rainy day 5

For today's Friday 5, Sally has outlined some ideas for a rainy day 5, and I'm lovin' the baptismal imagery along with the way it evokes some wonderful memories that bring along with them hope for future rainy days, hope for a world that has learned to steward water well and the anticipatory hint of my own life bringing me the essentials I need to be healthy and well again.

On a historical/contemporary note, as I'm typing this in southern California and the mid-morning sun it starting to shine through a few clouds, the almost unprecedented power of hurricane Irene is slamming the eastern coast and parts inland from Canada through the Caribbean Islands, so many of us are praying hard.

Sally asks about our activities on a rainy summers day:

1. Concerning a rainy day at home, if I don't need to leave the house for work or church or another commitment, I still cannot tolerate staying at home, but if it's raining so hard that venturing outside into the weather would be dangerous and unpleasant, I'll try to find ingredients for an extra-tasty meal and if it's not too hot and humid, probably bake something, too.

2. When it's a rainy day in my local area, again assuming not having workplace work and/or its not being a Sunday worship day, how about checking out sales at the big mall or strip mall and having lunch at a less-expensive sit-down restaurant? I'm about 5 miles from the beach, and if it's light rain or heavy mist, a slow walk on the side alongside the ocean is a great idea—also followed by lunch out, of course!

3. When it rains and I'm away on holiday that probably would lead to a museum or museums, lunch, a little shopping or window shopping , and in some places, thrift stores!

4. I can't think of a specific rainy day read, but rain and mist outside my habitat sometimes creates a great environment for sorting and sifting through my books, deciding what to read again, discovering books and chapters that remain unread and planning for the future. Unlike a lot of people, I'm not a compulsive reader and often I'm not in process and progress of reading anything.

5. I don't know that there's a particular piece of music/ a poem/ story that cheers me up, but just as a rainy, quiet time sometimes leads to a little book sorting and even house cleaning, it's also a great time to pull out a few CDs I haven't listened to in a while. That answer was kind of fuzzy, but it matches the landscape's appearance and impression when it rains.

24 August Faith, Order & Witness opening prayer

Holy God, in love your gracious Word called into being all that is.
From the beginning of Your gift of time
You have delighted to journey alongside all creation;
in the power of the Holy Spirit of life,
Your gracious Word has formed us and called us,
the Church of Jesus Christ,
to live as Your redemptive and reconciling presence amidst creation.
We thank You for granting us another opportunity to discuss our own perspectives
and even our differences
that the people we meet and the creation we steward
would recognize Jesus Christ in us.
In Jesus' Name we pray, amen!

9 years all in one (2)

This is not a hunter-gatherer society; this is the early 21^st century. Meaning yes, I do need to use my education, gifts and experience to benefit others and no, I cannot be well unless I'm doing so. I'm longing for the dignity of participating in life to an extent reasonably related to my abilities; I'm looking for the redemption of love.

Here's the second of my previously 9 posts eclipsed into only two.

Regarding my own future prospects. Walter Brueggemann says "bright, skilled educated people are valued and sought after." He also speaks of people feeling nullified, which exactly has been my experience for too long now, though I haven't been feeling much of anything forever, and recovering reasonable emotional responses is one of my major goals for the future. Related to which and related to the past, I know my use of tools and interventions such as psychotherapy and 12-step processes has been usefully practical. I've taken them for what they're worth and have become adept at eating up the apple and spitting out the core and most of the seeds.

I read somewhere that "being over-responsible is neurosis (does anyone use that word anymore?); being irresponsible is character disorder—you really can't help being a little of one or the other at times." Like many women, I tend toward the over-responsible/neurosis end and struggle not to assume agency for everything that happens in my life. How-some-ever, I do realize that for structural and other reasons, the small parish typically will not be able to offer me the opps I need and want, and for the most part that's where I've tried hanging out.

I'm a theologian so I do ambiguity and paradox very well, but many many situations are not at all paradoxical or ambiguous.

Cornel West speaks of "dangling people:" I don't have the exact context, but would describe it as folks with no organic connection to anyone or much of anyone else. Organic connection means you're part of something living, you're attached to it in more than a single sense, you receive from it and you give to it in something related to a symbiotic one. The rest of the "organism" recognizes you as part of them, knows you need to participate in their life and realizes they need to participate in yours (in mine). They basically know who you are! People do the best when and where they get the most support.

When a person moves to a new geographical area, whether because of marriage, school, work or all three, it takes a while to start connecting, but after all this time… Another faith, order & witness committee member observed with a sense of surprise that amongst homeless, street-bound populations a social order evolves. I commented, "of course—that's a given!" It's also a given that in a complex society where everyone is involved in several, sometimes dozens of places (family, church, work, school, clubs, professional organizations) no one will assume a place and a role in every one of them, but needs to know who and where they are in at least a few.

I describe the kind of theology I do as the interface of church and society, Christianity and culture but given that I'm not doing much of anything out there in the world (but need to have mercy on myself, because when you're constantly in scratch for life survival mode what can you do), meaning I have almost nothing to think about or write about. I'm thinking if I get out there in various venues, I might meet people and have experiences that would lead to some great blogging and even people and communities that might be interested in me--or at least curious!

When singer Amy Winehouse died a couple weeks back, a lot of media talk commented on guilt, responsibility, mutual guilt and inter-responsibility (impossible to tease out much of anything) and someone said other people had not made life worthwhile enough for Amy or for others who either OD'd accidentally or directly committed suicide. For sure memories, symbols, images and (particularly scriptural) texts and previous experiences all take a part in literally mediating our current experiences.

Some New Age and other self-improvement types speak of needing to find happiness, fulfillment, etc, within oneself. That is so wrong! Needless to say, a person needs to do the "inner work," sometimes in a formal sense like psychotherapy or 12-step groups, but ultimately a person finds the plain and simple, bread and butter state happiness and the deeper, more resonant reality of joy in service to others. Some situations are ambiguous; many aren't. Some experiences and lack thereof are not quantifiable, but quite a few easily can be counted.

What can I do to help revitalize my own life? Nothing, really, but I can tell people what I need and what I want; I can ask them for what I need and what I want. I fully expected to return to full participation in mainline church and mainstream society and as I've previously written, I very much still desire aspects of both, and would be more than satisfied with a few opps to dance around their edges.

You know it isn't, "but I prepared to be: pastor of Riverside Church; CEO of Apple; Cleveland Orchestra Music Director; Attorney General of the USA… became so very qualified and someone else got the job." In real life I prepared for a life of service to church and world that would use the gifts God gave me in a variety of ways; wisely, I wasn't necessarily focused on serving in a single particular venue, but assumed most of the skills I developed were transferable and translatable into many. For example, if I'd insisted on a career teaching Sanskrit at the graduate level in a Brazilian University, that would have been opening myself to an eventually probably not happening, but that's not what I did.

But remembering and literally re-visiting and re-visioning times with friends, times of service, times of shared meals, working on various kinds of projects is part of helping realize what might be, even in the very near future. There were a lot of good and healthy times in the past, a lot of events that helped create community and even helped the participants become more who God created them to be. So a list? Not right now, not at this time, but I'm working on one. Peace!

9 years all in one…(1)

This is not a hunter-gatherer society; this is the early 21^st century. Meaning yes, I do need to use my education, gifts and experience to benefit others and no, I cannot be well unless I'm doing so. I'm longing for the dignity of participating in life to an extent reasonably related to my abilities; I'm looking for the redemption of love.

A few weeks ago I wrote and published 9 posts in 9 days for my 9-year blogoversary, but then unpublished them and may or may not blog them once more. Given that, I'm attempting to consolidate the sense of the 9 posts into only two.

The original ministry model that attracted me keeps hunting me and chasing me down. As a very young kid I planned to be an artist, "but a greater Love drew me."

Forever I've had a thing about houses, so I'll begin by remembering when I was in high school walking past another fire-gutted building, yet another boarded-up house and grieving for the lives they'd once held and celebrated, yet sensing hope for the futures they still might contain if circumstances would change for them. Exactly like neighborhoods, people do the best where they get the most support, when they're in an environment where they can experience interdependence and trust, when have human and other connections that help provide literally vital (life-giving, life-sustaining) nutrients. The health of a house, the health of an individual depends upon the health of their environment and on their having life-giving nutrients flowing into them.

A few years ago I blogged about many kinds of poverty in addition to the no-brainer $$$, and how much more evident and visible those poverties seem to be in some areas than elsewhere. I'm using the analogy of decaying, declining, inner-city/working-class suburban neighborhoods that once had trees, amenities, services, people, street furniture, national retail outlets and hope but declined to complete dysfunction, fear and hopelessness as each of those features left moved out, broke and wasn't fixed or replaced or crumbled into total decay. No one can survive long, stay alive or be revived without being connected to sources of nourishment of all kinds.

Like anyone, telling myself how much worse everything could have been has been a major survival tactic for me and occasionally you gotta do that but it's always very very easy to find people worse off (in one or more aspects) and people who are better off (in one way or another). For sure, I'd taken a huge hit but just as true, many people have come out on the other side of far, far worse. But everything depends on my finding a community that welcomes me and my participation; in the history of the world it never has happened otherwise, because it cannot be otherwise.

Retrospectively glancing not only at the social, financial, occupational and assorted "other" poverties of the past too many years, I also need to assess and celebrate my accomplishments. Despite relative poverties of context and connections – human basics I need to find again in order to plain ole survive – I've accomplished lots more than simply keeping up with the laundry. However, my cry and question remains if what I'm asking is so unique, impossible and undoable, why have I observed people all around me doing exactly the ministry I prepared to do and still feel called to do? Why have most of my offers been refused and rebuffed? Why do other people have reasonable social context?

This being a navy town, I often watch homecomings on the news and long for homecomings of my own. Part of me wants to discredit a couple of dozen people informing me that my abilities and level of accomplishment have been getting majorly in the way of my participating. So true that only Jesus saw everything clearly all the time, but even allowing for their vision being a tad askance, I know they're correct. Ages ago I made a scrapbook poster for myself that said, "Follow your heart--the best is yet to come! But you've got to be an expert!" And that I've become.

To be continued.

trippin' on the road again 5

Jan hosts today's road trips 5:

"Tell us about five road trips—in your childhood, in your family, in your recent past, with friends, and/or hoped-for-places-to-drive-to. Don't forget the one that stands out as the BEST or as the worst time."

1. Boston to Montréal and back with 5 college classmates during winter break—I especially loved stopping for lunch in Hanover, New Hampshire and checking out Dartmouth College. Snow everywhere and it was clean, white, near-pristine!

2. Salt Lake City to Zion National Park

3. Salt Lake City to Capitol Reef National Park—"The Spirit of Capitol Reef..."

4. ...and also to Bryce Canyon National Park

5. The four I listed all were great, though just maybe the Utah National Parks were the best. I listed only big ones that entailed traveling some distance, but I have happy memories of taking short drives up the coast, down the coast, to the Canadian border and to the Mexican border and trust there will be more, both day trips and long ones.

grateful 5

for today's Friday 5, Terri hosts 5 about gratitude:

1. I'm living in the paradox of an open end

2. surprise! I haven't been annihilated—as someone pointed out to me, "not s single door has been permanently closed"

3. I'm learning to ask for what I need

4. God's last Word always is a big "Yes, Amen!" to life itself

5. I am so loving the summer fruit, summer berries and summer veggies

projects in progress 5

Officially, today's host Kathryn calls this edition 5 about What To Do, What To Do... and asks, "I'm wondering if anyone else out there takes a week off of work to do a different kind of work:"

1 Have you ever 'staycationed' in order to work on a project? If no, would you?

No, never, but I just might if/and I again have employment that offers vacation time, but it would need to be something somewhat like I'm saying in 2,

2 What project did you or would you tackle first?

Painting the walls of a room or two (kitchen and dining area still have the paint from when I moved in here), refinishing or painting a piece of furniture (or two or three). Happily, I've (re)painted all the furniture of that type (I LOVE painted furniture) in about a dozen colors all told; I've also refinished quite a few pieces!

3 Any other projects?

I've been doing very very well about keeping closets cleaned out and contents recycled through the local thrift store. Over the past few years I've also freecycled 100+ things, all in good condition, that potentially would be valuable to other people and families.

4 What are the pitfalls of a staycation for you?

Possibly getting so tied up in anxieties nothing at all gets done. I'm well aware that a moderate amount of effort gets the best results and no, I'm not trying too hard and no, I'm not lounging back and waiting for life to come to me, but for most of my life I've lived with a severe compulsive-style disorder that makes being alone intolerable and next to impossible.

5 Never mind this staying at home business, where do you want to go and what do you want to do there?

The beach - any beach - and the desert - any desert - let's throw Morocco and Singapore into the mix, too! Thanks, Kathryn!

responding to dirty feet and more...

Yesterday I commented on a blog post, "Dirty Feet" by Anne Jackson (original page no longer online). After rereading what I'd written more than once, I knew it was just right for this blogsite, a great beginning for the 8^th month of August's blogs and a solid way to continue my 10^th year of blogging. Since I'm quoting myself I won't blockquote indent, so here's what I said:

---

hmmm… interesting. I have a related story I’d love to tell you. Maundy Thursday evening 2007 I was in worship at the PCUSA where I’d become reasonably active. In many ways my life and ministry that truly had disintegrated was starting to reweave (it’s gone way downhill again, but that’s another narrative for later).

During that Lent I’d facilitated a 6-part course on theology of the cross I’d developed for the Sunday adult bible study group; the interim pastor and I had planned and celebrated eucharist at noon every day in Holy Week and I’d even provided the piano prelude music for that Maundy Thursday evening’s liturgy. In addition, I was excited because I knew that later on Pastor Scott would be praying a eucharistic prayer I’d written, but it was time for foot washing, a long-standing practice in that congregation; they encouraged everyone to participate. The quite a bit older person I was sitting beside asked if I was going to be washed and to wash others; I told her no, I had an embarrassing foot condition and needed minor foot surgery. Immediately she asked me, “but would you let Jesus wash your feet?!” hmmm… interesting! If he doesn’t wash us, we have no part in him…

…once AGAIN I’m in the midst of again wondering if and how I can continue doing life on my own…

---

However, the liturgical /lectionary semi-purist (only "semi" because in real life I have a fairly wide low-church streak and because more often than not these days I worship with a congregation that follows LBW liturgy, hymns, and lectionary rather than Revised Common Lectionary like most of the rest of the world) protests but right now we're in the midst of Ordinary Time, that green and growing and well-ordered liturgical season that parallels and replicates are own growth in the Spirit as individuals and as community. After all, Anne's blog and my comment both are anecdotes from Holy Week, before Good Friday, before Easter, before the Day of Pentecost that initiates a long, winding, greening, browning trek in the Spirit and in the flesh through orchards, valleys, cities, alleys, fields of gold, and dark places manifold.

During that aforementioned theology of the cross course I led during Holy Week 2007 and also the following summer at another church, for one of the classes we prayed together this beautiful observation from Paul Hammer:

love one another

Jesus, how common can you get? Foot washing, bread, wine!
If you're going to be religious, at least use something special.
No, my friend, I came not to perform special religious rites
But to touch the daily life of everyone
With God's love in the commonest of things.

O.K., water, bread, wine.
But isn't foot washing a bit ridiculous?
And what about "this is my body"?
And "this cup is the new covenant in my blood"?

Foot washing is the work of the commonest servant—I came to serve.
But it points beyond to the "washing" of the cross—
God's self-giving service in me to cleanse away estrangement
And heal the distortions in people's lives.
The bread points to nourishment in that same self-giving of God
At work in my body, that is in me.
And the cup points to the new community drawn together and nourished
In my blood, that is in God's total self-giving in my death.

Do you mean that this common stuff of water, bread and wine
Becomes in you the very focus of God's love for me and for the world?
That there is no excuse for my not loving my common neighbor?
Because you have shown the depth of God's love for me?

You've got it!
But it isn't a love for special occasions.
It has to be that daily love that's as common as water, bread and wine!

Originally I posted that on this blog here.

If Jesus doesn't wash us…

In Acts 6 we hear about the young, newly birthed church's first act of ordination. They did not ordain elders to govern and steward the church or ministers of word and sacrament to interpret scripture, preach and teach the gospel, to administer sacraments and ordinances in historical continuity. They first laid hands on and set apart deacons, that order of servants that historically has represented the church to the world in direct service, what a Facebook and blogger friend refers to as "basin and towel ministry." In baptism God re-creates and rebirths us into Jesus' image, the image and reality of the One who walked among us to show us the Servant God. 'nuff said?! Probably so!

covenant: the history of a biblical idea

Maybe you noticed I've been writing a few Amazon reviews? I'm hoping my own re-thinking some important and favorite books might help reactivate this blog and reactivate my life some, too. This time it's Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (from a series, Seminar in the History of Ideas, published by Johns Hopkins Press, of the school where the concept of the history of ideas probably originated) by Delbert R. Hillers. This is the book one of my seminary professors insisted we'd need to understand because otherwise we wouldn't *get* our seminary education. I didn't reread the book (yet), but glancing through it as a critter casually noms on browse made me realize it could be fun and even enlightening to read again in detail.

Particularly in the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, sometimes referred to as "Old Covenant Scriptures," throughout scripture we hear about the God who covenants, the God of covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, David... the God who covenants with each one of us in baptism. On a side note, the seminary I attended most properly would be referred to as "ecumenical," and it's also one of the historic United Church of Christ seminaries. Some antecedents of today's UCC opined that God never had dealt with, interacted with humanity in any way other than by covenanting!

Author Delbert Hillers observed that [page 87] "Outside the Bible, it is in treaties that we find … a mixture of history and commands, and the present shape of the Pentateuch ultimately reflects the combination of narrative and obligation in the treaty." In school we read examples of suzerainty treaties, purportedly the model for many of the biblical texts.

Early on the author cautions, "A … difficulty with 'covenant' is that it is not necessarily one idea." [page 6] However (listen up, peeps!), on page 29 he lists the most characteristic six parts of a typical treaty: 1 preamble; 2 historical prologue; 3 stipulations; 4 provisions for deposit and public reading of the text; 5 list of divine witness to the treaty (a stone of witness often stands in just fine for the divine); 6 blessings and curses that frequently simply mirror each other.

from page 80:

Democratization of religious responsibility meant that covenant traditions were kept alive in the individual family. This is a feature so characteristic of modern Jewish life, and of Christianity as well, that it takes an effort to recall that in the ancient East much of religion was a matter of the state: the gods were the gods of the city, and specialists, the priests, saw to the "care and feeding of the gods" and preserved the liturgy and mythology of the temple.

Also, as we need constantly to be aware, in these texts and during that time there was no concept of secular in the rationalized dualistic sacred/secular dichotomy sense post-enlightenment Western people understand and almost comfortably exist within.

Central to our understanding as Christians, [page 152] is the author's citing "Deuteronomy's brand of love... [as]...the mother lode of much other influential biblical teaching about love for God." Therefore, "To love Yahweh" is linked inseparably with "to serve Him." Page 154-155: "...the covenant of obedience binding Israel, and the covenant of promise binding Yahweh, were originally two separate things, not at all easy to reconcile with one another. In Deuteronomy, however, they are combined in classic fashion, so that even if the tension is not resolved, some of the essential features of both are preserved." Briefly, the Abrahamic covenant becomes intertwined with the Sinai covenant: [Hear, O Israel,] Yahweh desired you and chose you because Yahweh loved you and because of lovingkindness for you, Yahweh redeemed you from slavery in Egypt.

I enjoyed looking through this book and would love to facilitate a maybe weekly month-or-so-long adult study class on it and related biblical covenant texts. However, although you can copies on Amazon, they are expensive!

my Amazon review - covenant: a biblical reality

Grace Works

Grace Works, by Robert L. Millet

Robert L. Millet is Richard L. Evans Professor of Religious Understanding at Brigham Young University. Although this book isn't an official Latter-day Saint publication, it's published by Deseret Book and approaches the subject from a Mormon perspective. However, the author has read widely and includes many references to non-LDS theologians, including C.S. Lewis and Karl Barth. "After all we can do" in the kicker to the title references 2 Nephi 25:23, but doesn't quite describe the LDS or any scriptural view of God's gracious work of redemption without a tad of explanation, including 2 Nephi 10:24 "after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved." All we humans can do is "be reconciled unto God"—but even that reconciliation also is a gift of grace.

Disclaimer: including front matter, Grace Works is only 150 pages and is printed in a gracious size of graciously leaded type, so don't expect it to be completely comprehensive.

The book focuses around and keeps returning to the author's statement on page 2: "Because the Atonement is central, fundamental, and foundational, it provides meaning and purpose for every other doctrine and every covenant and ordinance. It is the lens through who we view every principle, precept, and practice in the Church." From explaining that Fall and Atonement are kind of like a "package deal," throughout the book Brother Millet provides clear explanations and relevant examples. On page 17 he lines out seven ways scripture uses the word grace: God's favor or acceptance; God's blessing; an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit or of spiritual gifts; a calling to preach the gospel; blessings associated with a person's lineage; strength to overcome and endure; that which conveys salvation and wholeness... on page 18, he tells us from a doctrinal perspective grace is God's mercy, love, condescension, lovingkindness and unmerited favor toward humanity.

Succinctly, born into the fallout of "The Fall" of humanity means "The natural man is an enemy to God in that he or she is operating on an agenda other than God's." [page 35] Natural, fallen and sinful essentially are synonyms. Grace Works is rich in teachings, explanations and especially in its reassurances that as essential as it is to keep the commandments, to love righteousness and do justice whilst walking through a broken, shattered and unreconciled world, none of that is enough because it's humanly impossible. In short, God chooses to remain with us, journey alongside us and enable redemption (salvation, wholeness, reconciliation) because even in us, incarnation, cross, Easter's empty grave and the Pentecostal reign of the Spirit remain God's work and God's glory, not ours.

At the back of the book you can find endnotes, a bibliography, a scripture index separated out into OT, NT, BoM, D&C and Pearl of Great Price along with an extremely thorough subject index.

For sure I'd like more emphasis on the inter-responsibility of community and individual, more explicit mention of our gospel call to help enact justice, healing and liberation to all creation and every segment of society, but what's already there on the pages of Grace Works works well for me and after all, it's barely 150 pages! With Robert Millet's broadly and ecumenically Christian worldview that's anything but exclusively Latter-day Saint, I'll give it a 5-star recommend.

my Amazon review: God's work, God's glory

either/or aka decisions 5

Today Sharon hosts a Friday 5 topic related to an ongoing reality in everyone's life, decisions 5. Part of her intro reads,

Today we play off of one of my favorite and most memorable Friday Fives to blog from: Decisions, Decisions posted by Songbird last July 23. How do you decide? Check out the following pairs and tell which one of each appeals to you most:

1) Sunrise or Sunset—I'm a classic early riser, and love to be up before first light. On the other hand, sunsets can be lovely, esp in the Southwestern USA. Flying Southwest, "The Socialist Airline" into Tucson into the sunset is an unmatchable experience, esp given that Tucson is an astronomical Dark-Sky place. Short answer? Sunrise!

2) To the Mountains or To the Beach—I'm one of those people who likes to know the ocean is nearby, even if I don't go there very often. I spent a summer at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, part of the ancient, venerable, Appalachian Mountain range and I've lived in the Internountain West, with the Wasatch range (a little further east there's a Sawatch range) of the Rocky Mountains always within hailing range. The fabled seven canyons of Salt Lake City were a fabulous place to drive up and down on a free day or slow going afternoon, sometimes to hike, too.

3) Coffee or Tea—neither one hot, both/and iced or chilled... but Tea more often than not.

4) Advent or Lent—equal parts repentance, apocalyptic and hope. I particularly love the Advent lections and hymns, though Christmas Eve and Day always have been difficult times for me. Lent, too, though—first counting the days until Easter Vigil, and then lovin' the Great 50 Days. It's all good and necessary as in sensory word, sacrament, music, visuals and even *other* we recapitulate and relive the history of salvation... short answer on this one? Advent!

5) "Raindrops on Roses" or "Whiskers on Kittens"—although I loathe, detest, despise and abhor The Sound of Music (seems as if people either love it or hate it; there's no neutral ground). I am such a cat-a-holic, and as much as I love flowers, nature and the environment, teh kitttehs win on this one!

BONUS: Tell more about one of the pairs. Why did you choose it? Difficult or easy choice? A story from your own experience?

In the interest of actually posting a semi-finished Friday 5 this week, I'm in major decision time and mode and again I find myself needing to make major life decision all alone, with no one who knows me or my history remotely within reach. Just saying'... so how do I decide? A little prayer, a little time, a backward glance at my own history, a forward look into possibilities and a huge trusting leap! Thanks, Sharon!

wayback 5...

...about the way we blogged: wayback days 5

This time instead of answering Kathryn's suggested questions, I'll write a few paragraphs. Cyber eons ago in July 2002 I made my blogging debut on blogger, which (to my knowledge) along with diaryland and pitas was the only available platform. I'd just finished a year-long Community Economic Development certificate program that hadn't led to the hoped-for employment, so I decided to chill some for the summer as I expected to do the usual rounds of meet 'n' greets and related continuing ed in the fall as a way to connect with potential employers and clients. Before I'd returned to this part of the world sometimes called "Paradise," life had happened and kept on happening with unexpected outcomes; for a while it was adventuresome and almost fun. Even the plasma center, day labor hangout and less-than-minimum wage gigs hadn't discouraged me much, since trials by fire and trials by ongoing disappointments are part of the journey, right? But those weeks that started out like another adventure turned into months, into years and now it's almost two decades, close to twenty years without community, without the mirror of the other to tell me how I'm doing, without places, situations and spaces to which I've become attached and to which I could uniquely contribute.

Leading up to starting my own blog spot, when I got online in the late 1990s I'd gradually gotten involved in an early iteration of the United Church of Christ forums and was delighted to return to more formal theological thinking and writing. I'd also (delightfully, of course!) discovered my opinions were valued and often sought-after! In some of my seminary classes I'd emerged as the class theologian but the years of loneliness and disappointment had polished my theological perspective and insight (in ways only too much loneliness and too many disappointments can).

I've been in social, personal, financial, professional, everything survival mode for most of these too many years. Although I still check the Friday 5 topic almost every week and start a Friday 5 post just about every week, I rarely publish them. A couple months back, when that day's host Singing Owl visited my blog, she commented, "You want to be known and you want to be useful." I unpublished the post and likely won't delete it, but she's mostly correct in that I want a community that seeks to know me and I want to be not only useful but exploited. Do I walk in and announce to everyone within earshot that I am no threat to anyone? That I don't want the pastor's or the church musician's job?

In his "Rollin' Home," songwriter Eric Andersen explains,

Truth, with all its far out schemes,
Lets time decide what it should mean;
It's not the time but just the dreams that die.

There's probably no such situation as zero theological context, but I'm so close to zero I have nothing to blog about. I haven't been teaching, preaching or socializing and long ago stopped trying to bribe people to spend time or have lunch with me. If and when I can find that elusive place of embrace, I expect to begin blogging at least a few times a month—I like developing ideas and seeing the results on the screen! People can start walking on their own quite easily, but I need someone to help me stand and take my first new steps. I also realize there are a lot of non-church places I could look and many many (many) non-church events I could attend, either or both of which likely would result in opps and friendships, but I barely can stand, let alone walk to get there.

faith / culture 3 for friday

faith and culture on the RevGals blog

…in honor of a week of interfaith study and celebration, Terri asks:

1. Have you ever had an experience of a religion other than your own? And, if so, what was it like for you to experience something different? If you haven't, what religion might you like to study, experience, and learn more about?

2. Have you ever studied, travelled, or explored other cultures? What and where, and when?

3. Any stories you wish to share about a person (author, teacher, etc), or a friend or colleague, from another culture or religion, who has impacted you in some capacity?

So, not exactly a five question Friday Five. You can respond in five easy answers, if you wish, or one reflection.

mainly religion and faith

I've lived within quite a few variant expressions of Western Christianity. When my anthro of religion teacher told our class she'd "changed religions" from Roman Catholic to Quaker, I wanted to say, "No, you didn't! They're both Christian," but I sort of get what she meant, since (among other details) the worship styles are different and Quakers don't have formal sacraments, yet at their best both seek to follow Jesus and particularly emphasize just peace (among other details). For that class my term paper/project assignment was to visit and experienced a "religion" other than our own or the one we were most familiar with. I spent some time with a Sufi group and I gotta say, so much of it was so much like mainline protestantism!

I spent a long-ago summer working as an au pair for a Jewish family. Although they attended synagogue and Hebrew School, the parents and kids were basically secular Jews, but the Russian immigrant grandmother was very observant. I loved how she prepared during the day to welcome the Sabbath at Friday sundown and can't ever forget how she lit the candles and especially the loaf of fresh-baked challah.

Without a doubt, various brands of Christianity bring culturally-informed perspectives to the essential gospel of death and resurrection and physical geography in turn has informed each culture; each Christian tradition lives and acts in various degrees of alignment with and opposition to prevailing local culture and customs. Sometimes they seek to use similar = "vernacular" - styles and symbols to attract adherents, sometimes from the get-go they attempt to be seen as different from. Remember early Christianity's subversive use of imperial Rome's practices and assumptions and how they not only had a critique of culture, they were and they lived as a critique of culture while using and sometimes inverting familiar symbols?! We need to contextualize the reality of Jesus Christ to some degree, but what's the point if we're not offering an alternative to the commoditization of everything that invariably leads to death, who cares, if it's not different from and better than? However, how will strangers get it if the church presents itself as so completely "other than" everyone else? In Jesus of Nazareth, the Spirit of the Living God was incarnate and enfleshed, in some ways looked and acted like everyone else and in other ways was very different and highly unlike…

For a while I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, and moved there because I had a call to serve a local church in one of the protestant mainline traditions. SLC itself is *only* 50% Mormon, but you'd almost never know it! I frequently attended Friday night ward parties and sang from the Mormon Tabernacle choir's seats in the Tabernacle with the grouped choir for Stake Conference. I also became pianist for a Tongan United Methodist congregation. Most weeks I played for choir rehearsal, but the choir sang during worship only once a month. I tend so to emphasize the sacraments and, of course, a sacramental worldview, and though I was so pained that they celebrated communion only 4 times a year, to me, a very unlike-them stranger, they demonstrated hospitality unlike any I'd ever experienced in the church.

There's an Antiochian Orthodox priest on the Ecumenical Council's Faith, Order & Witness Committee I've been serving for a while now. A couple of times he's arranged for committee members to attend the west coast version of the annual Orientale Lumen conference that for many reasons no longer meets locally. I've also attended Divine LIturgy at the church he serves. I find the completely male leadership along with all the gold, jewels and bling almost completely off-putting. Instead of presiding at Eucharist versus populi as the rest of us do, they still preside facing East!

mostly culture

As a wannabe world traveler, I've visited only Western Europe, parts of Canada and Mexico as far south as Mexico City, "Mexico DF, distrito federale." I've lived in different areas of the USA but how striking it is that you need only cross the border from one state to another to experience a surprisingly different style and culture. In New England, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have a vastly different feel (and I'm not even considering the American Puritans booting Roger Williams out of their theocracy…). New Mexico and Arizona are cultures and laws unto themselves; multi-cultural southern California is a different world from the central coast which is different from northern California.

A lot of folks in the West have found originally Eastern disciplines like yoga and tai chi true gifts; a lot of Christians have found a Buddhist type of detachment useful, too. I still remember a comment from the book Water Buffalo Theology (it's ecological theology, liberation theology, theology of the cross and an offering in the Christian-Buddhist dialogue; we discussed it a few UCC forum iterations ago) "this Christian God is a hot God!" A God so passionate about creation to live as part of creation, and remain totally attached - anything but detached - from creation and the entire physical world.

Thanks, Terri! I appreciate getting a topic to blog about today. A blessed, fruitful green and growing Ordinary Time to everyone!

remembrance, hope...

Remembering a lively past, hoping into a living future...



sign on the highway: San Diego River Watershed: Keep It Clean!

listening to American Pie: "and a voice that came from you and me... the day the music died, the day that I die."

How realistic have I been to expect an occasional oasis of good food, good drink and good conversation? How reasonable had I been to expect to be fully re-integrated into and re-claimed by mainstream society and mainline church?

Theology types engage in a fair amount of margin/center // edges/heart talk, especially considering more edgy, less centered liberation, womanist, cruciform theologies. All that's more marginal? Some people in some quarters consider them so, yet throughout the witness of scripture, God consistently acts is ways that subvert that status quo, in way that are hidden and unapparent until later on, until the principles involved step away and look backwards to where they've been and then are able to discern that's happened and even a little bit of how it's happened. Someone said if you keep looking back you can't see where you've going, but if you don't look back for sure you'll make the same mistakes and take the very same mis-steps.

Right now as another season of summer is almost here, I need to do some faithful remembering of Whose I am and who I am: where I've been, the journey I've taken with the gifts and opps God has given me, the people I've met who've ignored or rejected me and even those few people and places who've been occasions of embrace.

For Paul of Tarsus, the gospel is death and resurrection. Originally the literary form "gospel" referred to the returning Roman conquering general's proclamation of his victory over opposing forces, his announcement of how he'd vanquished the enemies to the nether regions of the dead. For Christians, "gospel" is God's victorious action in vanquishing death, "the last enemy" and initiating the victorious reign of life. Baptized, we live within the gospeled community called to reconciliation yet called out from, set apart from and different from the empires of death and deadly imperialisms in which many reside and toward which others strive.

Referencing the Ephesians pericope for Ascension that pleads for "the eyes of our heart" to be enlightened, PGB suggested one of the emphases of the Feast of the Ascension is the Christ Event becoming an event in the heart of God. Here our physical eyes can see nothing without some ambient light, so our heart-eyes need light too. Long ago at the weekly Monday evening women's bible study that met at my house, JHD (she and I were the group's usual leaders/facilitators) pointed out the eye is the most sensitive part of our physical bodies.

Baptismal River Watershed: Keep It Clean! and how, but how?! Keep the commandments, keep covenant with all creation, stay put in community because in spite of everything, most times staying put is the test of faithfulness because we perceive everything as imperfect...