joy(white) for baptism, for funerals and ordination.

I’ve been thinking about “wearing joy” this Eastertide. We are marked with ashes on Ash Wednesday…how can we wear joy or put on joy in our daily discipleship?

I agree with Rick, joy is different from happiness. Happiness, for believers at least, is something akin to “feelings” or “emotions." Today I don’t feel happy, even though its Easter. Joy is deeper. We can know joy even when we are unhappy, despairing and desolate. In the gospel of John (John 15), Jesus says, “I have said these things to you, so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete!” Joy is a gift of our loving God and the goal and fruit of the Christian life. Its not something we can acquire or even aim for. We live faithfully, looking towards Christ in the midst of happy and sad times and the grace—the by product—is joy. As C.S. Lewis writes, we are “surprised by joy!”

Nothing can steal the joy that God gives us. I liken this to the promise of Romans 8 “Nothing can separate us from the love of God…” Nothing can separate us from joy…because wherever God is, there is joy. Thus, through Christ, we now abide with God forever and are given this beautiful, deep, and abiding gift. Our part is to “notice” or “discern” the joy and presence of God in our lives…not just when we feel happy, but each day and in every way. Let us see the holy garment of joy and wear it…so that others may see it and be curious about the giver and creator of the joy we wear.

- Julie

Snow in May?!

This is what I woke up to on the morning of May 4, after having returned from a week’s trip to Kentucky the night before. I’ve seen snow, and I have seen blossoms on a crab apple tree. I have never in my 50 years seen snow on blossoms on a crab apple tree. Nor have I ever seen snow in May. It snowed last year at the end of April when I was visiting my sister in Michigan.

It may seem a cruel joke of whoever does weather. It was full-blown spring in Kentucky—heat, humidity, severe thunderstorms, and rain. Twelve hours later, I meet up with full-blown spring time in the Rockies: six inches of snow. According to reports on the Weather Channel, Casper had more snow May 4 than Alaska did. You know what? I didn’t care about the snow. In fact, I thought it was rather beautiful. I was just so happy to be out of freakin Kentucky that I would have walked barefooted through a blizzard to get out of there and back here.

Note to my friends and colleagues in Kentucky who read this blog: I miss you. I love you. I will visit. Thomas Wolfe said “you can’t go home again” and I don’t want to. Wyoming is home now. Come see us.

Part—a large part, actually—of the difficulty of returning to Kentucky after an absence of nearly a year has to do with remembered pain. The body has a memory. So just feeling the heat and humidity and smelling the fecund spring earth, and seeing the subdivisions and mega-drugstores (we don’t have much of those things in Wyoming) opened up old wounds not yet fully healed. I did not want to leave ministry in Kentucky. I did not want to know that church members--some also friends--and colleagues can hurt and betray and tear down in months what had taken years to build. I did not want to leave dear friends. I did not want to go so far away from family or from the South.

When I came here to Wyoming, I considered it an exile, of sorts. By the rivers of the North Platte, I wondered if I could sing the Lord’s song. ( I know, I’ve messed up the context and the text of Psalm 137. Forgive me.). The sight of snow on crab apple blossoms in the first week of May—more snow than Alaska—set my heart to singing.

Forgive, too, please this old preacher’s story about a child who watched as a butterfly struggled to break free from its cocoon. After watching the struggle for hours, the child decided to help by cutting open the cocoon. Free, the butterfly tried to fly. It could not. It needed the struggle of breaking free to strengthen its wings.

I thought of that story today when the director of the pre-school here at the church showed me the chrysalis (more than one but what’s the plural) from which butterflies will soon emerge. The children are watching and waiting, and so am I.

Thanks be to God for struggles and butterflies-to-be and snow on crab apple blossoms in May.

All Over the Map

I sat down last Friday and began to write: “I’m still reading Darrin McMahon’s Happiness: a History, out of which I hope to get several essays. I thought I had one for this week—a learned disquisition on the distinctions between happiness and pleasure. Granted the learning was largely McMahon’s, not mine. But, when I looked back through my notes, I found neither of us had much of anything to say on the matter. (Yet! The threat remains.)

“I’m still interested in the topic, because I think (again, and often) that there are two kinds of people, those who tend to equate happiness and pleasure—these include John Locke, who is on record: “Happiness . . . in its full extent is the utmost Pleasure we are capable of” (Essay Concerning Human Understanding)—and those who tend to distrust pleasure altogether.

“I’m about to step on dangerous ground. Watch me. Watch out for me. Pray for me, too. I’m going to say that the guys that wrote the New Testament are in that camp. As our president might say, 'They're distrusters.'”

There I stopped. Before I knew it I was back on the road from Staunton, VA to Ann Arbor, MI. In case you ever have to make the trip, the best way to go is this. Take I-81 north to Winchester. Pick up US-522 there, through Berkley Springs, WV. When it runs into I-70, take that, west toward Pittsburgh. Get on the Pennsy Turnpike. Get off the Pennsy Turnpike. Get on the Ohio Turnpike. (Make sure you have about $15.00 for tolls.) Get off the Ohio Pike at Toledo. Take I-75 North to I-475 to US-23. That’ll take you right to Ann Arbor. It’s 565 miles. You can do it in just over 9 hours, if you make minimal (very minimal) stops and you push the speed limit to its very edge.

It isn’t a particularly pleasurable drive, though western Pennsylvania is lovely almost any time of year, and there are several nice river crossings, including the Potomac and the Ohio. It isn’t a pleasurable drive, especially if you’re in a hurry; but it is satisfying to have completed it.

I didn’t pick up where I stopped writing, because I didn’t have the tools I needed: I’m thinking especially of a Greek New Testament; Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich; Moulton and Geden—that kind of stuff. Nor do I have them now, though I’m back from Michigan. It’s 11 hours and a little more from Mt. Pleasant. You take US-127 south to Lansing, where you pick up I-96 east toward Detroit. You run into US-23 some way north of Ann Arbor, at Brighton. Get on it and go backwards. You’ll need $18 for the tolls this way, and you’ll have to figure out how to finesse the construction in and around Toledo. I suggest swallowing your pride and following the signs Ohio DOT has put up for you.

I’m back from Michigan, but I’m now in Charlotte, NC. From Staunton, get back on I-81. Head south through some of the worst truck traffic in the country. Take I-79 south. It’s Virginia exit 81 on I-81. And keep going. You’ll know when you get there. It’s a big place.

I’m in Charlotte for my younger son’s graduation. It’s been a long time coming, so we’re excited about it. My older son has flown up from Mexico. We brought the dog. Tomorrow, instead of the graduation ceremonies, we’re going to the park. Nat is going to make a speech. And we’re going to cheer. Then we’re going to gather up some of his friends and go out to dinner.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to think about happiness and pleasure and how they’re related. I’m also going to think about happiness and satisfaction. I’m going to think about happiness and excitement. Finally, I’m going to try to think about happiness and joy, which are not the same I don’t think (right this minute); but neither do I think (right this minute) that one is qualitatively better than the other. My consultants will include, besides Darrin McMahon: Aldous Huxley, the apple tree in my parents front yard (laden with blossoms when I left it), Arthur Koestler, the apostle Paul—and those are just the A’s.

If you’re not interested in this stuff, you can skip next Friday at Al’s and go fishing. I wish you good fortune. But whether good fortune will make you happy, I don’t know.

Rick

Reduction in Force

The national offices of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) “RIFed” -- the better term is “laid off” and best is “fired” -- seventy five individuals from the Presbyterian Center, located in My Old Kentucky Home of Louisville. Another 55 will lose jobs overseas. Some of those affected will be employed until October 1 of 2006. All of them will receive severance pay for eight months.

It’s a bitch to work for a denomination that’s losing 30,000+ members a year for decades. But what is a denomination these days? We used to know the answer to that question. And none of us likes seeing friends fired, and no one likes to do the firing. How do you make such a process “Christian?” Who would Jesus lay off? What therapeutically correct HR principles would he use?

So. If we ruled the church world, and if we could ameliorate the personal financial problems suffered by the people whose professional lives have been given to it, we would make the whole thing go away. Send everyone home and pay them for sixteen months. It’s not that they are deficient as individuals, workers, or servants of Christ; in fact, those we know who labor at 100 Witherspoon Street are most proficient and devoted. They’re great people, to a person. It’s just that benching everyone seems the fairest way to call for a do-over.

During this dormant period, we might discover what it was that our churches missed. After sifting through their lamentations until we discerned what we couldn’t possibly live without, we’d rebuild the denomination, piece by piece. From below, at the parish level, it would be rebuilt, as well as from above, at the ever-moving plane of the Holy Spirit. Scripture would be indispensable to a fresh set of blueprints, with lesser roles for the Book of Confessions and the Book of Order.

This clear cutting technique would include Presbyteries and Synods, too, leaving only congregations and Sessions in the Presbyterian forest. These last would make decisions to join with other Sessions and congregations for the purpose of doing things they couldn’t do on their own. The joining congregations and church boards may not have to be Presbyterian. Just partners in the mission of being the body of Christ in and for the world.

When a group of congregations grew too large for knowing the people, the ministries, and the geographical settings of each other -- say 25 local churches -- then that group would split in half. Groups (we could call them presbyteries if it pleased) might link up into something like synods to carry their mission further. A super-regional, even national body would follow from this pattern. If we were careful, and God were merciful, we’d get what we need, and, we pray, not much more than that.

From a practical as well as a theological point of view, what can a denomination do that congregations, presbyteries, and synods can’t? Are they really necessary? Before we go through another reduction in the force of our national staff, we ought to think about such things, honestly, deliberately, and calmly. In doing so, it might be helpful to remember the old formula for a denomination’s purpose: global missions, educational material, and a pension program. Let’s concentrate on the middle one.

We were talking with a friend who works (still does!) at the Presbyterian Center about this very issue not too long ago. We suggested that that the church could jettison Sunday School curricula, Vacation Bible School packets, Women’s Bible studies, and the like. Fewer and fewer Presbyterian churches buy it anyway, and decent stuff is produced by the Lutherans, the Methodists, and an increasing number of independent publishers. We could wade through their literature and find courses for children, youth, and adults that might suit us just fine. Larger churches, and smaller ones for that matter, could write their own curricula and find it quite beneficial.

But my lunch companion had an alternative view. Educational material such as curricula are systematic statements of identity, he said. They transmit a living tradition. It should be offered to our churches for free, he said. It is the one thing we can do that will help them define themselves and produce some old fashioned, much needed loyalty among God’s people whose heritage is traced along Protestant, Reformed, and Presbyterian lines.

He makes a good point. Our best feature has long been our emphasis on Christian education, on a well-tutored spiritual formation. If we do nothing else, we do honor the life of the mind in service to God and to neighbor. Besides, the denomination hasn’t made any money off church school curricula for years. What would we lose if we gave it away? By trusting the Spirit and the people that profoundly, we might get our old zip back.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it (Luke 8:35).

As Ever, Dee

Where in . . . ?

Lynn is off this week. Rick is back in Michigan. Gerald was recently misplaced. But we all hope to be back next time ‘round: Gerald on Thursday, Rick on Friday, Lynn next Monday. In the meantime, thank God for Dee (coming right up!) and Julie.