From the Road

It amazes me that I can be going 70 miles per hour down the highway, watching the snow stream past, and still blogging. But, I suppose, that is the wonder of technology.

I'm on my way back...home? To the place where I now live and work, certainly. But it's too weird to say I'm going home when I'm driving away from the place I called home for more than twenty years. The place I live now should be home, since I've lived there for more than a year, and it's where all of my stuff is, and where my dog is. But when I my family all lives far away, and the holidays are so focused on "family", it's hard to think of my solitary apartment as homey.

I'm going to need to work on home-ifying my apartment before Christmas.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.1

Mind the Gap

Once upon a time I was a regular blogger. Then I became a semi-regular blogger. Then, in the last two months, life got really, really messy. But, I do intend to get back to blogging regularly. I'm even hoping to do something special for Advent again, either through pictures or through a discipline of regular writing.

Now, for an explanation of why I haven't been blogging:
1) I work for a church and, as such, there are a lot of things from my work that I simply cannot talk about. And, lately, almost all of my time and energy has been consumed by work, leaving me with very little that I could, or was willing, to write about here.
2) I've been writing, but by and large it has been stuff that I wouldn't want my bishop to read. And, since this is a public blog, I try not to post things on here that I'd be unwilling to say in front of the bishop. I love you all, but there's no way I'm risking my job just to share my thoughts with you.

The two months since my last post have featured some exciting events, though. I had a birthday, saw some family members, and, probably best of all, went on a fabulous vacation. The trip started in Las Vegas, with a visit to my seminary roommate. I could say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but the truth is, I was remarkably well-behaved during my stay. I didn't pick up any men, I didn't gamble, and I didn't even drink. I did, however, get to see rainbows over the Grand Canyon, explore the Strip at night, see Cirque du Soleil, and take the dam tour at Hoover Dam. The best thing about being in Vegas, though, was getting to catch up with my old roommate, as she is one of the coolest people I know. I then traveled to Long Beach to visit two more friends. We relaxed, had adventures in L.A. and along the Pacific beaches, and spent lots of time laughing and catching up. It was a blessedly relaxing week, and I'm very, VERY glad to have gotten away and had some sabbath time.

Unfortunately, vacation ended and I had to hit the ground running, because Advent is approaching with unexpected speed. So, until I dig up a Delorian with a flux capacitor, it's going to be a rough few weeks. That's all the update I have energy for at the moment, but don't despair! I fully intend to blog more in the next few days.

I Laughed

One of the things I treasure most in life is humor. I love sharing laughter with people. I'm pretty sure that laughter can be part of God's grace, healing us, bringing joy to our souls. I recognize that it can also be dark and harmful, but I'm going to say that dark, harmful humor is a perversion of this good gift (like all evil is, to borrow a definition from a great theologian). And so, on this late evening, I'll share with you some things that have made me laugh over the last few weeks.

My mother always carries large bags. It's probably part of being a mom; she carries a huge bag so that she always has everything anyone might need. I'm convinced that the contents of her purse could keep someone alive for a week if they were stranded on a desert island. But I digress. My mother came to visit me a few weeks ago, and on the night of her arrival I took her to dinner. She offered to pay, then picked up her backpack (an easier carry-on than a purse) and tried to find her billfold. She took out six or eight different items, covering half of our table, before she finally found the billfold. (I was reminded of the scene in Oscar where the title character is taking all of the weapons off one of his henchmen and, after taking a huge pile of things including a mace, a billy club, a small pistol, and brass knuckles from the man, says, "It's like disarming Germany!") Then, once she had located it, she remembered that the card she was going to use to pay for dinner was already in an outside pocket of the bag from when she'd checked in for her flight earlier that day. We laughed for five minutes straight at the huge pile of stuff on the table.

I went to see a movie the other night and overheard the following conversation:
Boy, 11 years old: "There should be a law that action movies aren't allowed to have any kissing. Yuck!"
Girl, 13 years old: "An action movie without kissing would be like trying to eat lunch without a mouth."

I took Charlie to the dog park today. He likes the dog park and enjoys chasing the other dogs around and wrestling with them, and it's great exercise for him. However, my 60-something pound dog is, apparently, very attractive to much smaller dogs. Nearly every time I take him to the dog park, some small dog makes unwelcome advances toward Charlie, and Charlie ends up with a much-smaller dog humping his leg. He doesn't seem to know what to make of this, so instead of fighting the smaller dog off, he usually tries to run away. So, my large dog is frequently chased all around the dog park by strangely-gyrating mini-dogs. This evening, Charlie responded to this behavior by finding a muddy spot near my feet and flopping down in it. So I was forced to give my dirty, stinky dog a bath. Charlie is usually well-behaved about baths, but he still has a bad habit of waiting until he's out of the bathroom to shake all the excess water out of his fur. So, while Charlie smells a bit better after a bath, my entire apartment ends up smelling much, much worse: like wet dog. I'm sure there's a better way of doing this, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is. So I laugh at the water droplets everywhere and take joy in the goofy face Charlie makes when he's all wet.

I got new furniture for my balcony as an early birthday present. It was a pain to put together, but it looks very nice. And as excited as I am to have lovely, cozy new furniture so I can sit on my balcony to enjoy this gorgeous fall weather, I think I'm more excited about the giant cardboard box the furniture came in. I'm planning to make it into a spaceship before it goes to the dumpster. After all, doesn't every twenty-something professional need to make a pretend spaceship now and then?

Wrapped in Community

I spent a good part of this afternoon sorting out prayer shawls to send to the youth from the church I serve who will be starting college this fall. I wrote liturgy and double-checked names because this is an important ministry. Women from the church have spent months making prayer shawls with these particular students in mind. Smooth hands and gnarled hands and able hands and arthritic hands have passed over the yarn and knotted it into patterns, into rectangles that will wrap around the shoulders of our students. We hope that, as they wrap the shawls around them, they'll remember the people from our church who are praying for them, and remember that God is with them even when those people, and all the dear, familiar things they're used to, are not.

Congregation members occasionally inform me that I need a prayer shawl from this church. They say this, not because I appear to be in need of consolation, but because I'm usually wrapped in a blanket when I'm at work. I tend to be cold most of the time and my air conditioned office feels like an icebox to me, so I often throw a blanket around my shoulders while I'm sitting at my computer or going to meetings. But I'm particular about the blanket I use. A prayer shawl from this church would be fine, too, but it doesn't have the same meaning.

The blanket that I keep in my office, that I wear when I'm cold, is one that bears the name of my hometown and the names and pictures of many of its churches. I choose to keep it in my office to remind me that, on the tough days when I'm tired and frustrated and feeling alone, not only is God with me but there are people far away who are wrapping me and my ministry in prayer. The blanket has pictures of the many churches where I attended Vacation Bible School, where I learned memory verses and did crafts and saw the dedication of lay people in helping form the faith of children. It has the names of the churches with whom I went on mission trips, whose volunteers climbed under houses and into ditches alongside me to be examples of servant leadership.

Most of all, the blanket has the name and picture of my home church, the place where I was most formed in the faith. It's the place where I learned hymns and creeds, prayers and theology. It's the place where I discovered the joy of being in mission and experienced what the love in the body of Christ should be like. It wasn't, and isn't, a perfect church. But the people of that congregation did a great job of teaching and shaping me as a person of faith. And though the blanket didn't come from their hands, it reminds me of all the gifts they've given me. That simple blanket provides not only physical warmth, but spiritual reassurance.

I got a Facebook friend request yesterday from one of my childhood Sunday School teachers. I hadn't heard from her in probably a decade, but I was jubilant about the contact. This gives me the opportunity to tell her that all of those Sunday mornings putting up with my know-it-all talking and encouraging me to put characters on the felt board and telling Bible stories really made a difference to me. It's my chance to tell her that she's one of the examples I draw upon when I work with children in my ministry. I doubt that she knew, when she listened to that seven year old girl with dimples talking, that her work would inspire and shape ministry almost twenty years later. But it has.

I wish I could find a way to impress that message upon the people in the church I now serve. But how can I tell them that the way they greet and teach and love the congregation's children today could affect Christ's mission in the world several decades later? How do I help people to see that their work doesn't just enable ministry today and this year, but has an impact for years to come? If that message came through clearly, I think churches might not have quite the problems with recruiting volunteers and leaders that we often face.

Mawaige is What Bwings Us Twogevah Twoday

"Are you happy? Do you have what you want, have you achieved all the goals you had for yourself at 25?"
Bear, one of my male friends from college asked me this question the other day. I paused for a few moments, then said, "For the most part, yes. I have a job that I love. I'm in a place that I like. I have a dog to keep me company. I've got great friends, though I wish some of them lived much closer to me. I've been to lots of interesting places, I've been privileged to go to some great schools. Yes, I'm where I hoped I'd be at this point. There are really only two more things I would like before I turn 30. I want to go to Australia and I want to get married." Then he asked what is perhaps a more interesting question: "Is getting married a goal for you?"

I couldn't really articulate an answer to that question immediately on the phone, and our conversation soon moved to other topics, but it left me pondering. I don't thin of marriage as a goal, exactly, since a goal is often an achievement toward which one works. Marriage isn't an achievement, really, and it's also not something you can really work toward. It's a relationship, carefully built between two people, a covenant and a lifelong commitment, not just a title to attain.

The idea of marriage as a goal is fascinating to me because popular culture often frames marriage as some sort of achievement for women. It's not framed that way for men, really. For men it's a desirable state when you get tired of dating, or perhaps for sex or companionship, but it isn't presented, I don't think, as a social achievement. But for women it's a different game. People speak about "getting your Mrs. degree" as though it's an achievement one acquires through dedication, work, strategy, and a little luck. There are books and magazine articles about how to catch a man, how to "get him to propose", as though if you have the right moves and work hard enough, you can force a relationship, and as though attaining a couple of rings and the privilege of checking "married" boxes on forms is a prize to be won. (Take, for example, the lassoing scenes in The Bachelor... YIKES!)

"But what if I never get married?!"

I can't tell you how many times I've said this or heard friends say it. Ask any single woman over the age of 22 their fears, and this will be among them. It comes up after every friend's wedding, every breakup, every bad date, and every birthday. This flip side of the marriage pressure: the "terror" of singleness. Because, while even pop culture will let you be the happy single girl for a few years, there's a point after which, if you're not married, people assume that there's something wrong with you. Take, for example, Sex and the City. Even in this progressive, VERY sexually liberated plotline, three of the four main characters were married before age 41. Women who remain unmarried are cast as closeted lesbians, crazy cat ladies, or poor, pathetic, awkward spinster aunts. At a certain age (and this age varies based on geographical location), you go from Sex and the City to Nanny McPhee. Quick, try for sixty seconds to name every strong, well-adjusted, never-married female character in your favorite movies and TV shows. Did you come up with any?

I want to be married. Not really because society tells me so, and not really (though slightly, I'll admit) because if I don't get married I'm cast as the freak who escaped from the circus, but because I'm looking for companionship. I want a partner to share my life with, to catch up with at the end of the day, to share the joys and the worries with. It would be nice to come home at the end of a long day and have someone to talk to that doesn't drool on my forearm.

At the same time, I refuse to treat this as a goal. It's not something I can work toward, other than being open to the possibilities of relationships. It's a relationship I hope to share with someone one day, not an achievement to tell society that I'm kind, well-adjusted, and desirable enough to attract a mate. I don't need that validation. Because, while the media really gives me no models for how to live as a happy, normal single woman, I do actually know such women in the real world. I have friends and mentors who are strong, single, and NOT crazy stereotypes. And I thank God for them every single day.

I know that there aren't manners books on how to treat your single friends, and it's easy for folks who have been married for a while to remember what it was like to be single. It's especially hard for people who got married young to understand what it's like for people who are single and older. And the media isn't giving any helpful guidelines, either. So, I offer a few suggestions for how to make life easier for the single folks. (I'm not being sarcastic here, folks. These could actually help you.)

1) For God's sake, stop portraying single women only in stereotypes. There are all sorts of different well-rounded images of people in relationships, different kinds of relationships, etc. Get with the creativity already.

2) Please stop assuming that everything is about/for "families". This is less of an assumption in the wider world, but the church, on the whole, assumes that everyone is somehow part of a locally-centered nuclear family. For example, church meals and potlucks are often REALLY AWKWARD for people who are there by themselves, so please make an effort to be welcoming to the single folks.

3) Unless the person you're asking is a really good friend, don't ask us if we're seeing anyone. If we want to tell you about someone we're dating, we will. If we're not, or are and don't want to talk about it, we won't bring it up and you don't need to either. I've been asked this at work functions, family gatherings, and even job interviews, and it's almost always awkward. One of the worst conversations I've had in several years was on this very topic with someone I'd met the same night. It went like this:
Him: So, are you married?
Me: No.
Him: Engaged?
Me: No.
Him: Dating?
Me: No.
*Long Pause*
Him: Sad?
I wanted to simultaneously slap him on the back of the head and vanish from the spot. Please don't put your single friends in this position. You don't even need to bring it up. There are lots of topics of conversation beyond families: ask about our pets/jobs/hobbies/weekend plans/last vacation/upcoming vacation/book we're reading... You get the picture.

4) Getting married is not the threshold to adulthood. Single adults are not children. Try not to put your unmarried friends or family members at the kids' table or give them the couch because they don't have someone to share the bed with or, worst of all, send their invitations and Christmas cards and things to their parents' address. If the single person has a home of his or her own, he or she deserves an invitation/card of his or her own. We're not eight-year-olds living at home, we're adults with places of our own. It's common courtesy to acknowledge that fact.

5) There is much debate about assurance that someday we, too, will be married. This can be somewhat comforting, insofar as it is an assurance that you, our friend or loved one, don't believe that we are undesirable, unmarryable freaks. And that's important for combatting the accursed views of singleness. On the other hand, it simultaneously upholds those views of singleness as a terrible state from which you hope your friends will be rescued. And what if we don't get married? The vague promises of "someday" stop holding water at a certain point. So, while I don't think such assurances should be outlawed, it pays to think carefully before you use them.

There are, I'm sure, other guidelines and suggestions to consider. At the moment, these are the ones that come to my mind. If you have others, feel free to share them in the comments section.

Falling in Love with God

I was planning to go to bed at a decent hour this evening. I was ready for bed, doing my nightly devotion stuff when I stumbled on the following passage in a sermon by Barbara Brown Taylor in her book Home By Another Way:

"This is not a story about us. This is a story about God, and about God's ability not only to call us but also to create us as people who are able to follow--able to follow because we cannot take our eyes off the one who calls us, because he interests us more than anything else in our lives, because he seems to know what we hunger for and because he seems to be food."

This caught my attention, I think, because earlier this evening I was thinking about my own relationship with God. As I was driving home this evening, enjoying the cool evening air rushing through the open car windows, I decided to put in my old Jars of Clay CD. One of the songs on the album has the refrain, "I want to fall in love with you." I have never been one to "fall in love". I'm very practical and pretty skeptical, and anything as out-of-control emotional as falling in love is a stretch for me. But, as someone who loves God in my own way, I understand the desire to fall in love with God. If I'm going to fall in love with anyone, if I'm going to allow myself to be that out-of-control emotional, it would make sense to fall for the One who is worthy of that love and who can be trusted with my heart. And yet, falling in love has still never been something that I do.

But this Barbara Brown Taylor passage sounded to me like falling in love. Not being able to take our eyes off someone? Being more interested in that someone than in anything else in our lives? BBT is describing Jesus calling the disciples on the seashore, but she could just as easily be describing love at first sight. And there are people who talk about their conversion experience or their first experience of God as being like love at first sight.

I have never been one of those people, perhaps because I feel like I've known God forever. If I had to put my relationship with God into human relationship terms, it would be more like a childhood sweetheart with whom I continue to have a growing relationship. I can't remember a time that I wasn't aware of God in some way. Some of my first memories are of praying before bedtime and meals, of going to Sunday School and church, and of leading worship services for my stuffed animals. God has always been both too familiar and too distant to fall in love with in the way so many people describe. Sure, there have been transformative moments in our relationship, moments when I felt God's presence in new ways or when I made greater commitments to my faith. But I cannot pinpoint a moment of falling in love with God.

Perhaps that's why I love this quote so much. God creates each of us and makes us capable of following--in our own ways. God created me and knows that I'm practical and skeptical. God knows that I live in my head rather than in my heart most of the time. And God made me capable of following in my own way: answering the call to follow with my mind and my feet as much as with my heart. God allowed me to fall head-first and feet-first, not head-over-heels.

I Have Learned

A few days ago, as I was sharing ice cream cake with several coworkers in our lunchroom to celebrate my one-year anniversary at this church, someone asked me to name five things I've learned this year. All at once hundreds of experiences went racing through my mind, moving so fast that I couldn't even distinguish most of them amidst the blur that whipped past my neurons. But, after giving it some thought, I picked out these few:

1) Funerals are harder than I thought, and weddings are easier.
As a bridesmaid, I have learned that weddings are complicated affairs, with tons and tons of details to take care of. But, as a pastor, weddings are relatively easy. In part, that's because weddings have coordinators: people who are in charge of all of the details so that the pastor doesn't have to worry about them. Whereas I have to help facilitate the receptions following memorial services, I have no part in planning wedding receptions. And since we require people to use wedding coordinators, I don't have to worry about the details of the procession or the recession or the flowers or anything else. I get to chill with the groom and groomsmen while someone else takes care of all of the minutiae. Not to mention that, since weddings tend to be occasions for joy and celebration, most of the people there are going to be happy no matter what I do.

Funerals, on the other hand, are tougher than I thought they'd be. Like weddings, most of the liturgy for funerals is provided by the Book of Worship. But funerals almost always involve some sort of sermon that speaks both of God's grace and of the life of the deceased. And sitting with grieving families, seeing the heartbreak in their eyes and hearing their voices crack with emotion as they speak about their loved ones... it breaks my heart even when I've never met the deceased. When the deceased is someone I know, it's even tougher. Trying to hold it together, setting my own grief aside even while watching the tears streaming down the faces of family and friends is one of the hardest things I have to do as a pastor.

2) When you least expect it, when you're at your lowest, God shows up.
I've preached what I thought were my worst sermons so far, but people have approached afterward and talked about how the sermon touched their hearts or spoke to where they are in their lives. On the mornings when I feel most frazzled, when my nerves are at their worst, God sends a bit of peace through the notes of the prelude or a smile from someone in the congregation, and I calm down. And when I'm having a really stressful day and my to-do list is longer than my arm, a text message from a friend or a kind word from a co-worker makes the day seem more manageable.

3) Dr. Frank was right.
Dr. Tom Frank always talked about how a congregation's history becomes a part of its DNA. He explained that you cannot understand a congregation until you know its past, its stories. He said to ask as many questions as you could and to pay attention to what stories they tell and what incidents in their past they refuse to talk about. In my first year in this congregation I have learned that he was absolutely right. Every congregation has tales, things they're proud of, moments that define the personality of the congregation. And every congregation has nightmare stories, its fissures, and the broken places that the congregation still mourns years later. But both the good and bad endure, shaping how the church functions decades later. And thanks to Dr. Frank's wisdom, I watched where I stepped and stayed mostly out of the doghouse.

4) Burnout is serious stuff.
I've only been doing this for a year, and there were still moments when I wasn't sure I could keep up the pace of pastoral ministry. When seminaries and conferences and boards of ordained ministry tell new pastors to take sabbath and keep in touch with clergy colleagues, they are NOT KIDDING. Probably the best advice I got going into ministry, and I heard it in all sorts of places, is to draw boundaries, to maintain them, and to actually take your sabbath. When I don't take enough time away to read, study, and be around other people, I don't have the energy to write good liturgy, the presence of mind to provide good pastoral care, or the creativity to preach good sermons. I lose my perspective and start to think that what I do is about me. But when I get away from it, I remember that it's about God, and as much as my effort helps, it was never about what I could do. I couldn't have gotten through this year without drawing some intentional boundaries, taking some time away, and having the help and good counsel of friends in ministry.

5) I was better prepared than I thought.
I knew that I had gone to one of the best theology schools in the country. I knew that, academically, I was very well prepared for ministry. But my practical experience was limited. I had preached fewer than ten sermons before I started in full-time ministry. I had only been to a few weddings and had never actually attended a funeral service. But I discovered, once I got into the church, that I was better prepared than I knew. My coursework prepared me well to teach classes, design and lead worship, and preach. My experiences through Contextual Education gave me really good preparation for leading committee meetings and overseeing administrative details. Plus, my travels and other work experiences gave me much better preparation than I realized. Who knew that being a radio DJ and doing home repair would give me skills I'd use in the church? It seems that God was working ahead of me in ways that I could not have foreseen or understood at the time. Oh, how I love prevenient grace!