A Car-Free Lent

Not every year, but in several of the past few years I've given up driving my car for Lent.  As I live 20 miles from the church I serve, it's a challenge to my use of time.  But I've found that the practice has done several things for my spiritual life. 
It's forced me to understand the subtle ways I am isolated by brothers and sisters in car-free life, such as those that are too old or too young to have a license, those who are too poor to own a car, those who have made a brave choice to live car-free, and those who are too disabled to drive. It's amazing to learn how much time it takes to organize one's life around transportation needs.  Our spaces and enterprises are built to favor the car-driving public, and are subtle reminders of the difference in power that makes.
Not driving also emphasizes to me how much we live in an interdependent world.  The illusion of self-sufficiency is just that--and illusion. No person in this society can be truly independent of anyone else.  Our lives are truly connected, whether we can recognize it or not.
Going car-free for a period of time forces me to slow down and notice a whole different world.  I walk more; I have more time to reflect; I can pay attention to a wide variety of people and places that I never notice when I'm driving.
So I'm going to try it again this Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday, February 18.  We're reading the Psalms as a congregation through Lent, noticing the signposts that they are to God.  Look for signs--all the signs that

God is still working.

Confession is Good for the Soul

"Vice president Joe Biden called it a badge of honor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said it was one-sided, and the others remained silent." International Business Times reported today.
Whatever we feel about subject of torture, it isn't good.  It's downright grief inducing. The Senate Intelligence Committee report has been released, and it feels to me like a good confession. You can read it on the site of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture-- NRCAT .
Confession is the act of saying out loud something that needs to be said, of telling the truth about something that was formerly hidden.  It's the way of releasing a burden into God's purview.
We can't deny that 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were violent and degrading. We can attempt to justify them, but all such justification feels sordid. We can't pretend that such behavior doesn't matter, no matter who the perpetrators are.  Retaliatory motives lurk behind most of the violence in our world.  Confession--telling the truth, in so far as it is able to be known--is a good first step toward healing the world of violence.  An old hymn says "Jesus calls us over the tumult Of our life’s wild, restless, sea; Day by day His sweet voice soundeth, Saying, “Christian, follow Me!”
The final verse is the prayer "By Thy mercies, Savior may we hear Thy call, Give our hearts to Thine obedience, Serve and love Thee best of all." Would that such obedience drive away all violence and fear and transform us--a prayer, not just a wish--for the world.

Weeping Angel, Stanford University

competing with non-consumption

I had given up on the business press in the past few years, since moving out of the B-school circles into those of the church.  But a parishioner gave me a copy of Harvard Magazine, July-August 2014 issue, not the B-School mag, but a semi-independent  publication, with Harvard U ties.  The cover article describes Clayton Christensen on innovation, from his book The Innovator's Dilemma, which made him a best-selling (in business press circles) author. His theory of  'disruptive innovation' gave a whole new vocabulary for describing market innovation and the phenomenon of entrepreneurial success based on disruptive thinking.  Basically, disruptive innovation describes the phenomenon of innovators gathering around the needs of people whose needs are not being served by established businesses who make and market established products.  Innovators find ways to pay attention to those who are not consuming; they figure out how to compete with 'non-consumption.'
Christensen started a consulting firm Innosite--that works with established companies seeking to defend their core businesses and at the same time foster innovation. From the article: "It's hard to do both," says David Duncan, a senior partner at Innosite..."As successful companies get bigger, their growth trajectories flatten out, and they need to find new ways to expand. But that will look different from what they did in the past. Most are so focused on maintaining their core business that when push comes to shove, the core will almost always kill off the disruptive innovation--the new thing."

How to protect the innovators? Duncan again: "What can work is to separate out the disruptive entity, protect it, and let it operate by a different set of rules than the core business." 1,001 New Worshiping Communities...we hope your are protected and given the latitude by our beloved denomination to operate by a different set of rules.  You have my vote!
A jump to the church is more than obvious.  Disruptive innovators in the church figure out how to bring their Christian message to people who haven't heard about it, without the expensive, difficult process of building church buildings and staffing them with full-time, graduate school trained clergy.
His more recent book, How Will You Measure Your Life?, was the subject of the insert that first piqued my parishioner's curiosity. Christensen is a Mormon and the book describes the intersection of his life's work and his faith. I'm sure that Harvard Magazine had some soul-searching of its own to do in calling attention to Christensen's faith, but kudos to them for taking it seriously.  Christensen can move easily between Latter-Day Saints and the business world, maybe a bit too easily, but his linkages give us food for thought.  Thanks, Bill, for the reference.

State of the Church

John Gibson asked at a Session meeting not too long ago, “Pastor, at the annual meeting are you going to give a ‘state of the church’ address?”  It should not be surprising to me that in this part of the country, where politics and government is the home-town industry, that such a request be made.  After all, briefing books and position papers are as common in this town as Paula Deen’s buttered collard greens and lima beans, and smoked sausage are in Savannah.  Still, it did put me back a bit.  I don’t consider myself an expert on the state of any church, much less Church of the Covenant.  Further still, lack of expertise hasn’t stopped anyone in this town from giving opinions, solicited or not, on any subject from Girl Scouts to guns to Lady Gaga.  So I’ll take up that challenge—at the annual meeting on Sunday, January 27.  See where that leads us.

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.