What words are the right ones?

Unspeakable tragedy!  How to hope and help?

In the days following last Friday's horror in Newtown, lots of people have had their say, and will continue to say and do many things--some helpful, some not.  Here at Church of the Covenant we struggled with what to say on our public face, the roadsign on Military Road seen by many people on their daily commute around north Arlington.  We considered some things, including NOT changing the sign which had previously noted the times of the Christmas Eve worship for next Monday.  But later, it was considered more compassionate to write something that would declare hope, rather than despair, grace and truth, rather than viciousness and falsehood.  We decided to turn to scripture, with words that many hear this time of year, and be reminded of the infinite God of Grace. It might mean more than we can imagine.

Seasonal interpretations of the Trinity

In the Stephen Ministers' meeting from last week at Covenant, the group reflected on the presentation by Robert Kellerman, attended by most of the group.  They discussed how Christian care-giving reflects the Trinitarian nature of God.  In another example of mysterious inter-connectedness, Charles Olsen of the Alban Institute lends another refractive point of view for this inexplicable, but infinitely mysterious doctrine.

Hands-On Jesus

On the Sunday that the church was decorated for Christmas, someone unwrapped the pieces for the crèche that usually gets set up in the library/lounge, underneath the bookshelf. When all the pieces were unwrapped, it was discovered that Baby Jesus was missing a hand!  A careful search through all the wrapping disclosed the tiny ceramic "hand" piece that had broken off Baby Jesus while he sat in storage during the intervening year. Avoiding a tragedy, the thoughtful father of the family who was helping out offered to fix everything by taking home Baby Jesus and his broken hand and glue them back together.  The picture here attests to his success!  We are a "all hands" church.  Just about everything we do together--in mission, in worship, in fellowship--is because someone volunteers to put the hand back on Jesus.  It's often been said that the church is the hands and feet of Jesus.  We make it so!  Thanks for all in the church, here at Covenant and around the world, who put the hand back on Jesus.

Reading Stuff

Back from summer time off from posting makes me realize that I haven't done this in a while.  Summertime is reading time for me.  A pastor's reading has to be broad enough and deep enough to sustain a number of interests, but it is also utilitarian--enough to benefit the people I care about.  I read a foot-high stack of older and newer books by N.T. Wright, some re-reads of what captured me a decade ago--Jesus and the Victory of God, plus The New Testament and the People of God ( don't have the third of the trilogy yet)--and the flood of new offerings since a few years ago: Evil and the Justice of God, Surprised by Hope, Paul, How God Became King, and Simply Jesus.  An orgy of N.T. Wright.  Thanks, Tom, for a wonderful summer!  So I thought I should post the pastor's next stack for now, and a bit of why those books are there:
The Holy Longing: The Search for A Christian Spirituality, by Ronald Rolheiser.  Suggested by a spiritual renewal covenant group that I've now committed to for the next two years.  Rolheiser's thesis is a back-to-basics cheer for Christian spiritual practices that are in danger of being eclipsed in our era by non-specific "spirituality."  A life following Jesus has some specific contours, content that is particular and peculiar, and not to be shied away from.
A Door Set Open: Grounding Change in Mission and Hope, by Peter L. Steinke.  Steinke's latest offering through Alban is another encouragement for pastors deep in the throws of pastoral care with a congregation in perpetual stress because of perpetual change--pretty much the whole of the mainline church in North America. Although I'm inclined to take encouragement wherever I can find it, I am a bit disappointed with this book because there is not an original thought in it.  I'm annoyed by authors who because of their own reputation can sell books by simply quoting other well-known authors. This one could have used a good editor.
Sabbath in the Suburbs: a Family's Experiment with Holy Time, by MaryAnn McKibben Dana.  A rising star among Presbyterian circles and a very talented writer and preacher, MaryAnn is a colleague in the area.  I'm looking forward to reading this, just received yesterday.  McKibben Dana is also part of the NEXT Church movement within presby circles--people to watch because of their great passion and youth. I'm rooting for them from the generation over-the-hill, that can sometimes be guilty of the been-there, done-that reaction.
Stilling the Storm: Worship and Congregational Leadership in Difficult Times, by Kathleen S. Smith.  Another Alban title that has captured my attention because I have taken a renewed interest in renewing worship.  Smith is from the talented group running the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, whose conference is an aspiration of mine.  It's just that January in Michigan is a tough venue!  All those folks must REALLY be interested in order to clear their schedules to come.
Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other, and the Spirit of Transformation, by Stephanie Spellers, handed to all the members of one of the committees on which I serve. The bane of pastors in a connectional church governance system is that we have to be at least as well-read as everyone else in the system.  But the book looks good and the referring committee member picked up the cost of it, so I'm not averse to reading it. Spellers, now an Episcopal priest, has a background in journalism, so it should at least be well-written.

Last but not least--FICTION!  Pnin, by Vladimir Nobokov.  The October selection of a bookclub that I've just joined.  Even pastors have to have some pleasures.  I'm interested to see a portrayal of the academic life, one that I've left behind in the past several years, but one in which I maintain an interest.  Nobokov taught at my alma mater for a time, but I never crossed paths with him.  They say that Pnin is based more upon Cornell than Wellesley.

Time to start reading!


Notice--among all these authors, not one politico!

“What have I gotten myself into?”

Bench in the rear garden--Church of the Covenant

“What have I gotten myself into?”—one of the questions running through my head as I take up the agenda of the first meeting of our Transforming Community #7.  I had driven through a section of Maryland I’d never seen—north on Route 29, through suburban strip malls and eventually into the rolling hills west of Baltimore, through what was probably once heavily cultivated tobacco fields, now sprouting mcmansions.  The countryside was still barely rural when I turned off Marriottsville Road onto the property of the BonSecours Retreat Center, that would house our 2-day retreat meeting. 

I’m now committed to this quarterly program for the next two and one-half years.  Every three months I will withdraw completely from all outside communications—email, telephone, newspapers, internet—and spend time with God and a few other folks who are doing the same thing.

The setting is beautiful—landscaped gardens and a pond, a large labyrinth under some majestic trees.  The buildings are laid out in the shape of a cross.  The food is good.  The sisters who live and work there are nearly invisible; they do their hospitality tasks without drawing any attention to themselves whatsoever, except for the “no admittance—private residence” signs at the end of the hallway.

This is all I know right now: In our life as Christ-followers, God invites us into ever-deeper discipleship.  “Christian formation,” if you will, is the process by which we are being conformed/transformed into the image of Christ, for the sake of others (a definition from M. Robert Mulholland Jr. in Invitation to a Journey, one of our required readings.)  All of us are on this journey.  It is a work that God does (not we ourselves) through the Holy Spirit, and it is happening in us from the moment of our baptismal birth.  The co-operating work we can do involves opening ourselves to such transformative experiences that invite us to contemplate in quiet and solitude, calming and surrendering ourselves to listen for what God may be saying to the deepest places in our hearts.

I know that I long for renewal.  No matter how fulfilling my Christian walk has been so far, I can tell that I long for more.  So the best leadership I can offer to Church of the Covenant—a transforming community—is my own ‘being-transformed’ self.  And for this I have gotten myself (or rather, God has gotten me) into the “Transforming Community #7,” meeting quarterly at the Bon Secours Retreat Center.  I can’t predict what will happen.  I can only trust that the God to whom I have entrusted myself is trustworthy.

Dirty Feet

Lent's nearly over.  Not driving myself, but riding with my commuter husband, I entered the all-night coffee/breakfast place where he drops me off in the morning. People whom one sees at 6:30am in an all-night dive are those who have been up all night.  This morning I saw a long-haired, unkempt man working a cross word puzzle.  His feet were swollen and dirty, shod only in deteriorating flip-flops.  He got up to go the restroom, and when he returned, he found his coffee cup gone, taken by the bus boy who probably thought he had left.  Angry words, directed at no one.  A waitress finally came over to him, to see why he was making so much noise.  She offered a new cup; he angrily refused.  I kept looking at his feet, feet that Jesus would have washed, but I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

I wonder if he knew how much he meant to me this morning.  I wonder if he was an angle, sent by God to remind me of my own dirty feet.

The Wind/The Spirit

United Methodist Church, West Liberty KY [FEMA photo]

Can someone really "pray away" a tornado?  I spent last Wednesday through Monday (March 7-12) in Eastern Kentucky, visiting the counties devastated by the outbreak of deadly tornadoes there on Feb 29 and March 2.  A local woman, caught on video "praying away" the tornado from her house, has become a local celebrity.  The video has gone viral, and has been picked up by several news organizations covering the destruction near West Liberty, Kentucky, and edited into their own video stories.  The woman happens to be a neighbor of the man who is the Clerk of Session at Ezel Presbyterian Church.  (Ezel is about 15 miles west of West Libery.) When I met with him, he didn't claim that his own house was spared because of her prayers. The pastor of Ezel Presbyterian Church doesn't claim that either.  Instead, the small congregation is concentrating on their own and their neighbors' recovery, and vigorously objecting to anyone who claims to know the "reason" why storms destroyed some (the Methodist Church for example) and not others. 
There isn't anyone in all of the close-knit communities of Eastern Kentucky who hasn't been affected by the storms, whether or not their own possessions were damaged or destroyed.  Disasters are like that.  In the midst of tragedy, the face of God comes from the face of friends, neighbors, colleagues, volunteers--anyone who shows up with an offer of care.  We can't claim to know why God allows these happenings, but we can stand in solidarity with those who have lost so much and declare that God certainly knows what it means to suffer. We know this because of Jesus.

Now a challenge

The first week of my car fast was uneventful--more car pooling and riding the bus from the Ballston Metro to the church.  Then I went on vacation to Florida, and only drove a rental car with my husband.  Since it wasn't my car, I thought I was probably being faithful. But still...there is the second-guessing, the pondering...What does it mean to be faithful in this?  Should I have given up my vacation, too?

I really should have anticipated that tornado season would start early.  Now the real challenge...I have to go to Kentucky to respond to the tornado devastation there.  That's not quite right.  I don't have to go; I've promised to go when called, and now I've been called.  So there you have it, another dilemma.  Of course I will have to rent a car to do the job of traveling around, being with people, surveying the area and finding out how Presbyterian Disaster Assistance might be of help.  There's really no other way to do it.

Car Fasting

So today begins Lent and my own discipline of going without a car.  Actually my husband and I are going from two cars to one car for the period until Easter.  I did this two years ago, just to see how it would be to experience life without the convenience of an automobile.  I didn't write about it then, but I intend to this time.
This morning I car-pooled into Arlington with my husband, who dropped me off  at the IHOP in Ballston, where I ate breakfast before catching the ART 62 bus to Lorcom and Military Road to meet and pray with Arlington pastors at Cherrydale Baptist, then walked the several blocks to my church on Military Road.
Two observations this morning--this experiment changes my perceptions of time and space:
TIME--5:15 am is way too early for my body at this point, but the extra half hour with my husband in the car, just listening to music with him, was a blessing.  So was the coffee at IHOP, where I finished some magazine reading that I don't usually get the time for.  I'm looking forward to the extra reading time that this way of traveling will allow.
SPACE--The bus route through north Arlington passes through some vintage single-family homes along 15th Street and then Utah.  It's easy to see which ones have been remodeled, and which maintain that older look.  I wonder about the families in those homes...why all the remodeling?  What compels us to rearrange our living spaces?  Is it easier to change our home interiors than our personal interiors?
God seems to be in the remodeling business.  We invite the God into our lives, and then are surprised that God wants to be about a complete renovation, knocking out a wall here and there, completely changing the floor plan, rewiring all the electricity, all painful changes.  What will become of us?  What will become of me in this year's Lent?

More on biblical illiteracy

Biblical illiteracy is engulfing us.  It’s our fault, preachers and church folks.  We have failed.  The new Presbyterian FOG calls pastors “teaching elders” and emphasizes the role we need to assume.  We need to teach.  This is part of my own calling: to study and teach the scriptures, as a way to tell folks about Jesus.  How are those who don’t know about Jesus going to follow him?  They won’t.  Teaching the Bible on it’s own terms--not as a manual for answers, not as a methodology, but as revelation--is a passion of mine.

So I’m always on the lookout for good texts that explain some points about reading scripture for 21^st century, North American people.  Here's  a blog I read today that explains a way to approach scripture that is a “third way.”  Love the name, too: "Left Behind and Loving It."

Faith Forming Parents

What would we say of parents who wanted to encourage their kids to play sports by pursuing a strategy something like this?
"We don't want to bias our kids to any particular sport, or force our own (or anyone else's choices on them) so we're going to insulate them from all sports until they're 18 or so when they can choose for themselves. All sports give kids the chance to be physically fit.  When Sally is old enough, she can make her own choice."  We'd say parents like that are nuts.  No one can make a judgement about their suitability to play any sport without actually playing, and no child can play without the support of parents.

It drives me crazy when parents say something like that about raising kids to be "religious."  There's no faith tradition in the world that can be fully engaged from the outside.  Most require a lifetime to understand and value. Religion is a team sport are requires being part of the community/team that practices it.  Parents who want their children to have something of a spiritual life have to play early and long if their children are going to have any chance of understanding and respecting their own or anyone else's faith traditions. 

The recent study by the Pew Charitable Trust on religious knowledge was revealing. The U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey shows that large numbers of Americans are uninformed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions -- including their own. Kids and parents making informed choices don't seem to be the case.
The rising number of "unaffiliates" is a worrisome trend for all faith communities, leading in the extreme to the religion of "me." The spiritually isolated individual is as handicapped and dangerous as a person kept in solitary physical confinement for long periods of time--a shrunken soul, only minimally human.
Parents who care about raising fully-human beings give serious effort to being part of faith communities that nurture faith formation--as much or more than they do their sports teams.
What do you think?