Mono No Aware

The concept of mono no aware suggests an awareness of the impermanent nature of everything.  Generally translated as "the pathos of things," this awareness intensifies the appreciation of beauty, and evokes a poignant acceptance at its passing.  Unlike Western ideals of beauty - primarily based on a external perfection - in Japanese culture, beauty seems to be embraced in a more subjective fashion; as an experience of the heart and soul, not merely the fives senses. 

With mono no aware, the ground strewn with fallen sakura petals is just as beautiful - or perhaps more so - than the fresh young blossoms clinging to the trees.   And, because everything is impermanent, getting attached to things can lead us to suffering (at least according to the Buddha, who, I think, nails it here).  It's not just a "stop and smell the roses" philosophy, but a "stop and smell the roses and sadly rejoice in their inevitable passing as a proof of this truth" philosophy.

On Sunday I took my daughter and a few of her friends to Sakura Sunday in Fairmount Park.   The weather was perfect and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.  The kids had a great time watching the Taiko drummers, cosplaying, checking out all things Japanese and, most especially, enjoying being together outside of the school building.  It was a pretty good day.

But, as I consider this Sunday, and the previous years' festivals we attended, I can't help but think of how things pass so quickly when the kids are still kids.  Even though this was only the third Sakura Sunday we've attended, I can see how they are all changing, growing older (though, thankfully, not growing up too fast).  Soon enough I'll be completely extraneous. 

So, for now I'm going with mono no aware and reminding myself to appreciate the fleeting beauty in all things - the cherry blossoms, the seasons, and my teenage daughter's need for her mother.

The Idolatry of Fellowship

Lenten Learning 3: Sometimes I think I go to church more to see other people than to worship God.

I don't really have anything deep or pithy to say about it. It's just that, over Lent, I realized that I do this a lot. To the extent that I can't tell where one ends and the other begins

And because I can't always tell the difference between worship and fellowship, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Like I'm putting being with them before God; that I don't believe He's enough. I don't know what to do about it. Part of me thinks I need to walk away from my church until I can guarantee that my focus and priorities are straight.

But when I look for advice, I don't always find the derision I expected:

"I vividly remember how I had, at one time, become totally dependent on the affection and friendship of one person. This dependency threw me into a pit of great anguish and brought me to the verge of a very self-destructive depression. But from the moment I was helped to experience my interpersonal addiction as an expression of a need for total surrender to a living God who would fulfil the deepest desires of my heart, I started to live my dependency in a radically new way. Instead of living it in shame and embarrassment, I was able to live it as an urgent invitation to claim God's unconditional love for myself, a love I can depend on without any fear." -- Henri Nouwen

"When I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and wouldn't go to the churches and Gospel Halls;.... I disliked very much their hymns which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit." -- C. S. Lewis

"Some Christians try to go to heaven alone, in solitude. But believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone. Those who belong to Christ are sheep in this respect, that they love to get together. Sheep go in flocks, and so do God's people". -- Charles Spurgeon

The best I can do is try to be honest about it, with myself and with God, until I decide how to handle it.

The Heart in (Accidental) Pilgrimage

"Everybody prays whether he thinks of it as praying or not. The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad. The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when a sky-rocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with all over your life. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to yourself but to something even more familiar than yourself and even more strange than the world.

According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it. The images he uses to explain this are all rather comic, as though he thought it was rather comic to have to explain it at all. He says God is like a friend you go to borrow bread from at midnight. The friend tells you in effect to drop dead, but you go on knocking anyway until finally he gives you what you want so he can go back to bed again (Luke 11:5-8). Or God is like a crooked judge who refuses to hear the case of a certain poor widow, presumably because he knows there's nothing much in it for him. But she keeps on hounding him until finally he hears her case just to get her out of his hair (Luke 18:1-8). Even a stinker, Jesus says, won't give his own child a black eye when he asks for peanut butter and jelly, so how all the more will God when his children... (Matthew 7:9-11).

Be importunate, Jesus says—not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God's door before he'll open it, but because until you beat the path maybe there's no way of getting to your door. "Ravish my heart," John Donne wrote. But God will not usually ravish. He will only court." Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

Lenten Learning 2:  I spend a whole lot of time talking to myself (and maybe to God).

As I tried to pay more attention to my actions over Lent (and, apparently, overdosing on Frederick Buechner), I noticed that I spent a lot of time in my own head.  Mostly holding one-sided conversations, as opposed to actually thinking, heaven forbid.  Is this a bad thing?  Maybe not.  Maybe a little.

Worrying, wondering, speculating, planning.  Deep ideas and dull ones. Sporadic and often disparate thoughts. Occasionally, actual prayers. Often the same ones over and over. Pretty standard fare, right? Just an awkward protagonist delivering a semi-conscious internal monologue. My soul in paraphrase.

But, regardless of what I'm saying or how much sense it makes, regardless of whether it's stream of consciousness stuff, or structured, whether they're introspective or just crazy, it seems all that 'talking' can also be prayer.  I think God knows what's meant for Him.  

Bottom line - I think it's ok to spend this internal inadvertently-sacred time, as long as I start talking to real live people, too.

April (May, June, July...) Fool

“The life that I touch for good or ill will touches another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt.  Our lives are linked together.  No man is an island.

But there is another truth, the sister of this one, and it is that every man is an island.  It is a truth that often the tolling of a silence reveals even more vividly than the tolling of a bell.  We sit in silence with one another, each of us more or less reluctant to speak, for fear that if he does, he may sound like a fool.  And beneath that there is of course the deeper fear, which is really a fear of the self rather than of the other, that maybe truth of it is that, indeed, he is a fool.  The fear that the self that he reveals by speaking may be a self that the others will reject just as in a way he has himself rejected it.  So either we do not speak, or we speak not to reveal who we are but to conceal who we are, because words can be used either way, of course.  Instead of showing ourselves as we truly are, we show ourselves as we believe others want us to be.  We wear masks, and with practice we do it better and better, and they serve us well – except that it gets very lonely inside the mask, because inside the mask that each of us wears there is a person who both longs to be known and fears to be known.  In this sense every man is an island separated from every other man by fathoms of distrust and duplicity.  Part of what it means to be is to be you and not me, between us the sea that we can never entirely cross even when we would.  “My brethren are wholly estranged from me,” Job cries out.  “I have become an alien in their eyes.”

The paradox is that part of what binds us closest together as human beings and makes it true that no man is an island is the knowledge that in another way every man is an island.  Because to know this is to know that not only deep in you is there a self that longs above all to be known and accepted, but that there is also such a self in me, in everyone else the world over.  So when we meet as strangers, when even friends look like strangers, it is good to remember that we need each other greatly you and I, more than much of the time we dare to imagine, more than more of the time we dare to admit.

Island calls to island across the silence, and once, in trust, the real words come, a bridge is built and love is done – not sentimental, emotional love, but love that is pontifex, bridge-builder.  Love that speaks the holy and healing word which is:  God be with you, stranger who are no stranger.  I wish you well.  The islands become an archipelago, a continent, become a kingdom whose name is the Kingdom of God.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark

I'm baaaaaaack.   I took an unplanned, self-inflicted break from blogging over Lent - did you miss me?  Over the next couple of days, you'll have to listen to I plan to tell you about what I learned over the last 40+ days. I've had plenty of time to think about stuff.

Today's learning, advantageously, coincides with the date.

Learning One:  My fear of looking like a fool trumps my ability to move mountains.

Thinking about relationships (work and personal, real and imagined) in retrospect, I've identified instances where I either did or said something which masked the way I actually felt.  Not lying, really.  Mostly just non sequiters, adianoeta, phrases turned which please the listener, but still convey truth when looked at sideways.  I wasn't dishonest, you just interpreted me incorrectly.

Why do I do that?  Well, simply put, I want to protect whatever I believe the relationship's status quo is.  Even if it's a crappy status quo, it's the devil I know.  And I want to be the me that I think you'd like.  It's incredibly difficult for me to take the chance of being completely honest with every man, woman or child.  I don't know any human who can manage that. 

I can save face for a while; ultimately I'll end up more and more detached from myself and others. In keeping with the landmass analogy, I break off and do a little continental drifting. 

I know someone who seems kind of like this   The self they've created is quite honorable:  intelligent, well-spoken, sincere, compassionate, able to cut to the heart of matters. But behind that, I sense a sort of detachment; not an insincere one, but an unconscious indifference created more through habit.  I don't know.  It kind of makes me sad.  Like there's a personal fortress of solitude. Or maybe it's just my imagination.

ANYWAY.  The bottom line is, even though I keep getting the word that I can, in fact, move mountains (enough, already), the leap of faith from private island to archipelago is pretty damn scary. 

I might take that chance if I knew for sure that you were a fool, too.

Raca

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.”

― C.G. Jung

I'm feeling pretty guilty about not being here as much as I want to be, and about letting work have more say in my life than it ought to. 

Lately it seems like I have a lot of "obligations" that are getting in the way.  When I consider them, I see that it isn't so much that they are obstructing anything, but more that I'm giving them free rein and being lazy about controlling them.  Because of my lack of discipline, the first thing that suffers is my God time; the second my sabbath observance.  I have fleeting pangs about it and quickly throw myself into other mindless tasks.

What's worse is, normally, Lent is usually so much more meaningful, more contemplative for me.  But this year, I really haven't given it a chance to sink in.  Maybe it's work.  Maybe it's the ankle.  Maybe it's just me looking for excuses (or absolution).  Plus, I had Burger King on Sunday and stayed up past 11:00 on at least two work nights (unless they don't count because I did actually fall asleep in front of the laptop and woke up a couple hours later to turn everything off).  So I've blown both of my goals and need to pick up the pieces and try again.

So, tomorrow evening's study examining forgiveness in view of the cross, should be interesting. 

I know that I, like Christ from the cross, must forgive the others who hurt me; who know not what they do.  I hope that I can find a way to come to grips with how to forgive myself; who knows all too well what she does.

Traveling Mercies

This week, some friends from my church family are in Ghana helping with the building of a children's hospital in Berekum.  So their comfort and safety is heavy on my mind. 

The traveling mercy prayers I say are meant to ask God to watch over my loved ones while we are apart, but, in reality, it's the work of earthly citizens to make sure they are welcomed, safe, and protected; treated with grace, kindness and hospitality.  I worry and pray that these citizens are doing that job well. 

But what about the rest of us?  Clichéd as this sounds, we are, all of us, travelers.  Moving like transients through this world; whether walking around our hometowns or on a mission trip halfway around the world. 

It's our job as stewards of God's love and compassion to make sure that all travelers in our midst are also welcomed, safe and protected, whether they are from another continent, from another country, or from within a 5-mile radius.  Whether they are visiting dignitaries, or, simply, faces we don't recognize sitting three pews over.

"Continue to love each other like brothers, and remember always to welcome strangers, for by doing this, some people have entertained angels without knowing it."

Forever I will move like the world that turns beneath me
And when I lose my direction I'll look up to the sky
And when the black cloak drags upon the ground
I'll be ready to surrender, and remember
Well we're all in this together
If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die

Loving Your Neighbor: You're Doing It Right

Broke my ankle Friday.  Thought it was just a bad sprain, but no.   It was actually a revelation about my church family.

Thank you.

For the help bringing my bags in.

For the late night ice pack.

For the shared Advil.

For the distraction of board games.

For the annoying prods to go to the hospital.

For the offer of grocery shopping.

For the casserole.

For the kind words and prayers.

"The ultimate perfection of the contemplative life is not a heaven of separate individuals, each one viewing his own private intuition of God; it is a sea of Love which flows through the One Body of all the elect, all the angels and saints, and their contemplation would be incomplete if it were not shared, or if it were shared with fewer souls, or with spirits capable of less vision and less joy."
--Thomas Merton

Waiting to Dance

On days like this, I don't read magazines to learn how to make heart-shaped cupcakes, or set the perfect romantic mood.

On days like this, I avoid the guy in the train station concourse hawking buckets full of flowers .

On days like this, I wonder about next year.

On days like this, the Void flexes its muscles.

On days like this, I strain to hear the music and wait for God to ask me to dance.

Oh, play me a blues song and fade down the light
I'm sad as a proud man can be sad tonight
Just let me dream on, oh, just let me sway
While the sweet violins and the saxophones play

And Miss, you don't know me but can't we pretend
That we care for each other till the band reach the end?

One step for aching and two steps for breaking
Waltzing's for dreamers and losers in love
One step for sighing, two steps for crying
Waltzing's for dreamers and losers in love

Now, they say love's for gamblers, the pendulum swings
I bet hard on love and I lost everything
So, don't send me home, now, put a shot in my arm
And we'll drink out old memories and we'll drink in the dawn

And Mr. Bandleader, won't you play one more time?
For I've good folding money in this pocket of mine

Oh, one step for aching, two steps for breaking
Waltzing's for dreamers and losers in love
One step for sighing, two steps for crying
Waltzing's for dreamers and losers in love

Miss, you don't know me but can't we pretend
That we care for each other till the band reach the end?

Oh, one step for aching, two steps for breaking
Waltzing's for dreamers and losers in love
One step for sighing, two steps for crying
Waltzing's for dreamers and losers in love

Waltzing's for dreamers and losers in love

Lent

For Lent this year I've decided to give up two things and take on one.

First, I'm giving up McDonald's.  Well, all fast food really.  Anything that has a drive-through window is out of the question for the next several weeks.  This may seem like an easy one to you, but as a lazy person single mom, I rely on this way too much.  Plus it's been my go-to dinner after Bible study on Wednesday nights. 

Next I think I'm going to give up staying up late on weeknights.  There's really no good reason to be up past 11 on a work night.  I may have to find a way to fight through insomnia's grip (no, not going to medicate....yet) until I get there.  But the intent still stands; lights out, TV and laptop off by 11.

Now for the taking on.  I actually wasn't thinking of taking anything on until church tonight when the pastor mentioned it as an option.  There's a bunch of things that would make sense to add to my days - devotions, reading my Bible, prayer, contemplative time - I don't know.  These are all great and necessary things.  But I kind of already do them, so I was afraid they'd fall into the realm of counterfeit (see yesterday's post). 

So for Lent, I'm taking on sin. 

I'm not going to try to completely eliminate it; as if that's even possible.  The more I pretend that it doesn't exist, the more insidious and powerful it becomes.  No -  I'm going to sin boldly.  I'm going to embrace it.  But I'm going to look my deficient character in the eye and own my transgressions instead of ignoring them or making excuses for them.  Perhaps, after 40 days of that, I will have the upper hand and.be prepared to rejoice more boldly on Easter.

 

Five Things That Don't Work For Lent

These are merely my opinion, so they might not apply to you, dear reader.

1)  Thinking I'm proving something to God - I don't think that He is looking for me to prove to Him that I can go five and a half weeks without a Diet Coke.

2)  Messing up and then quitting - God is a god of do-overs.  If I slip up, there's no reason I shouldn't repent and start again.  If I can't do that over Lent, how could I expect to do that in "real life"?

3)  Switching midstream - I'll admit it.  There have been years where I picked something to give up and after a week or two, I switched to something 'easier'.  Lame.  Lent should be a time for the broken me to become stronger.

4)  Not filling the new void with Christ - Do I give up a favorite food, but not feed others?  Give up TV time to pursue just another mindless activity?

5)  Counterfeit sacrifice - Been there.  This is like being so busy that you've had to skip a couple meals and then turning around and calling it fasting.  Or spending your precious Saturday mornings helping at a soup kitchen and resenting it all the while.  Or adopting pseudo-asceticism based on self-loathing.  It would be better for my soul to honestly give nothing up at all.

Anyway, I have no idea what I'm going to do.  I'm hopeful it will come to me at Ash Wednesday service tomorrow evening.

Stewardship of Miracles

Working on my prayer life again.  Focused mostly on end-of-day thank yous, pre-meal graces and after-the-school-bus-pick-up take care of hers.  Haven't really started back in with the selfish-y prayers yet.  It's just a matter of time, though.  Ok, ok, I've talked to God about 'me' things, but I haven't outright asked Him for anything.  Well, not anything big.  Yikes.

Today on the way home from work I was stuck sitting in traffic and started thinking (always questionable) about miracles and prayers in general.  Sort of looking for what they have in common, what's different; why they often don't seem to be answered.

My general hypothesis (if my pastor is reading this - please avert your eyes), is that maybe answered prayers, or things we may consider to be miracles, can begin only when human intervention is exhausted.  Just speaking for myself, and based on a brief review of some of the things I've asked most frequently for God to perform for me , there is probably only a small portion of those requests for a miracle that is something that would actually only occur by divine intervention. 

If I break down a petition to its individual components, all but perhaps the very last bit could probably be accomplished, for all intents and purposes, without God - mostly by myself, but sometimes by or through others.  In retrospect, there's a bunch of things I've asked for that really don't need His intercession at all - so in essence, I've been praying for short-cuts; for God to support my sloth.  He's not going to clean my house, or hand me a social life, or put my script in another's head, or pay my bills.  I really need to be more discerning and thoughtful in what I think I need.  Looks I have some work to do.

No wonder my answered prayer jar is still empty. 

The other bottom line is this - if we can be brave enough to share our prayers for the everyday miracles, we should be able to help each other get closer to their fulfillment.

Sacred Times

If you have read anything here in the last few weeks, you'll know that I've been annoyed by trying to 'hear' God. His silence - or, more, my inability to sit and listen - has left me more than a little frustrated. To the point of believing that He's nowhere around. Nothing had happened to cause me to feel like that - no trauma or crisis or anything.

Well, I didn't know what to do, so I was talking with a friend this weekend about it (sacred time right there), and he suggested that maybe I was actually too close (I'm paraphrasing). Well the truth is, I haven't been willing to wait and listen in silence.

Here's some things I've been trying to get in the right state of mind - maybe something here will work for me. Or you. Even if it doesn't, these don't hurt.

My journal - well the blog, at least. Whether I'm able to write something or not, I sit with my laptop and think about the day, about God

Examen - sometimes this comes naturally from the journaling

Reading - pretty straight-forward. Different translations of the Bible; books of poetry; other blogs

Meditating - sometimes this looks an awful lot like a nap

Music - usually classical, depending on my mental state and mood. If it's really bad, bluegrass

Prayer - obvious, but not always easy.

What has struck me since that conversation is the realization that I didn't hear Him before I went down this path either. He was just as silent before, and I didn't have any problem believing. I'm going to keep waiting for a whisper, an embrace, a shout, a call, a vision, a dream, a push.

Maybe the best thing for me to do is to stop trying so hard.

It's Alright (Eventually?)

Haven't been here in a while.  Well, no.  Not true.  I come here every night to sit and think.  It's just been tough finding something to say.  Lately things haven't been going so well. 

One of the blades of the ceiling fan fell off.  Just fell off.  So that's a goner.

The dishwasher installer guys broke my sink and counter top and I've been waiting to hear from their insurance company about sending an adjuster.  So I remain without a working sink and dishwasher.  Well, I do use the sink to wash the dishes, but I have to keep an eye on the bucket under the drain.  I don't know how long I will try to hold out waiting for the insurance guy to call - I'm afraid to get it fixed for fear it will interfere with getting the claim to go through successfully.  And I hope the guys won't do anything with my credit card number.

Upstairs toilet is now officially broken, I guess.  It kept overflowing (pouring through the floor to the room below it) and now it won't stop running at all.  So the water's off in the house except for short, coordinated bursts of cleansing activities.

I have mice.  And squirrels. Noisy insomniac rodents.

Stuff hit the fan big time for me at work.  This week I'm in a "lock down" trying to figure out how to save my project.  I have until next week to figure it out.  It's pretty uncomfortable, to say the least.

There are two much-too-personal things that have gone south over the last two weeks as well.  I won't be sharing those.

I know I shouldn't complain, but that knowledge no longer stops me.  I suppose the good news is that none of these things is a matter of heaven or hell; I'm not sure that makes it any easier. 

Tonight, it's raining like mad.  I really hope that the roof holds up.  If that breaks, I think I will, too.

I sure could use a lullaby.

In Plain Sight

“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie extoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except me.” ― Ralph Ellison

Of all my powers, invisibility is by far my least favorite. You may think it would be cool to be able to sneak into a movie, or slink around and spy on people and listen to their conversations.  In reality, it's just not all it's cracked up to be.  The most annoying thing about it is that it's hard to control.  It almost seems random - sometimes when I try to activate it, it doesn't work at all.  Sometimes I can only invoke a sort of partial cloaking device.  Then sometimes it's triggered without me even knowing it, and at the least desirable times.  Perhaps I just need more practice with it.

It's a great, or, dare I say, a necessary attribute for God.  But, when push comes to shove, I'm pretty sure I'd rather be seen.

Just a thought; that's all.   

Here and Heaven

I just want to say that I know that my posts aren't always (at all) theologically correct or edifying.

I know they aren't a reflection of a victorious Christian life.

I know they aren't particularly inspirational.

I know they probably aren't moving anyone to be a better steward of anything.

But I do know that, whether or not I say anything meaningful here, whether or not there will ever be more than a handful of folks who even read this blog, this effort forces me to confront my faith; to face God purposefully every day; to consider my existence and heaven; to spend sacred time inadvertently.

With a hammer and nails and a fear of failure we are building a shed
Between here and heaven between the wait and the wedding
for as long as we both shall be dead to the world beyond the boys and the girls trying to keep us calm
We can practice our lines 'til we're deaf and blind to ourselves to each other where it's
Fall not winter spring not summer cool not cold
And it's warm not hot have we all forgotten that we're getting old.

 

Comeuppance

"The retribution of God from heaven is being revealed against the ungodliness and injustice of human beings who in their injustice hold back the truth. For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God has made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind's understanding of created things. And so these people have no excuse. They knew God and yet they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but their arguments became futile and their uncomprehending minds were darkened." (Rom 1:18-22)

So what, exactly can be known about God?  What is plain to everyone?  Nature and its radical design?  In another translation it's "eternal power and divine nature" as seen in creation - as if that's easy to nail down.  (I like that my translation states that invisible existence is clearly seen - intentional wordplay?) 

Regardless, I was concerned as I read this text, in light of being in one of my periodic bouts of pseudo-agnosticism.  Am I one of the ungodly and unjust?  I figured I'd better check it out. 

While one definition of ungodliness indicates atheism, I prefer an interpretation I saw somewhere over the last few hours (*insert plagiarism disclaimer here*), that being ungodly doesn't necessarily mean you believe that God doesn't exist, just that you act like He doesn't. 

So, injustice - or unrighteousness - going against the virtue of justice, denying another's right relationship with God.  Could this also be knowingly withholding the Gospel from others?   Depriving another's right to that knowledge?  And, while I don't think I'm prohibiting the good news from getting out there, is my reticence, my laziness in stewardship of the Word, in some way an accessory to the crime?  Is that even possible if all of God's glory is plain to see?

In my struggle with secular attitude, am I actually courting God's wrath?  Or must I have to be purposely hurtful in withholding the truth, as opposed to accidentally ignorant of the impact of my words or works, to garner the comeuppance?  And did I now just become aware of that ignorance? 

Too many questions.  Damn.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh)

Bftsplk

Horrid bad interesting last few days.

First, all hell broke loose on a project I've been working on at the office for the last three years.  Not good.  Not good at all.  Seriously.

Then the dishwasher guy finally showed up last evening and ended up breaking my counter top and the pipe under the sink.  So not only can I not use the new dishwasher, I can't even use the sink.  Well, unless I put a bucket under it and monitor it.

Tonight, the upstairs toilet overflowed all over the floor, rugs and, ultimately, poured out through the fan vent in the downstairs powder room.  And all of the towels are in the wash because I had to use them last night to mop up under the sink.

It's times like this when I feel like I'm cursed.  It's times like this when I wish prayer worked better.

It's not as though I expect that God is going to bother intervening at work, or to stop the toilet from running or any number of mundane, everyday things.  But I really wish he would.  Although as I think about it, how selfish would that be - to use up my prayers on stupid junk like that when there is so much wrong in the world; so many sick people; so many actual problems.

I know that things could get worse.  I just really hope they don't.


"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God."

Betting on Faith

Lately, I've found myself avoiding my sacred time (specifically the praying piece). Frankly, it's more than avoiding it, I've actually stopped myself from praying - particularly for small things like when I left my wallet at work. And when I couldn't find my black turtleneck. But also about bigger stuff, like my job, the future - - it's been a rough couple of days.

I know that sounds weird. To profess to be a Christian and eschew prayer.

Well, this evening, I decided that, whether or not they 'work', I miss praying. Or I miss having someone to talk to about the things I care or worry about. It's hard to maintain a reality where you have to be completely on your own, without God's help. I'm taking Pascal's wager.

So I saw this thing on a UMC GBOD website - This weekend, I'm going to dig out a couple of small Mason jars and I'm going to set up a prayer station (maybe next to the tzedakah box). Nothing fancy. One will be for prayer requests. I'll put dated slips of paper in it with meaningful requests written on them. Not the oh-my-lord-where-are-my-keys kinda requests. Requests of some consequence. And I will pray about them each day.

After about a month, I'll take the slips out and read them again, and think about whether the prayer was answered or not. If it was, the slip'll go in the second "answered prayers" jar. The rest will go back in the first jar to be prayed about for another month.

I still won't know if the answered prayers are simply coincidences or for real. But, in faith, I believe the task will change the pray-er.

I love the Lord, because he has heard
     my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
     therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

Heresy

Did you ever wonder if God still exists? 

How He could possibly (or why He would bother to) listen to us individually? 

If prayers are really just a fat waste of time? 

That maybe He skipped town for another planet after the late 1st century?

That it just doesn't matter?



Yeah....  Me neither.

Waste Not. Or At Least Less.

"Simplicity of living, if deliberately chosen, implies a compassionate approach to life.  It means that we are choosing to live our daily lives with some degree of conscious appreciation of the condition of the rest of the world."  Duane Elgin

Just an update on the sacred space goal - the dishwasher guy did show up on Saturday (although he called from in front of the house as opposed to the 30-minute heads up that I was told would occur).  Anyway, long story short, the new dishwasher stuff  doesn't go with the existing water hose/pipe/set-up (sorry to be technical) so another $190 and, oh, by the way, we don't have that part on the truck.  So I'll have to sit home next Saturday and wait again.  I hope this dishwasher is worth it. 

I will tell you that over the last few months, doing the dishes has become my least favorite chore.  However, I do realize that using paper plates all the time isn't so good for the earth.  So, as indolent as I am, I need to suck it up and do the dishes. 

I'm also trying to start the reduce/reuse/recycle thing.  I am awful at this. I need to stop using the disposable stuff.  Outside of the office and my one friend's house, I really do not recycle my cans and bottles.  I think the only thing I actively reuse is grocery bags.  I don't even reuse leftovers.  Well, not very often, anyway.  My only saving grace in this area is that I keep the heat in the house pretty low (just ask my daughter).  Oh, and I do laundry with cold water.  And take the train to work.  And I pick up litter.  Those are good, right?

The problem is that, while my waste may make things more convenient for me, I'm living like I have no responsibility to be a caretaker of the planet (garden, if you will).  I don't always appreciate that there are others who need, or will need, the resources I am so frivolous with.   I doubt that I will ever be a full-fledged tree-hugger (is that bad to admit?) but I need to be looking for ways to get better at this during the year.  I don't want my great-great-grandkids' to live with my legacy of lazy disregard.

Afraid of the Dark

I don't do so well in the night anymore. And, lately, I've been waking up in the wee hours of the morning crippled with troubling thoughts; a sense of foreboding. I thought that clearing things out physically would make me more calm, but it seems to be having the opposite effect. At least that's what I'm chalking it up to. Maybe it's something I ate.

While I don't know the source of this annoying new development, I do know that it's frightening and it makes me not want to go to sleep. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts. I'm still going to move forward with my original plans.  I think my best bet is to keep on keeping busy as much as possible.  To that end, I was reading this afternoon; this psalm from Thomas Merton captures the feelings a little.

I have prayed to You in the daytime with thoughts and reasons,
and in the nighttime You have confronted me,
scattering thought and reason.

I have come to You in the morning with light and with desire,
and You have descended upon me, with great gentleness,
with most forbearing silence, in this inexplicable night,
dispersing light, defeating all desire.

I have explained to You a hundred times my motives
You have listened and said nothing,
and I have turned away and wept with shame.

Is it true that all my motives have meant nothing?
Is it true that all my desires were an illusion?

While I am asking questions which You do not answer,
You ask me a question which is so simple that I cannot answer.

I do not even understand the question.
This night and every night, it is the same question.

This nearness to You in the darkness is too simple and too close for excitement.
Your reality, O God, speaks to my life as to an intimate, in the midst of a crowd of fictions:
Lord, God, the whole world tonight seems to be made out of paper.
The most substantial things are ready to crumble or tear apart and blow away.

The Tyranny of Independence...

...and the Stewardship of Humanness

Several months ago, maybe even a year or longer, I recall having a casual conversation with some female friends - a mix of married and single women.  I'm not sure how it came up, but we got onto the topic of relationships.  More than one woman made a comment similar to - and I'm paraphrasing - you have to love yourself and be content with your own life before you can be in a relationship.

I get the concept - you shouldn't be reliant on another person for your happiness.  I get that the dependence is unhealthy.  I get that you need to have an actual personality and existence and not use other people as an emotional crutch.

I do that I feel that society may have taken this too far.  You're expected to be so independent, so self-assured that no one could ever even conceive that you need anything but yourself.  How realistic is that?  

I'm gonna just say it:  in relationships (including friendships), and life in general, I need things.  I need other people.  I need to feel important to them.  I need to feel needed.  And I need to be able to be vulnerable.  But these things don't make me "needy," for crying out loud.

I am getting a little tired of overcompensating, however.  It's demanding trying to appear strong and in control, busy and fulfilled all the time.  Sometimes I don't even let myself make eye contact.  I probably come across as cold or antisocial.  I'm anxious about showing any deficiency; afraid that this all-too-human condition will come across as pathetic.  So it's better to appear overly independent.  That way no one will be squeamish about my weaknesses.

The problem is I don't think complete self-reliance works very well in relationships.  And denying feelings, well, I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty damn sure it's not good for me, even if it could be sustained.  At some point, I'll become a sociopath crazy cat lady hermit (hey wait a minute!).  There has to be some kind of balance.  I need to follow a personal Golden Rule - treat myself and my humanness with the respect I want from others.

God made us human, with needs and feelings and gaps and brokenness.  And He made us to be with Him and with each other.  Being with each other in Christ means loving one another, and that can be painful and risky.  But, at the very least, our relationships must be honest.  Letting others know that you have feelings and that you are, indeed, human isn't really a bad thing.  I don't have to let everybody know everything, but why can't I just be genuine, accept myself and have others accept me as well?  I promise to reciprocate.

 

Shifting Gears and Juggling Eggs

Inspired by something as innocuous as before and after photos of a bookshelf, I've just decided that, while I remain spiritually bogged down, I'm going to try and ignore that facet of my life for a while.  I'm going to get back to making changes around the house and start working towards those original goals.

This Saturday, our new dishwasher (!!) arrives, so Friday night, the focus will be on the kitchen - making sure the installer has enough elbow room.  That really shouldn't be an issue.  Much of the kitchen was purged weeks ago.  I do, however, have some big items  that have to go - specifically an electric deep-fryer (what exactly was I thinking?) and an inherited toaster oven - although I could make a case for that staying...if I could figure out counter space.   Maybe I need to find an off-season spot for the stand mixer...but I digress.

Then I figure I'll move to the living room and start packing up stuff there.  I'm hoping I can get the vacuum to start sucking again. Bags will go to charity.  And, depending on how far I get, I may even price out some carpeting on Sunday.

Then I'll start organizing my books, movies, and CDs.

Anyway, my ulterior motive is to keep juggling enough stuff that I don't have time to get agitated about my "relationship" with God.  I'm not going to think about it at all.  I'll make my space, but it may not be too sacred right away.

If He wants to tell me something, He's going to have to say it pretty loudly.

.

No Good Title

Tonight, I'm feeling sad and disheartened and I don't know exactly why.  It may get worse before it gets better. There are a few things on my mind - disappointments, failures.  Maybe they're ganging up on me.   Or it might be just a continuation of my latest spiritual atrophy.   Kinda like a transcendental flu.  I guess I have to just let it run it's course, or choke down the bitter pill. 

It's ok, though.  I don't think I'm contagious. 

Don't

Surrender

Your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more

Deep.

Let it ferment and season you

As few human

Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight

Has made my eyes so soft,

My voice so

Tender,

My need of God

Absolutely

Clear.



Vox Dei

Ok, this is getting kind of creepy.  Last several days I've been thinking/writing/complaining about hearing from God. Or actually not hearing from God, to be more precise.

Today, I'm still feeling spiritually dried up; trying to figure out what I wanted to write here.  So for lack of a better idea, I Googled "today's lectionary" and the first site I looked at cited Psalm 29 as one of the readings for this week:

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
   the God of glory thunders,
   the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
   the voice of the Lord is majestic.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
   the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
   Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord strikes
   with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
   the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
   and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

What the heck.

The more metaphysical of you might proffer that God is trying to tell me something through this.  That I'm not being open and receptive.  But I'm not buying it.  There's nothing here that smacks of anything more than coincidence. 

Right?

I'm not sure why I'm so anxious to hear from Him anyway. 

Maybe I'm looking for validation that He's there. 

Maybe I'm looking for a reason to keep believing. 

Maybe I'm waiting for Him to answer me when I talk to Him. 

Maybe I need the green light on this stewardship discipline thing.

Maybe it's all that and something more?

While others are content, assured, and hearing God through more subtle, metaphorical ways - a bird, a song, a sermon, the thunder and lightning - I'm feeling a need for something more concrete.  More than a little audacious, I know. 

It'd even be ok if He spoke to someone else and I just overheard it - that way I could recognize His voice if I ever were to hear it again.  Frankly, I think even if I did hear Him speak, I'd misunderstand anyway.  And if He told me to do something, I'd either screw it up royally, totally blow it off, or argue with Him about why I can't do it.

Perhaps, when I get my life more balanced, I will have enough quiet space that He can fill.  I'm trying to make space now, but I'm having trouble shutting the doubt and the other voices off.  There's a lot swirling around.  He may very well be talking, but I may not really be listening.  I'm pretty sure He'll forgive me for that...

I believe; help my unbelief!

 

Waiting for the Fire

Frustrated lately.  Borderline choleric.  Going through one of my periodic existential crises.  Reading this bit from Buechner on Exodus 3:1-6 stirred things up for me tonight.  How I would love for this to happen (at least I think I would).  For the time being, I'm a bit too impatient to keep my eyes and ears open to try and experience the madness for myself.

"Like Moses we come here as we are, and like him we come as strangers and exiles in our way, because wherever it is that we truly belong, whatever it is that is truly home for us, we know in our hearts that we have somehow lost it and gotten lost.  Something is missing from our lives that we cannot even name -- something we know best from the empty place inside us all where it belongs. We come here to find what we have lost.  We come here to acknowledge that in terms of the best we could be we are lost and that we are helpless to save ourselves.  We come here to confess our sins.

That is the sadness and searching of what church is, of what we are in a church -- and then suddenly FIRE!  The bush bursts into flame.  And the voice speaks our names, whatever they are -- Peter, John, Ann, Mary.  The heart skips a beat.  "YOU! YOU!" the voice says.  Does it?  Does any voice other than a human voice speak in this place?  Does any flame other than a candle flame on Christmas Eve ever leap here?  I think so.  I think if you have your ears open, if you have your eyes open, every once in a while some word in even the most unpromising sermon will flame out, some scrap of prayer or anthem, some moment of silence even, the sudden glimpse of somebody you love sitting there near you, or of some stranger whose face without warning touches your heart, will flame out -- and these are the moments that speak our names in a way we cannot help hearing.  These are the moments that, in the depths of whatever our dimness and sadness and lostness are, give us an echo of a wild and bidding voice that calls us from deeper still.  It is the same voice that Moses heard and that one way or another says, "GO! BE! LIVE! LOVE!" sending us off on an extraordinary and fateful journey for which there are no sure maps and whose end we will never fully know until we get there.  And for as long as the moment lasts, we suspect that maybe it is true -- maybe the ground on which we stand really is holy ground because we heard that voice here.  It called us by name.

Is it madness to believe such a thing?  That is a serious question.  Is it madness to believe in God at all, let alone in a God who speaks to us through such obscure and fleeting moments as these and then asks us to believe that these moments are windows into the truest meaning and mystery of the cosmos itself?  It is a kind of madness indeed."

(From 'Secrets in the Dark:  A Life in Sermons', by Frederick Buechner)

The Church of What's Happening Now

Let me start off by saying sorry for not being online the last two nights.  Had a church officers' retreat in Avalon.  OK, guilt done for now.

What I was thinking about today is how I don't really think about today.  Or at least the moment I'm actually in.  The realization was inspired by this morning's church service - indirectly.  But it had nothing to do with Epiphany.

It was during the spot in the service where we sit silently for a few minutes.  During that time, I generally try to do some centering prayer; sort of clear my mind and prepare myself to receive the sermon text and intentionally be in the presence of God.  Instead of doing this, my mind was wandering all over the place. 

I'm not going to tell you what I was thinking about.  The good news is that I was at least talking to God.  The problem was I was praying about the future - things I wished would happen, asking Him what could I do to make these things manifest themselves, asking for His intervention.

That was today, but, to be honest, I find myself doing this a lot of the time.  My prayers and actions are geared towards things I want, tomorrow's desires.  And, often when they aren't, they're focused on the past and unsettling memories.  It seems there are two Christian principles which support this temporal anomaly:  hope and forgiveness.  Hope is the power that keeps me looking to the future and trying to make it better.  Forgiveness looks to the past and helps me to make peace with it.

The problem is that I'm so busy with yesterday and tomorrow that I pay no attention to what's happening now.  I'm still living, but I'm on auto-pilot. God has given me the gift of time and I'm a lousy steward.  This proportionate thing is tough.  I don't think it's wrong to consider the future or the past, but I shouldn't live there all the time.  The largest portion of my time should be spent in the moment.

One of my new goals for 2013 is to live that way. 

Can I get an amen?

Random Acts of Encouragement

"Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wanted to talk about the impact of encouragement but I wasn't sure what to say.

You can use your words to build a person up or tear them down.  Or you can say nothing at all, which can be just as devastating.  Perhaps even more so.  I think I'd rather be discouraged than to believe that what I do makes no difference. 

Anyway, I saw this story on another blog (academictips.org).  I don't know if it's a true or not, but I think you'll see the point.  Please take the time to sincerely encourage somebody.  It really doesn't take much.  And you just never know how much they may need to hear it.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the famous 19th-century poet and artist, was once approached by an elderly man. 

The old fellow had some sketches and drawings that he wanted Rossetti to look at and tell him if they were any good, or if they at least showed potential talent.

Rossetti looked over them carefully. After the first few, he knew that they were worthless but Rossetti was a kind man, he told the elderly man as gently as possible that the pictures were without much value and showed little talent. He was sorry, but he could not lie to the man. The man was disappointed, but seemed to expect Rossetti’s judgment.

The old man then apologized for taking up Rossetti’s time, but asked him to look at a few more drawings. 

Rossetti looked over the second batch of sketches and immediately became enthusiastic over the talent they revealed. 

“These,” he said, “oh, these are good.”

"This young student has a great talent. He should be given every help and encouragement. He has a great future.”

Rossetti could see that the old fellow was deeply moved.

“Who is this fine young artist?” he asked. ”Your son?”

“No,” said the old man sadly." It is me, 40 years ago. If only I had heard your praise then!  For you see, I got discouraged and gave up – too soon.”

The Question of God

I grew up in the church.  We lived like a block away from  our church (Covenant Methodist in Springfield).  We were there All. The. Time.  I went to kindergarten there.  My twin sister and I were acolytes there.  We sang in each consecutive choir.   We went to Sunday School and youth fellowship every week.  My mom  managed the kitchen, so we spent our spare time helping with dinners and wedding receptions.  I knew every nook and cranny of the place and was friends with the ministers. 

When I went to away college, I admit that I worshipped in a church only occasionally.  But still, most of my friends were Christians.  After college, I started going to First Presbyterian in Springfield with some high school friends.  I sang in the choirs.  I was a middle school youth leader.  I went to a boatload of Christian concerts and camped out at Creation.

Then, as many of you already know, while I was married, I stopped going to church.  I went to synagogue more often than to a Christian church.  Even still, I believed.

Today, however, I'm having issues. 

Technically, I can totally get behind the Creation and an historical Jesus.  Hypostatic unity.  The whole son-of-God-rising-from-the-dead piece.  And the creeds - I'm good with the Apostles' and Nicene ones.  Actually, all the really big, macro-level fundamentals work for me. 

No, today's issues are more direct.  More personal.  More insidious.  The kind of unoriginal doubts that cause stifled eye-rolling in both tenured pastors and seminary students.

Like 'God wants to be in a personal relationship with me'.  I should include God in my daily life; pray to Him, read the Bible, and meditate. Is this really a relationship?  I suppose I've always defined a relationship as a two-way deal.  My relationship with God seems more like one of unrequited love:  one-way.  If this were a human relationship, all the advice columnists would be telling me how to break free from this unhealthy association.

Like the illusion of answered prayers.  Are these coincidences?  I don't know that I can point to any evidence that God has answered a prayer that was unambiguous in nature.  And, if, as Kierkegaard said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays," does that really mean that prayer is merely a way for us to talk ourselves out of (or into) accepting something?  I just don't know.

Like God is love.  Love as in deep affection?  Or love as in any amorphous, invisible, theoretical concept?  I don't even know what to say about this one.

I know this isn't how I should be thinking, especially as an elder.  It's just a hard, confusing, Genesis 1 God time for me right now.

Resolutions

I'm not really sure what other goals I should set on top of the ones I set down for myself in November, but I feel compelled to specify some things for New Year's.

1. Spend more real time with my daughter.
2. Exercise at least twice a week - hopefully at the gym - and eat some fruits and vegetables
3. Fix the things that have fallen apart in the house over the past 6 years.
Lose enough weight so I'm not ashamed to have my picture taken on the mission trip.
Pray more.

I would like to be a better person because maybe life would improve if I am.  Sometimes I wish those health, wealth, and prosperity gospels were for real.  Well, maybe not necessarily the wealth part - that causes more trouble than it's worth - but the feel-good part of the message.  You know, like if I pray more or go to church, I'll be rewarded with an easier, happier life, more friends, less problems.

Unfortunately, there's 1 Peter 6:  "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials." 

So, while I believe that God could make my life better through heavenly means, I don't think He actually would.  Hence, the resolutions.  I'm going to need to take responsibility for my own spiritual "prosperity" this year.