Hope on a treadmill

It's been a rough couple of days. Without going into detail (professional boundaries, and all that sort of thing) it's been the kind of weekend that requires the support of good friends (thanks, guys), and Ben & Jerry's. Luckily, I've had both.

But while the Ben & Jerry's is necessary, it's also a very short term solution to life's problems. It's easy to sit there with your face firmly planted in a pint of Half Baked, consequences be damned, I don't care if I'm downing 1500 calories in one sitting or whether I'll feel sick later.

So the ice cream was only part of my approach. I also went running. That's not a new thing, of course, but that's kind of the point. In the midst of being sad, and physically and emotionally tired, I managed to stick to the marathon training schedule I started in July. This is a low week, schedule-wise, so it was only 3 miles. But still, I found some hope in that half hour on the treadmill.

(OK, it was a little more than half an hour. And it might have been the only time I've ever found hope on a treadmill. There was Great Dismal Swamp smoke outside, you see...)

Running, for me, felt a little bit like Jeremiah buying his field at Anathoth (Jer 32:1-15). The land was under siege, and property values had plummeted. It just wasn't a place you bought land anymore. But Jeremiah did. Buying that field was a way of showing he had faith in what the future would bring: that, as God told him, "houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land."

Things may be a little rough now, but I'm trying to have faith in what the future will bring. And running is a way of doing that. Even a 3 mile run is an investment. It says that in November, no matter what else, I'm going to run a race and I'm going to be proud of myself for it. Fields will be bought again in this land. There's good stuff to come. Let's get started now.

Nothing Like Me

When you work in a church--or, let's face it, when you are part of a church--there are inevitably a lot of times that you wish that everyone else in the church was just a little more like you. Thought a little more like you, had priorities a little more like yours. But then there are also times when you have to praise God that there are people in the church who are nothing like you, too.

Today and tomorrow our church is hosting Helping Hands, a mission mini-camp for 4th-6th graders. And today the group of kids from our church went to sing some hymns with the folks down in Respite. I thought this was great, because I love Respite and wanted the kids to love it too, but I was also a little nervous. I was worried that the kids would go, stare at the old people, sing a little, stare a little more at the old people, and leave. And that didn't seem like the point of a mission experience.

I was worried that it would be that way because that's what I would have done as a kid. I remember a Girl Scout trip or two to sing at a nursing home, and I was happy to sing, but I did not want to talk to anybody. For one thing, there is to this day nothing in the world I despise more than being told to "mingle." For another, I was scared of old people.

Having since gotten over my fear of the elderly (though not my fear of being made to mingle), I tried to pump the kids up. I told them why Respite was a special place for me and encouraged them to talk to the clients after we sang. So after our last hymn I said, "All right, go introduce yourself to someone!" and waited for the shy hesitation and embarrassed stares. I waited for them to respond like I would have.

But instead, the kids went right on up and introduced themselves. And they chatted with the old folks. And the old folks smiled and loved them.

And then we went back upstairs to the fellowship hall. We were the first group back from our mission projects. There were cards still on the tables--cards the kids had written and decorated as they had arrived at the church earlier, meant to be sent later to people at nursing homes.

But one girl said, "Hey, we should take these cards down to Respite."

So the kids picked out the best cards they could find and we turned around and went back to Respite, back to the old people, back to the world I never would have wanted to enter in the first place at their age. And they each found a client to give their card to, and some of them chatted a little more, and the old folks smiled and loved them.

Now that's what I call mission--not just singing a few nice songs, but reaching out in love and friendship to someone you wouldn't normally encounter or pay attention to. Those kids today didn't just follow my own hopeful/skeptical instructions to meet people. They went back. They took their call to mission to heart. I'm so glad they are part of the church--and that they are nothing like me.

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.