Grace in the hard times

Tonight we had a small group for my Altar in the World study. This at first seemed like a slight disappointment, but I think it was actually a blessing. We had some of the best conversation we've had up to this point. The chapters we talked about tonight had to do with pain and how it can lead to spiritual growth, and the how and why of prayer. The people there had some really powerful stories to share relating to these chapters, things that might not have been shared in a larger group.

Their stories had to do with personal struggles and sickness and fear and the loss of loved ones. They are not my stories to tell, so that's all I will say. But I was humbled as I sat surrounded by these people who have been through so much more than I have and come through these struggles with grace, at least in retrospect. None, I am sure, are struggles that anyone would choose to go through again, but these people have become stronger, more faithful, and more grateful people through them. And when I shared some of my own experience wrestling with how to pray and what to expect from prayer, they had advice for me. Not know-it-all, obnoxiously certain advice, but helpful thoughts born and cultivated in the important experiences of their own lives.

So tonight I am thankful for people in my life who have gained wisdom through pain, and I am thankful for their willingness to share those stories so that we all might gain a little bit of that wisdom. I'm reminded of how much I have to learn spiritually from those who call me their pastor. And I hope that when I inevitably face struggles in my life harder than those I have encountered thus far, that I will be able to see--at least eventually--grace and growth in those times, too.

The compassion game

On the first Wednesday of every month, people from around Williamsburg come to see me, and I give them money. Sometimes it is money to help with rent, sometimes a few nights in a motel, sometimes making a dent in a power or water bill. Sometimes it is money for prescriptions or gas. I'm the one at church whose job it is to hear these needs and decide whether and how much help is appropriate.

I've written and talked a lot at church about how hard this part of my job is. I never know whether I'm being stingy or gullible and mostly end up feeling both at the same time. I see a lot of the same people from month to month and am acutely aware of how little difference this money actually makes, at least most of the time, and how powerless the church and I are to actually make that difference. Sometimes I think--though most of the people I see would probably disagree--that the most important part of this job is the fact that it makes and allows me to listen to people. I hear stories from parts of the community that I don't hear on Sunday mornings or evening Bible studies. And I get to put a face to the fact that the church cares about helping its neighbors, whether or not we can do much.

Every once in a while I meet someone who thinks that, too. They will thank me not only for the check I hand them but also for listening to them. "I've been everywhere," they've said, "and no one else has listened to me." I feel good when people tell me this. It makes me feel like what I am doing is ministry. It makes me feel like I have succeeded in treating my neighbor with dignity, as a child of God. Sometimes it also makes me selfishly feel like we're doing better at that here than whatever other church they were at last.

But I know also that it probably works the other way around. When the budget has run out for the month, when someone's come back for the third month in a row and I have to tell them no, when I have to tell them no for any reason, I'm sure they must find another church, and another pastor to sit down with, and they must sometimes say, "Thank you for listening to me. I've been everywhere, and no one else has listened to me." And by no one else, they will mean me. Maybe what they mean is I didn't give them what they wanted. But maybe they really mean that I somehow failed to see them in the process, too. From the point of view of someone in need, those two things must blend together.

Ministry is so imperfect. I remind myself of Bonhoeffer's view of ethics, how not to do anything for fear of sinning is really the worst sin of all. I hope in the end, I've listened to more people than I haven't. And I hope that when I haven't, someone else will have--money or no money--at the church down the street or somewhere else in this community.

Time, why you punish me?

Two or so weeks ago, I wrote my monthly article for our church newsletter, about revisiting our chosen Lenten disciplines mid-Lent. Our newsletter deadlines are the 15th of each month, and they don't come out until the beginning of the next month. So I wrote this mid-Lent article at the beginning of Lent, you see. By the time this article actually appeared in the newsletter, I had already let my discipline slide for almost a week. So I thought in the name of integrity, I'd better revisit it.

I've let my Lenten blogging slide in past years, too, because I found that I had a hard time thinking of new, fresh theological thoughts to write each day. That's not really my problem this year. Spending my days at church lends itself to having lots of theological thoughts. I might not always want to write publicly about things that happen at church, but at least I am thinking theologically. The problem this year is more one of time.

I know I work less than many of my friends who are bankers and lawyers and even some who are pastors. But I don't know how. Even if I get home from work at a "normal" time, say a little after 5, there is running to do, dishes to be washed, dinner to be cooked, laundry to be laundered, and Spanish to be practiced. Sometimes there are also TV shows to catch up on on Hulu--but cultural literacy is important too, right? Something's gotta give, whether it's laundry or dishes or blogging or sometimes a mixture of all of those things.

One of the chapters we read in my Barbara Brown Taylor group this week was on saying no, and I think I felt like that gave me a little freedom to loosen the reins of discipline and make a grasp at regaining some sanity. It also made me think a little more about the value of actually giving things up for Lent.

Giving something up for Lent is traditional, of course, but I've heard lots and lots of people express a preference for adding something meaningful instead. Giving up chocolate doesn't seem to do much spiritually, so we'll commit to a half hour of meditation a day instead. It sounds so reasonable. And we encourage things like this at church--I'm doing this Lenten study for people to add to their busy schedules, after all.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that if it works for you, but I wonder if for some of us it's missing the point a little. Those of us who are busy know how to add things to our schedules. We're good at it (to varying degrees.) Taking something away is harder. It's counterintuitive. Why subtract from life when we can add instead?

BBT talks about sabbath as "taking a break from earning our own salvation for a day." I think giving up something meaningful for Lent--maybe not just chocolate--could be a powerful reminder of that. The real self-denial might be in believing we don't need to add more things, do more things, be more things. A friend posted a link to Facebook recently to an article about how sleep tends to be the first thing we sacrifice when we're busy, and what a bad idea that was. Could a Lenten practice be getting a full amount of sleep, even when things don't get done? I don't know if that's the most meaningful spiritual practice, either, but it's an interesting thought. When did the self-denial of Lent become about more instead of less? Can we really go for less and trust God to be our More?

I think these thoughts will remain theoretical for this season, which is already winding down. I don't want to stop blogging altogether, but maybe post-Easter it's time to transition to an occasional practice of writing down theological thoughts year-round, and leave Lent for giving up. Of course, there's always the hope that by next year I will have mastered the art of adulthood and manage my time brilliantly. There's always that hope.

I miss Mayberry

I love Target. I really do. The one here in Williamsburg is remodeling and reorganizing a little these days, so at times I love it a little less because I can't find what I am looking for, but still. I walk in and see colorful scarves and pretty shoes and nicely arranged kitchen equipment...and it's all so reasonably priced!! And today I wandered around their new and improved grocery section with real live fresh fruit and stuff. It's not as big as a regular supermarket, of course, but it wasn't bad. As I realized when I first found out they were putting one of these in: now I really have no reason to go anywhere else.

I don't know what this says from a social justice perspective, this getting everything in one place. Not because Target has a bad record on social justice--now that they've promised to stop donating to the PACs of anti-gay candidates, I think they're on the up and up. But because ideally, I suppose I'd shop at a lot of different local, family-owned stores. One for produce, one for bread, one for linens, one for pots and pans, one or more for clothes. This way, instead of a lot of different people owning businesses, a few people own one business, and the rest get to work for them as cashiers. (Although never enough cashiers for the number of people in line, I might add...)

There are some small local businesses in Williamsburg, of course, but not enough I know of to get all the different things I need. But even if there were: who has time for social justice these days? When I went to Target tonight, it was 8:30, and I hadn't been home since 8:45 am, and I had to get Oreos and a springform pan and some cat litter and some moisturizing cream and some coffee filters, and then I had to go home and make the chocolate mousse pie I had promised for staff meeting tomorrow. No way I would have gone to a bunch of different places. We'd make do with a smelly litter box and dry skin and no pie.

I promise I don't generally fantasize about a return to the 1950s or anything. I will continue to shop at Target, and I will like it. I will do the best I can and buy things there that have names with "eco" or "green" in them, however much that means. I will pay more for the Newman's Own fair trade coffee, even though I really want the cinnamon flavor in the Dunkin Donuts package. Sometimes all we can do is the best with what we have to work with, or work within. But I guess it's still good to remind ourselves of the consequences of the systems we buy into even as we load our one-stop baskets with exercise videos and cheap jewelry and toothpaste and, now, bananas. And even as we fully enjoy it.

Perdida

One of my group's Barbara Brown Taylor spiritual practices for this week was the Practice of Getting Lost. It may be hard to do that intentionally, in the literal sense, but in the chapter talks not just about getting geographically lost but about intentionally putting yourself in places where you are a stranger.

The other practice for the week was the Practice of Walking on the Earth, but it was cold today, and I did not feel like doing extra walking.

Anyway, today I got myself intentionally lost by going to a Spanish language church service after my own church got out for the day. I have been to a Spanish church service before, but not here, and never by myself. I've also been saying for years I need to start going to a Spanish service, but I have never gotten up the courage to do so.

I was nervous for two reasons. First, I am not good at Spanish. My reading is decent, but I can barely understand a natively-spoken word. That was all the more reason to go, of course--I need practice. But it was also all the more reason to fear that they would ask visitors to identify themselves and I wouldn't even know what they were asking, and everyone would be looking at me, and I wouldn't know what to say.

The second reason I was nervous is that I read a description of the church on its website, the bigger English-speaking church of which this Spanish service is a part. It said they worship like the Bible commands, with lifting hands and dancing and stuff like that. My own church is predominantly comprised of 75-year-old white people, and I fit right in. We do not lift our hands. We do not dance. Furthermore, the "What We Believe" section was full of things that would make any progressive mainline Protestant think twice, like the infallibility of scripture, even in scientific matters.

But the point was to get lost. So I went, half hoping it would be big enough that I could sit in the corner and no one would notice me. It was not that big.

We started with praise songs, and there was some clapping, and some lifting of hands, but I was relieved to find that it seemed to be like any contemporary worship service. The guest speaker spoke in tongues a little when he prayed, but not too much. During what I suppose was the passing of the peace, I talked to people. Just a few sentences, but it was a start.

The guest speaker actually spoke in English (natively, and appeared not to know Spanish.) It was translated by a native English speaker who did speak Spanish. In a way, that meant I was a little less lost than I had anticipated, about which I was both glad and not glad.

The speaker was loud. That's basically what I can say about him. Everything he said was loud and punctuated, like each sentence was the most important thing you were going to hear all day. At one point he told people to take notes. This is not a preaching style that tends to resonate with me. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's a lot different from my own preferred style of "OK, now, let's see if we might be able to look at this text a little differently..." In a way, I felt more out of my comfort zone listening to him than I did singing praise songs in Spanish. I also think if I'd been listening to that preaching style in Spanish, it would have been OK. When something's in another language, you expect it to be different from what you're used to, and there's a openness to that. When it switches back to your own language, when you're on the border between lost and not lost, you shut down. You want to not be lost. At least I do.

But that was a good reminder that you don't have to go far to find another culture. Because even if we both call ourselves Christian, that man and I come from very different cultures. I am lost in his, and I'm sure he would be lost in mine. I'm learning Spanish because I want to be able to connect with some of God's children whose stories might be very different from my own. It's scary to walk into someone else's story. But that's why it's spiritual, too--it demands something of us, it demands our vulnerability. And that's true whether that story is told in another language or in your own, whether it takes place across the world or just around the corner. I think I'll be back.

Broken for birds and squirrels

Today I did a little communion service for the Respite Care folks in the chapel. I love doing this. The only tricky part is that it's a pretty small group, and it's hard to buy bread the right size. When we do this I usually end up with a hefty chunk of leftover Body of Christ.

Properly disposing of communion elements can be a bit of a pain. You can't just shove them in the trash or dump them down any old drain. You have to either eat them, or return them to nature. The juice isn't too bad, although there was that one time I spilled grape juice all down my front by trying to drink the excess without actually putting my mouth on the chalice. Since then I've discovered the special drain in the sacristy (OK, I hope that's what it is), and besides, you can always just pour it outside. But there is something that feels a little irreverent about just throwing a (whole) half a loaf of bread into the woods. I don't know if any theological school of thought says yea or nay on that, but usually I try to break it up into little pieces, and that is what I did today.

I think about feeding the birds when I do this, like when I was little and at my grandmother's house in Philadelphia, and we would stand on her little balcony and tear up slices of Wonder Bread and throw them to the pigeons. But today it wasn't Wonder Bread, it was consecrated bread, the Body of Christ. And it felt like there was something holy in doing this, in tearing off pieces of bread just like I had served to people in the chapel, and throwing them in the grass for the birds or squirrels or whoever else would find them.

I don't think the birds and squirrels care that this bread is holy bread. And I don't think they need the sustaining, renewing grace that is in that bread in the same way we do. Birds and squirrels live by God's grace every day, eating what God provides, praising God just by being birds and squirrels. But I care that this is holy bread that I am feeding them. It reminds me that God's grace is for all creation, and that this Body of Christ is broken for the salvation of the whole world. And on my way home, I heard the birds singing a little clearer, because I was reminded of this.

Dream on

I've been reading Revelation these days. Not for any specific purpose, but just because I've been working my way through the New Testament in my own devotional reading each morning, and I finally got there. I've read Revelation before, and despite what the Left Behind series has made of it, I don't hate it. In fact, I really like some parts of it. Dr. Newsom's Apocalyptic Imagination class at Candler gave me a solid appreciation for the social justice implications of the book, and especially how it has been meaningful through history for oppressed and/or minority communities--for whom, of course, it was first written. Reading it as a work of spiritually grounded political resistance starts to look a lot different than reading it as if it were written especially for upper middle class white Americans.

This is the first time I've come back to the book as a whole since I took that class, and it's different to come back and read it outside of that academic context, too. The appreciation is still there, but the details of that appreciation are fuzzy. I feel much more like I'm encountering the book as an "average," not-in-seminary person this time. Which brings me back, somewhat, to the mindset that seminary shook up a little: this book is weird.

There's just so much imagery shoved together. That's my problem. If John of Patmos could just pick one or two symbols and do a kind of extended metaphor thing, I think I could be on board. But that's not what he does. Instead...there's a throne! Now there are some creatures around it! Now there are horsemen! Now there are some angels with bowls of plagues! Now there is a beast! Also a whore is riding it!

It makes it all very hard to follow.

But here's a thought that helps me read Revelation. It's not a very academic thought that explains why all these symbols are there thrown together. It's just a thought. And that is that this book is the retelling of a dream. Or a vision, a revelation, an apokalypsis, whatever you want to call it.

Have you ever tried telling someone about a dream you had last night and ended up sounding like a complete crazy person? I've had those dreams. There's someone whose face I never see, but I know who it is. Or there is someone who looks like one person I know, but in the dream I know they're really supposed to be someone else I know. There are non sequiturs where you move from one scene to another with no good explanation, but somehow it all makes sense. All the parts seem so disconnected that it's almost embarrassing to try to relate them to anyone. And maybe it's not just random synapse firing, either--there are subconscious reasons why all these things play a part in your dream--but when you put them all together, it's just weird.

I'm not saying that's a completely accurate representation of a sacred text, here, which I am sure has very carefully chosen imagery and symbology throughout. But really, if John did have some divinely-given revelation of this struggle between heaven and earth, it would be no wonder if he couldn't quite relate in terms that made complete logical sense to the person he was telling it to. In fact, it would have had to have been a pretty boring vision if he could. The overall dream has an important and poignant meaning, and each part of it is there for a reason, but when you put it all together in chronological order it comes out sounding like, "And then there was a beast! And then there was a whore!"

Scholars who know more than me are free to debate me, but it helps me to read this text without thinking I have make complete sense of it all, that trying to make logical sense of it even does it a disservice--because how could a powerful divine revelation like that make perfect sense?

I like to think this. It helps me appreciate what's there.