Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Optimist

Sermon In B flat

2011-03-12T23:08:00.000-06:00

There's nothing really "web 2.0" about Morris, OK. A handful of my church-members have blogs or twitter accounts, and a larger group have facebook pages, but quite a few more have dial up connections or nothing and don't really know how to use the computer. (They sure could school me on repairing a light socket or running a tractor or birthing a cow though.) But, since this is my context, I sometimes hesitate to unleash something like the following at church, though I really want to. So, instead--you are the web 2.0 church I preach to, mkay?

Today's sermon comes with a hat tip to Darren Solomon of "Science for Girls" who created the "In Bflat" collaborative music project, which I heard about today on NPR in the car and pulled over to write a note to myself to check it out when I got home. (Okay, I didn't pull over, I just drove with my knee while fishing around the car for a pen--hey the roads are pretty straight and trafficless here in rural OK). The link to the In Bflat thing is here:
http://inbflat.net/
The idea I had today (Saturday, which is the day before Sunday) was to set up the webpage in the church service and then have the congregation call out different instruments to start, etc. I just know something would probably go wrong though: probably get a hang up with my wifi or something, and I imagine half the congregation would kinda not know what the hell was going on anyway.

But if I were to pull out this cool thing (and I still may next week), what I would like to relate it to is the power of a common theme (such as the season of Lent or the key of Bflat) to make sense of or harmonize various sounds or experiences. So, abiding by a season of faith is essentially a collaborative exercise. People all over the world are reflecting on temptation, struggle, repentance, mortality, wilderness, and preparing to receive the mind blowing newness of resurrection, grace, and transcendence.

The Ocean of God

2011-01-30T22:20:00.001-06:00

About 12 years ago, I had a vision of how we relate to God/the Ground of All Being in a sort of visual metaphor that encapsulated many different approaches. Basically it posited that God was the Ocean, and the way that we relate to that Ocean typifies many different ways of relating (or not) to God.

Some go out into the water and snorkel or play water games with others. They are in the Ocean, with their feet in the mushy sand, and enjoying the sway and rocking of the waves, but their attention is also on the company around them. I would interpret these as those devotees who are involved in a relationship with God, but also with the “community of faith.”

Some go out into the water and kick up their feet and float. They let the power and volume of the Ocean support their weight, and the water covers their ears. They stare up at the sky and float on the waves until they truly feel at one with the Ocean. These, in my interpretation of the vision, are the mystics who experience transcendence.

Some go out into the water, and either enjoy the frolicking with others or kick up their heels for a few moments, and then feel an overwhelming urge to go back out of the water and try to get others to join them. I would call these “evangelists” or “bodhisattvas.”

Some go out into the water to swim against the incoming tide. They test their own bodies against the power of the current. These are the religious athletes or ascetics.

Some have surfboards, and ride the waves of the ocean and interpret its motion in artistic jumps and speeding crescendos. This is how I see artists such as Bach or Dali or Hokusai or Bob Marley.

Of course, on every beach, you have some who just don’t go in the water.

Some walk along the shoreline for miles and miles, content enough to walk along the wet sand in their bare feet and roll up their pants so that the occasional wave can wash their soles of the little granules stuck to their feet. I would call these the religious dabblers who wander the great expanse of the shoreline, but never find anything compelling enough to take off their clothes and dive in

Some sit on the beach (in their favorite spot) and admire the Ocean without ever going in: I would call these the people who like the idea of God, maybe they attend religious services, but have never had an experience of the Water. They’ve never really “felt” God.

Some feel the need to watch after other’s safety in the water. They are the self-appointed “lifeguards” of the Ocean.

Some take the wet sand (earth infused with the Ocean) and build intricate castles, large and small. Some invite others to come and play in their sandcastles, some guard their sandcastles very jealously—worried someone is going to come around with the intention of destruction. Perhaps they may run out and jump into the waves every now and then to cool off, but their attention is primarily on the sandcastles. I would say these are the architects and attendants of religious structures. Primarily concerned with the construction and preservation of structures infused with the Ocean—but not the Ocean itself. (And what is it that Jimi said about sandcastles? J)

Some are so fascinated with the intricate life within the coastline and beach that they turn their back to the Ocean and have no interest in it. Some are so involved in the deep mysteries of each granule of sand that they have dug deep trenches down into it, ready to discover more and more. They have dug down so deep, in fact, that they no longer see the Ocean at all—and some of them say to each other, “Ocean—you believe in that hullabaloo?” But the deeper they dig, the closer they get to the water that has seeped under the sand. And they may believe they have found something new, but it will of course be the Ocean.

And then there are all those who ignore the ocean entirely. They are sitting in traffic on the 405, because there are so many important things to do.

Where do you see yourself in this metaphor? Or is there another way that better describes your understanding of God?

Ode to Hogs

2010-08-23T15:56:00.001-05:00

I don't really stop being an Arkansas Razorbacks football fan during the offseason. I feel right now like I probably should feel during Advent anticipating Christmas, being a minister and all. A whole season of exciting games is only two weeks away. I enjoy the chatter of other excited football fans on a message board, which has become a good stand in for actually being in state and having the random Razorbacks discussion with other Arkansans.
A friend of Lara's was recently baffled by how either of us could consider ourselves fans of the Razorbacks since neither of us went to U of A. He suggested that we should instead be UTulsa fans or UCLA fans since Lara's PhD is involved in those two institutions since our undergrad didn't have a football team, but some actual connection must be made to the U of A if you have actually attended secondary education and want to cheer for the Hogs. (his logic holds that high school graduates who never go to college are "allowed" to be fans of the state institution of their home.) Perhaps his argument is logical, but logic has no basis in college fan-dom.
I remember when we first moved to Oklahoma tuning into to Razorbacks connected us to home as the summer days grew cooler. I remember staying up until almost 1am watching the Ole Miss game go into 7 overtimes and shouting with a friend on the phone when we finally won it. I remember two seasons later watching the Hogs take on the Kentucky Wildcats and taking that game into 7 overtimes as well. (Arkansas owns the title to playing the three longest NCAA football games, including a 2002 6 overtime loss to Tenn. to go with the two 7 overtime victories.
I remember I used to have to go to Hooters at 9am in the morning in Santa Monica to catch the 11am game-time in Arkansas. (I guess I hadn't discovered pay-per view yet) These two internet gamblers would be the only other two guys in the place, and they used to marvel at the way the Hooters girls would flirt with me. I showed them the ring on my finger, and said, "They see this, no doubt. I'd think they see me and think, 'safe and flirtation starved=good tip.'"
Razorback games are also deeply embedded in my personal history. They are part of my identity. I may not have gone to the University (I fell in love with Hendrix College when I attended Governor's school there and met a great new group of people planning to attend there), but I did grow up in Fayetteville and spent many fall afternoons as a 8, 9 and 10 year old trudging up and down the stairs of the bleachers in Razorback stadium with a tray of Cokes strapped around the back of my cub scout kerchief clad neck raising money for scout camp on the Buffalo River. I'm just old enough to have those last days of the old Southwest Conference embedded in my mind. I remember I used to get in a rhythm leaning a little bit backwards walking down steps that I couldn't see in front of me for the big metal tray of Cokes. People would stop me, and I'd pass a commemorative cup their way, and they'd send a couple bucks down the row for me to put in my little canvas pouch. I enjoyed walking down the steps instead of up them even thought the prospect of falling forward was a bit scarier, because then I could watch the game as I delivered refreshment to the thirsty masses.
When we lived in Los Angeles, I remember watching some games on the couch with a pregnant Lara, and Wesley would jump around in Lara's womb when he'd hear us hooting and hollering about a big play.
We went to San Francisco one year for Thanksgiving, and stayed in this ultra-mod appointed (but cheap b/c it was a like a Euro-hotel with one or two bathrooms on a floor. We went to a diner in downtown SanFran to get a turkey meal to go, and we watched the Miracle on Markham" (that year we won in dramatic fashion) while reclining on our bed watching a retro, egg shaped television perched on a little table that jutted out of the foot of the bed. I remember our voices echoing out on the rain washed street as we watched Matt Jones (a run-first option qb (now a receiver in the NFL) make two unusual and unlikely completions to win the game for us in the last seconds of the game.
When I was in Oxford ('99), I listened to the radio broadcast of the Tennessee game where we avenged the previous year's heartbreaking loss on yahoo radio. I remember sitting there wondering what kinds of marvelous powers of communication the internet was going to afford me in my life if I could sit in my roomate's room upstairs on Marlborough road in Oxford listening to Paul Eels call the game through a regional radio broadcast coming through the internet.
Being a Razorback fan is just part of being an Arkansan, I'd say--and you could logically say I'm no longer an Arkansan, since I've spent the past 4 years in Oklahoma, and lived in Oklahoma for another 2 years before that. So, logically speaking, I'm 3/32nds Californian, 1/8th Missourian, 1/7th Oklahoman,and 22/32nds Arkansan.
Most of these stories share a common thread--being a fan connected me to my home state as I have been living elsewhere. Fan-dom is a kind of resonating with home.
So, there's my apologia for being a Hog Fan. Woooo Pig Sooie

Art V. Porn

2010-07-16T23:03:00.000-05:00

Well, if that title doesn't get some clicks from my RSS feeders after 2 months of incommunicado from little ole me, I don't know what will. So, I'll break the ice (after 2 months away, I do feel kind of frozen about the idea of posting anything short of a manifesto) with something spiky. Well, to make it easier on myself, it will be more like an annotated link of something spiky. I've really been enjoying the tv channel Current. (esp. Viral Video Film School.) I just watched this little news clip about a new* sex-art-porn? magazine called H-Bomb at Harvard, and it got my attention because 1)I wrote a book chapter (sp ;) on some of the issues brought up in the clip and 2)BC they mention that the magazine is beginning to franchise out and they mention Boston U, where my sister is hoping to enroll in the MFA program in the winter, and where several of my friends have gone/are going to seminary.
So, a few quick notes, then I'll give you the video. First, I like Current's strive for some balance in reporting. They interview one of the editors, a professor who teaches the evolution of sexuality, and a couple who started an abstinence support group on campus. For what it's worth, I think the pro-abstinence couple give perhaps the most cool-headed and articulate reasoning for their perspective that I've ever heard. You can tell they've had to explain their position to other Harvard students, and that takes a little more rationality, I would say at the risk of sounding snobbish, than the average Campus Crusader pleading for virginity for purity's sake. I think the "hook up culture" really came on the strongest after my time in college, but from what I understand about it (I remember seeing an interview with a bunch of SMU students on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly one time), there is a real absence of a sense of need for commitment in sexual relationships in college environments these days. (Wow, convoluted sentence, or was it even a sentence? Oh well, I'm rusty.) Secondly, I'm interested in the magazine editor's accusation that the general media has a very simplistic notion of what constitutes pornography versus what qualifies as art (she obviously categorizes her magazine as art,) but she never quite clears up for the viewer what makes the general media so obtuse in it's view. Do they not understand that a filtered photograph or a grainy photograph is art and a bare bones video is not? If the general media is missing the distinction, then what is the distinction? Is it because it is made by and for Harvard students, as opposed to Arkansas Tech students? Does the culture surrounding the medium give it it's identity, or is there a "thing in itself" about the presentation of sexuality that renders it either pornography or art?
By the way, as I was writing this, I googled the H-Bomb and found out that I must have been watching a re-run of Current. (A re-run of Current: hahaha) Because this article from the Crimson from 2007 shows that the Hbomb magazine went belly up after only two issues in 2005, and the group lost it's status as a student group, oh well. I'm late to the game, but then again, you probably know that based on the fact that you haven't gotten a post out of me in two months. I could give you the list of reasons, but I'll refrain.

Good lecture from "Theology After Google" conference

2010-05-19T00:30:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite profs from seminary (Philip Clayton) was instrumental in getting this conference together, which I didn't go to, but was interested in. I just watched my first lecture from the conference, and was impressed with Barry Taylor's lecture:

h/t Callid Keefe-Perry

My own personal Jesus.

2010-05-17T23:38:00.001-05:00

I've always thought that the intersections/battlegrounds between consumer culture and religious culture are worth my interest. In ways that have been more fully fleshed out by great minds like Wendell Berry, Jay McDaniel, John Cobb, and Jonny Baker (among others). But since I am interested in being condensed tonight, I'll just say I think it is one way that the church is in the midst of a new kind of empire in this day and age. This empire wants to colonize your mental space and enslave your mind as much as the Roman empire cared to colonize your homeland and enslave your body.
When the tension between consumerism and Christianity are expressed in art, I take note. I saw on Jonny's blog a link to the new "Mickey Christ" statue unveiled at a Beijing mall. It speaks quite well to the tension itself, and then the comments below the picture are also enlightening.
The statue reminded me of Banksy's "Christ with Shopping Bags." Also worth examining.
I recall using the Banksy thing for something one time, and a person in an older generation than my own was worried about promoting the image by using it. The person's concern evidenced a real difference between generations, I think. I believe my generation is much more intuitive about irony and less likely to be offended by it. I realize that is quite a blanket statement, and don't claim that is an airtight theory. It just seems that irony is a lot more utilized (especially in consumer culture/marketing.) in my generation and younger. Would you imagine Burger King so gleefully suggesting to the consumer that they are ripping off McDonalds in any other generation?
Commercials used to be so earnest! They were the real thing! and now what we have is so smarmy and snorting. (But, I really do prefer the smarmy snorting kind of commercialism to the one that attempts to tap into the Zeitgeist of a generation and market that to itself......or, is that just what today's brand of consumerism is as well, young grasshopper?)
As you can see, my own mind is colonized. Commercial taglines like "Give me a break" or "Dr. Pepper, You make the world taste better" frequently echo out of my subconscious and out of my mouth with the gusto of the original jingle singer. As I link up those two references, I imagine that they will resound down into the canyons of your own subconscious too, dear reader. Woe is us! Being that this is our mental/spiritual landscape, who are we to deny the Spirit's bucking against the shitstem like an angry bull? That's what I see happening in those art pieces. Some people, get caught up in their own sense of indignation about images that confound them and fail to see the truth conveyed--not the Truth That Is, necessarily, but the truth we've made.I don't say that with any sense of "holier than thou" attitude--perhaps the generational thing is simply reflective of a my own genration/culture being more thoroughly warped by consumerism.. Whew, this was supposed to be a brief post....

Weird Clouds after a funnel cloud.

2010-05-10T23:00:00.001-05:00

We missed one pretty big tornado by about 12 miles tonight. For someone who lives in the heart of tornado alley, I've never gotten used to them. My sister has actually been in a couple of pretty bad ones, though I never have. Fortunately, we kept electricity throughout the storm tonight, so I could watch our trusty weather man give me assurance through the whole thing. Maybe you've heard of how much we love our weathermen in Oklahoma. "Just listen to Gary England, baby, he's gonna tell us when things are o.k!

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. After the worst of it had passed (including a big funnel cloud that passed just to the north of Morris, turning the sky a weird color and revealing the cotton ball looking clouds that seemed to be hanging out of the gray sheet), everyone was out in the street looking at the sky. Some guy I didn't know waved at me as I walked back into the house. Morris was destroyed by a tornado in 1984, and it's for this reason that we don't have a pretty downtown with historic brick buildings and all that. I imagine folks see something like that pass us by, and it reminds them that we are a community. This has been the first big tornado event of the year here, most of them have sprung up to the east of us. Isn't it an El Nino year?

The trees of the field shall clap their hands

2010-04-30T14:28:00.001-05:00

(Note: Happy Arbor Day! I wanted to post a little earlier in the day to remind you in case you plan on planting a tree on arbor day. I might get a chance to post something else later or on Sat, but here's an excerpt from a report I gave to the Fund For Theological Education, who gave me a grant when I started seminary. It's not every day I sing the praises of a pharmaceutical company, but Lilly really has provided me a lot of opportunities in my education as a minister, including what I've gained from the FTE.)

....In Wyoming, I had the opportunity to take time to connect with the outdoors. Here I attended a workshop with Belden Lane, author of The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, and Landscapes of the Sacred, Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality. At this workshop, the general theme of a landscape’s influence on our spiritual lives was explored. Because one of the participants was a geologist, we also considered the timeframe and history of a landscape as a spiritual journey in itself. In this glacial valley, sitting among petroglyphs that were expressions of mystical visions, I received a message from the Holy Spirit through the wind blowing through the trees. This is the prayer with which I responded:
Fill us, o wind of God—Great Spirit of Transformation
The trees taste your presence and shout their thanks and praise. In the whistling of their needles and limbs, they sway in a dance with you. They display openness to your guidance. Help us to be more like the trees in their wisdom. Blow into our heads and refresh our minds, o mighty wind of God. Stir the embers that reside in our hearts. Fill our lungs like you fill the lungs of these pines. As they give voice to your movement, we will also sing your praise. As the trees move with your breath, unite the fire in our hearts with the newness of our ideas to make manifest in our lives a reflection of you. Blow through us, Spirit. Make us your tongues in this world, as you did on Pentecost. Help us speak the same language with all creation so that we might have communion. Lord you have written your vision in the interdependence of all things in nature, but we have attempted to escape that beautiful purpose for the rickety designs of our own greed fear and ignorance. Lord, give us the voice of the tree.

...At Sequoia National Park, my wife and I camped among the lodge pole pines that surround the “Giant Forest” of Sequoias at 6500 feet. As we walked among these trees, which have a magnificence and gentleness that are unparalleled in creation, we learned several things about God’s intentions for creation. Though the Sequoias sometimes grow too tall and massive to be supported by their own roots in a shallow three feet of soil on top of solid granite, the trees interlock their roots to support each other. Though this fact does not make much sense to a scientific worldview of competition, it does show that God’s purpose for creation is for us to welcome our interdependence and not live outside the relationships that support us all. As I sat among the mighty Sequoias, I read the thoughts of John Muir.
Do behold the King in his glory, King Sequoia! Behold! Behold! seems all I can say. Some time ago I left all for Sequoia and have been and am at his feet; fasting and praying for light, for is he not the greatest light in the woods, in the world? Where are such columns of sunshine, tangible, accessible, terrestrialised? Well may I fast, not from bread, but from business, book-making, duty-going, and other trifles, and great is my reward already for the manly, treely sacrifice. What giant truths since coming to Sequioia gigantea, what magnificent clusters of Sequoiac becauses.
~Letter to Ezra Carr, 1872

Jesus and the Fig Tree (Happy Arbor Day, indeed)

2010-04-29T16:31:00.001-05:00

I’ve noticed that Wesley’s Christmas tree (that blue spruce next to the East driveway of the church) has been putting out bright green new branches lately. That tree has been in the ground for four years now. Blue Spruce are known to be slow growers, and the tree has only grown a six inches a year or so. I’ve recently Julianna’s 2^nd Christmas tree too. (We bought tabletop trees to plant for Christmas when the children were two—we found it easier to keep ornaments on the tree). Wesley’s tree’s growth is especially noticeable because it sits next to Julianna’s tree—which has not yet put out any new growth. I haven’t been able to find any information as to whether this is to be expected with a new tree that was just put in the ground in January, so if there are any horticulturists out there who have good advice, let me hear it because I’m worried about it!

Scriptures say that God expects and hopes for us to show new growth in our Spirits. Much is said in the Psalms and Prophets about fruitfulness and it is a major theme of Paul’s letters to the church. Paul encourages the believers to bear fruit in their spiritual lives. Just to make things clear, Paul spells out how that looks on a practical level. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Gal 5: 22-23)

Jesus speaks of the urgency of us bearing fruit in prophetic action, recorded in Mark 11 and Matthew 21. Jesus walks up to a fig tree (which Mark says is “not in the fruit bearing season, but had leaves”) and finds that it has borne no figs. He curses the tree, and the disciples watch in amazement as the tree withers from the root. I’ve always felt sorry for that poor fig tree. It seems so out of character for Jesus to curse and hurt a living thing. I took this question to Brother Aidan, a hermit monk I had the opportunity to stay with for a week around 10 years ago. He spoke about the importance of bearing fruit when we have an encounter with Jesus. It’s not good enough just to just be in proximity to Jesus, we must respond to that presence. Whatever we are called by God to do, even yield fruit out of season or tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea, we must be bold enough do it.

But I’m not the only one who has a soft spot for the fig tree. This is one of those interesting stories that is contained in Mark (which Matthew and Luke utilized to compose their own Gospels) that Matthew adapted, but Luke left out entirely. Actually Luke doesn’t leave it out, he simply rewrites it as a parable. In Luke 13: 1-9, Jesus tells the story of a man who has a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and seeks fruit from it, but finds none for three years, and then tells his servant to cut it down. The servant then pleads with the landowner to spare the tree for another year, in which he will tend it carefully, putting manure at its roots, and then see if it will finally produce fruit. Tradition says that Luke was a physician. Perhaps he just couldn’t see Jesus cursing a tree because of his own interest in helping people recover from injury and disease. Instead, he recounts Jesus being the servant. He’s here to tend to the tree and stave off destruction. Still, urgency is implied in Luke’s story as well.

I like Luke’s story much better than Matthew and Mark. I can see Aidan’s point about the urgency and necessity of complying with God’s call on us, but I think Luke’s picture is more in harmony with Jesus as Master Physician and Finder of Lost Sheep. I think God looks at us with the same sympathy and hope that I look at my kids’ two Christmas trees. I see the one putting out new lush green branches, and I see the other looking more brown and brittle by comparison. Instead of being angry with brittle tree, I wonder what more I can do to help it become vibrant and growing.

Tree Crime and Punishment

2010-04-28T10:43:00.002-05:00

Note: between Wednesday, April 27 and Friday, April 30, which is arbor day, this blog will be devoted to trees. Why don't you celebrate by planting a tree? Please comment and tell me about your special trees. If you're so inspired by this post that you can't wait for tomorrow's post, you can look at my tags for trees and treehouses.)

In the 30 foot willow across the street, my neighbors and I once broke out a bunch of branches to build a little platform for a neighborhood cat. I was about 8 or 9. We didn't ask the cat if he wanted a 20 foot high platform in the tree, and he didn't seem to like it that much. I remembering him scampering down after we flopped him out into the sunlight, never to return. We didn't ask our neighbor who owned the tree either, and he called the police to pay us a visit. I vividly remember the blue uniformed police officer coming to 3115 Cherokee drive. He asked for me, and my stomach dropped. I lied and said I didn't do it. I remember the feeling of my throat swelling as I told the lie. It didn't feel that easy, so I imagine he could probably see the truth on my face.

Years later, I still felt horrible to lying to the policeman. I sent a confession to the police department, and they wrote a letter back to me which commended me on the bravery of telling the truth. (I had conveniently moved out of their jurisdiction by then.) I think I still have the letter in a chest at home.

Arboreal locomotion

2010-04-27T16:54:00.001-05:00

(Note: From now till Friday, which is arbor day, this blog will be devoted to trees. Why don't you celebrate by planting a tree? Please comment and tell me about your special trees. If you're so inspired by this post that you can't wait for tomorrow's post, you can look at my tags for trees and treehouses.)

I used to love climbing trees. There were two maple trees next to my house in Fayetteville that I used to climb, and I remember liking how the bark was smooth against my palms and shorts clad knees, rather than grating and rough, like an oak or pecan or sweetgum. That maple was the tree I learned to climb in. It was small enough that I could climb to the top of it, and big enough to give a thrill. I used to sit in one branch that hung down like a little bench in the air, and my Kangaroos would dangle before I'd jump six feet to the ground.

There was a willow tree across the street, and I can't think of a better tree to climb in and sit under. There were two at the pond I used to fish as a kid. One had a big rock underneath the overhanging branches. It used to seem like an Arabian tent with a big rock altar to our God of the outdoors. It made good shelter when we used to shoot our b-b guns at each other from across the pond. If the hanging branches didn't deflect the b-b, the big sitting rock would.

In the Earth

2010-04-21T16:12:00.003-05:00

At my recent college reunion, by friend Dawn was raving about my blog, and I was thinking, "Yeah, and I haven't posted on it in about a month. If you're a loyal reader, and this has caused you any grief or distress, I apologize. We've been taking advantage of some fabulous spring days to dig a garden. A lot of our churchpeople have taken that act as a communication that we are not going to be moving this year. As far as I know, they are correct.. I'm planning on harvesting what I'm planting. Perhaps it's being in the earth so much, or perhaps it's our recent acquisition of the ReNew VBS and how I've been impressed with it, or maybe it's just the beautiful weather we've had here in what we call "Green Country," but I've been "keyed in" to the natural world lately.

Last week I wrote my sermon from the front porch, listening to all the birds sing in our sweetgum trees, (because we now have wireless!!!) and I think my "attentive participation" in the Spring is making a difference in my spirit. The robins that hop around in our yard looking for bugs came right up to my feet, unafraid. There is something profound about not causing fear in a wild animal.

I think the way we are shaped by our surroundings is fascinating. I'll never forget the time I got to spend at a workshop at Ring Lake Ranch with Belden Lane on that topic. He wrote a book called "The Solace of Fierce Landscapes" that really resonated with me. I've always enjoyed mentally fishing on the stream that is formed by the merging of ecology and theology. I've had great opportunities to plumb those depths. (thank you, Lilly pharmaceuticals)

One thing that the winter does for me is give me enough silence and stillness, with only the constant sound of the wind, to re-acquaint myself with the wildlife and plant-life that comes springing back around. When I lived in Los Angeles and would come back to Arkansas in the summer, it would baffle me how green everything outdoors was. So, in the same way, winter annually lulls our eyes and ears to sleep only to have them awakened again, refreshed and renewed.

So, in the spirit of Belden Lane, beautiful weather, birds chiriping, and Earth Day, I introduce you to my surroundings:

First are our two big Sweetgums. They give us a workout in the fall and winter with all the balls they drop, but they give nice cool shade in the summer, and I like to hang my dartboard on the closest one there. They rise to about 40 feet or more.

Lao-Tzu enjoys the empty lot to the south of our house. There's always something to prowl around for out there, and that makes a cat feel worthwhile, I suppose. (Although she's gotten stuck in Lloyd's skunk traps on occasion)

There are four pecan trees in the big lot to the south of our house. We enjoy finding pecans and munching on the ones that don't have wormholes. I can occasionally practice with my pitching wedge in the lot when it is mowed. (It is not right now)

Even further south is a cow pasture with some Black Angus cattle owned by a church member. One time we got 1/4 of a cow from him. This made me feel sustainability superior to everyone else. That is, until we left the freezer unplugged for a few days, and had to throw a good bit of it out. (Palm to forehead at that memory)

Looks like our little birdhouse in the maple tree in the front has an occupant. There are also a pair of huge barn owls that make their home in the top of that tree.
(I have a picture, but I can't find it.) This is the prettiest maple tree in town in the fall. It turns a brilliant golden color. (See!)

Last but not least is our fledgling garden that has been the source of much dirt in my fingernails over the past week or so. I hope it isn't too late to plant lettuce, b/c we have some of that, peppers, onions, tomatoes, strawberries, squash, and zucchini. I'm hoping the best for our garden, and I think we'll have plenty to share with friends. As Wendell Berry says, "One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race."

Soon I'll be putting up some lattice work on our porch to give some more shade and privacy on the west. Then we'll be maxing AND relaxing.

I hope you've enjoyed your little tour of my yard. It's not glamorous, but it's beautiful in a humble way, I think. As Wendell Berry also says,"I see that the life of this place is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, that it is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated. And this is when I see that this life is a miracle, absolutely worth having, absolutely worth saving. We are alive within mystery, by miracle."

(Boy, the new formatting thing really didn't work on those photos--any pointers blogger geeks?)

Holy Week and Beyond

2010-03-30T12:23:00.001-05:00

Pastor’s Perspective: Holy Week and Beyond

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)

These words, spoken by an angel at the empty tomb on Easter morning, haunt us—don’t they? They are words of hope but also of chastisement. We are people of the empty cross—we claim to celebrate the Resurrection every Sunday—and yet so often, we look for the living and breathing Christ only in the pages of record of a history that is dead and gone. We look for the living among the dead when we try to trap Jesus in the pages of the Bible only, and we fail to see him in the everyday world that we inhabit. As Jesus himself said, God is a God of the living, not the dead. That isn’t to say we should have no appreciation for the story of what happened. On the contrary, we gather together in the first week of April on Thursday and on Friday nights to remember that story that so often moves us to tears.

On Thursday we hear about the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples. It was a celebration of the Passover meal, that yearly ritual in which all Jews remembered together with friends and family the powerful events of their own history, in which God brought them out of slavery in Egypt and carried them into the Promised Land. God had commanded his people to remember this event by participating in a meal each year. God knows us so well because God created us. And isn’t it true that sometimes a smell or a taste can cue a memory in our minds so vividly? Remembering is re-membering the past and how it continues to shape us.

On Friday, we hear the story of Jesus’ passion in the Tenebre service. “Tenebre” means darkness, and as the story unfolds and candles on the bare altar are extinguished, we’ll experience together perhaps a small taste of the darkness that must have been experienced that day by Jesus and his followers. That darkness is important. Darkness is integral to a deep and vibrant spirituality. St. John of the Cross was a 16^th century Spanish priest who wrote about a “dark night of the soul” when describing the spiritual journey toward God. It is our fate to suffer and to grieve and to not comprehend the depth and breadth of the Truth and Love which envelops us. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that we suffer and grieve on our own or remain ignorant forever. So on Good Friday we gather in the darkness together. We huddle beneath the cross and hear the last words a loving savior gave his faithful followers.

On Easter Sunday, the Good News breaks open like that jar of nard that Mary used to anoint Jesus’ feet for burial. The Good News “fills the whole” place, as we hear of the surprised wonder of the disciples. But, as the angel said, we do not look for the living among the dead. The miracle of the resurrection, for us, is not only that Christ conquers death and returns to his disciples in a living and breathing body. It is the miracle that continues 50 days later, at Pentecost, when Jesus imparts his Spirit on the group that is gathered in his name and changes them into a living, collective, body. So, when we only seek Jesus in the pages of a story, however rich and beautiful and life-giving that story is—if our gaze is only directed toward the scriptures to try and find the meaning and power of a Living and Loving God, we are looking for the living among the dead. When we enact those scriptures, when we respond to them by living lives that are inspired (literally “breathed into”) by them, they become the “Living Word” that we so often call the Bible. Those words tell us to look around for God—look in our daily lives. Look especially at the poor and mourning. Pay close attention to those who are oppressed or maligned. It is easy to be inspired by the beauty of creation—and I can attest to the power of finding God’s presence in a magnificent sunset or in a grand mountain vista. But Jesus reminds us to not forget about the underbelly of creation too. Do we see God’s presence in the people the world says are repulsive? Jesus says, “I am there.” It is when we open our eyes to this truth that we seek the living among the living.

Little Birds

2010-03-29T23:58:00.000-05:00

I wonder what it must be like
to be a priest
who places the sacrament
directly in the mouths of his people,
and sees them
as filmy eyed hatchlings,
peeping and desperately seeking
nourishment
with mouths wide open.

If anything were to ever make me feel transparent,
I think that would be it.

Letter to Glenn Beck

2010-03-09T11:16:00.000-06:00

Little Red Book being distributed to churches

From:	Nathan Mattox View Contact
To:	me@glennbeck.com

Dear Mr. Beck,

I heard what you said about social justice being a covert word used by secret communists and nazis in the church to advance the common agenda of those groups. I am disturbed and alarmed. My own church uses that secret code word on their church website, which is umc.org. I feel even more threatened because I began to notice lots of "Little Red Books" around the church. I have heard that this is a famous communist book so I began to grow even more enraged and appalled when I noticed that it said things like "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." and "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you." These are only a couple of lines from that wretched commie tract, and it's chock full of stuff like that. I feel so threatened and alarmed and disturbed and appalled and enraged that my head is spinning. Please give me some orientation with your words of determination and resolve and purpose! You told me I needed to run as far from my church as I can, but where can I find a church without those Little Red Books in them? I'm beginning to notice that they are everywhere, even in motel rooms! They even put little pocket sized copies of them in the children's Sunday School classrooms to infect their precious little innocent minds.

Praise the Lord, and Pass the Ammunition!

Nathan Mattox

Morris, OK

U2charist order of worship

2010-03-03T20:41:00.002-06:00

I've spent the past few days putting together this service for our church here in Morris. I'm excited, but also a little daunted about it. I'd say about half of our congregation has never heard anything by U2. (Mostly George Strait fans around here--and some family members of Merle Haggard) We're going to be doing a lot of sitting and listening to recorded music, so I'm trying to think of ideas to get the congregation active or involved in some way. I reeeeeealllly do not foresee any of my congregation getting up and clapping their hands and singing along and all that that may happen at other U2charists. But, the folks are used to me brining in a song from time to time to hear and reflect or perhaps write something while they listen, etc. If you have ideas, please share. I'm rigging up a screen so that we can see some of the videos or other images/slideshows I may put together over the next few days, so there's a whole other layer of things to be nervous about. I try to come right out of the gates with some of the most overtly religious songs by U2 to buy the some credibility with those who aren't familiar. I wrote a confession where I drew from a few U2 songs (Acrobat, A Sort of Homecoming, One, Love Rescue Me), but I'm also still considering just having Love Rescue Me as the song of Confession-It has great lyrics and was cowritten with Bob Dylan-put in your vote! Feel free to use or adapt for your own purposes. I'm really excited because one of the youth is going to play Yahweh on guitar for the service. There's a couple neat videos on youtube for that song too, so I may use them in some way as well. For the service of Word, I'm probably going to use an interactive reading that combines a few stories from the Bible with "I still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" that I found at Bob Carlton's church. http://thecorner.typepad.com/bc/2006/02/u2charist_form_.html Thanks to them in advance. I also got the opening prayer from them. For the Children's sermon, I plan to talk with them about music and how it moves us, and then teach the kids to sing the old Bible School song, "this is the day that the Lord has made" which we will mash up with the refrain from Beautiful Day, "It's a beautiful day, don't let it slip away." Oh, by the way, I noticed I have nothing from the 90s in the service. Thought about using "One," my favorite song, but I had used that in a worship service recently, so they were already exposed to it. I'd rather give them new stuff. I'll probably wind up taking a couple/few songs out, I'd like to cut it closer to an hour to an hour and ten, but I thought I'd put the first draft up here for your use and pleasure, in case you're one of those hour and a half type churches. In Morris, OK, we have pot roasts in the oven.

First United Methodist Church www.morrisokumc.blogspot.com

U2charist: I will Sing a New Song

In this service of worship, we will be drawing from the music and lyrics of the band U2 to express our praise and thanksgiving, confession, and yearning for connection with God. The band has been making music on a world stage for 30 years. Each time they tour in concert, they draw millions of people, where they offer a sensory rich spectacle that attempts to focus fans toward goals in humanitarian causes developed by the United Nations. They offer prayers and even play Psalms and recite other Scripture when they play. They are a “secular band” that unabashedly proclaims their faith, and what it compels them to do in the world. Approach this service with the prayer that whether you are a longtime fan of U2, or have never really listened to them, God will open something new inside you.

Song of Praise: Magnificent (from No Line on the Horizon, 2009)

Magnificent

I was born

I was born to be with you

In this space and time

After that and ever after I haven't had a clue

Only to break rhyme

This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue

Only love, only love can leave such a mark

But only love, only love can heal such a scar

I was born

I was born to sing for you

I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up

And sing whatever song you wanted me to

I give you back my voice

From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise ...

Only love, only love can leave such a mark

But only love, only love can heal such a scar

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify

The Magnificent

Magnificent

Only love, only love can leave such a mark

But only love, only love unites our hearts

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify

Prayer: Liturgist

We gather here in your presence, God,

In our need and bringing with us the needs of the world.

We come with our faith and with our doubts;

We come with our hopes and our hunger.

We come as we are, because you invite us to come.

You have promised never to turn us away.

Open us, God, to experience you here.

All Respond: Amen.

Prelude: Rejoice (from October, 1981)

Scripture Lesson: Psalm 40, read responsively with response, p. 774 Liturgist

Song of Response: 40 (from War, 1983)

Prayer of Confession:

Holy God,

We confess at times of saying “Lord, Lord,” and then closing our hearts to others.

I must be an acrobat, to talk like this, and act like that.

We confess a numbness toward your presence in the world around us.

Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own

We confess that we bear grudges and plot revenge against one another

We hurt each other, then we do it again.

Our hearts are broken, Lord, mend them and fill them with your Love and Forgiveness.

I'm here without a name in the palace of my shame. Love rescue me.

Song of Assurance: Grace (From All That You Can't Leave Behind, 2000)

Prayers of Joys and Concern:

During the time of sharing our joys and concerns, after a name or circumstance has been shared, the pastor will repeat the name or circumstance. If it is a concern, we will pray together, “We carry each other.” If it is a joy, we will pray together, “Only Love can leave such a mark.” After the local joys and concerns are shared, we will hear the song “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” which elaborates on the theme of war and violence, which are our global concerns, and is a prayer of petition.

The Lord’s Prayer

Alleluia

Offertory: Love and Peace or Else (from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004)

Children’s Sermon: Pastor

Interactive Scripture Reading and Homily

I still haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (from The Joshua Tree, 1987)

Invitation to Communion: Yahweh (from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004) Atticus Dellinger

Great Thanksgiving and Communion: All are Welcome to receive.

(I'll probably just choose three of these

American Prayer (Live version recorded at a concert in South Africa with Beyonce Knowles at a benefit concert for Nelson Mandela in 2002)
Mercy (unreleased)

City of Blinding Lights, (From How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb)

Where the Streets Have No Name (from The Joshua Tree, 1987)

Hymn of Invitation:

Yahweh

Take My Life and Let it Be: 399

Compost, Legos, and Ash

2010-02-17T15:27:00.001-06:00

My dad gave me a new composter for Christmas. I’ve been looking at everything with new eyes: everything is potentially something I can throw into the composter.

The tops of strawberries, eggshells, even the dust from my vacuum cleaner. And yes, I’ve checked. Ash can be composted as well.

I’m getting impatient with my compost pile. Unfortunately, a sweetgum ball blew out my yard vacuum mulcher, so I can’t chop up my leaves like I could before I had a composter. See, the smaller the pieces, the faster that stuff can turn into good compost.

But the thing is, once this stuff sits in there for a while, its going to make some great soil for Julianna’s Christmas tree we recently planted.

I’ve started thinking of Lent as a season of soul composting. You take all that junk that you just ignored and threw in the trash or down the garbage disposal before, and you use it. You see that there is value in reflecting on it. You put it in a special place, the soul composter, and you let it sit. I've always been impatient with "seeing results" from the "soul composter" of Lent, as I am with my leaf composter.

We begin Lent by taking a reminder of decay and sinfulness (the palm branches of last year's Palm Sunday--which I am tearing the leaves from and handing to the congregation and inviting them to write something they would like to see "burned away" during Lent.) and burning it down to its smallest form, then we mark our heads as a reminder that God can take all of this—all of this dirt and dust and rotting decay and He can make new life spring out of it.

But we must give it over, and in order to do that we must acknowledge that it exists within us. The ashy cross you will receive on your forehead is a visible reminder of this.

I’ve always been puzzled by the lectionary’s prescription for Ash Wednesday in the Gospel Text. Doesn’t Jesus basically say, when you repent, don’t make it a big show so that everyone will see? And here we are, marking ashes on our foreheads.

Then I began noticing what happened when I’d go home and get the kids in the bath, and see my reflection in the mirror. I’d pause there, and the truth of those ashes would ring in my ears: I am made of dust, and to dust I shall return. There’s something I was created for that would be missing in my reflection if it had not been given to me as a gift.

It reminds me of a story I heard in a children's sermon about his son playing with legos, and being frustrated because his little airplane that he’d made wouldn’t work right. The cockpit wouldn’t raise up.

His son stormed out of the room, and set it down on the dresser. The dad took a look at it, and saw that there was one wrong piece that had been turned the wrong way, and that was keeping the thing from working right. But, the dad had to take it all apart to get to that piece.

The son walked in right as dad had finished taking the whole thing apart, and he was furious! Dad had ruined the whole thing!

But then dad finally got through to the boy and showed him how the thing wasn’t working, and asked him to help put it back together again.

We are dust. We must acknowledge and see how we fall short, we must hold it up to God and ask God to put us back together again. This is the meaning of repentance. We will all experience death. We will all be taken apart. Our frustration and fears and anger about death must be met by the Father’s assurance that he intends to put us back together again.

So, let me suggest that these ashes are more about you seeing them in the mirror and letting them sink into your conciousness than they are about being an emblem for all to see. I wouldn’t wipe them off until you’ve had a chance to look at your reflection.

And those ashes are good news. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵For whoever wants to save his life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. (Mt 16)

This is what Lent is about. It is about finding the compost materials. It is about taking apart the legos. Something will happen to all the junk we let go of and throw in the pile over these 40 days. They will become fertile soil for the seed of a promise that we will hear about on the day after Lent. The new life will spring out of decay. The resurrection springs out of a tomb. Our eternal life springs out our release of the mortal life.

Thanks be to God.

Midrash on Luke 4 and 5

2010-02-06T23:21:00.002-06:00

I'm going to find some way to use this in the sermon tomorrow. I've enjoyed getting inside the story of Jesus from another perspective before with the Transfiguration account. I haven't decided whose this perspective is yet, but I kind of like the idea of it being the boy who later gives the five loaves and two fish to Jesus to bless and feed the multitude. (Although, I'd need to retool the ending for that.)

A fishing story.
You want to hear a fish story?
I remember that day Simon, the bully of Bethsaida, took that wandering prophet out in his boat to let him preach from it.

He had come once before, and had been welcomed by Simon. Simon usually gathered the largest men and went out to meet any newcomers in town, in case they were zealots or soldiers. But this man had come alone, and Simon had heard of him. He was a healer and a prophet—so he invited him to stay at his own home, where his mother in law was suffering from a fever. That night, the man rebuked the fever, and it immediately went away.

As soon as word had gotten around about Simon’s mother-in-law, everyone brought their sick and ailing to see the man named Jesus. I remember how everyone crowded around Simon’s house, and his daughters tried to organize everyone into groups small enough not to overwhelm the saint. This went on through the night, and he healed all of them, and then slipped away at dawn to be alone in the wilderness. When a group of us found him, he told us that he was going on to preach in more places.

So when he returned one morning, just as the fishermen were cleaning their nets from an unsuccessful night on the lake, everyone gathered around and wanted to hear what he had to say. Sound echoes well over the water. Every fisherman knows you don’t speak with your partners about things you don’t want to get out while you are fishing. Voices just seem to carry over the water, don’t they?. This day, I didn’t have to listen closely for the words of that man. They danced out over the water, and the lake itself seemed to stop lapping at the shore and listen attentively.

The man spoke for awhile about how the Lord was not some far off and aloof God, but was right there with us. He said that God wanted to be known to all of us a child knows his father, and that God wanted to be trusted. Then he told Simon to row out to the deeper water. Seeing him tell Simon what to do made me chuckle to myself. I’d never seen anyone do that before! Usually, Simon stormed around town telling everyone else what to do! He was larger than all the other men in town, and he was persuasive in ways that go beyond words. But, Simon obeyed the strange man.

Then, even though he had already folded his nets and finished for the day, I saw him throwing out the nets again. I couldn’t believe my eyes when they hauled up a catch so big it seemed as though the nets were about to snap! James and John, who were known as the “sons of thunder” because they were also large and commanding young men whom Simon had chosen as partners and everyone thought as future sons-in-law, since Simon only had daughters, were standing on the shore, dumbstruck by the prophet’s words. When they saw the full net, they leaped into their boat and rowed out to help with the haul.

Two boatfuls of beautiful fish shining in a new day’s sunlight weighed down the two boats so low that water actually started seeping over the tops of them. Waterlogged, it took the boats three times as long to bring the boats to shore as usual. When they got the boats to shore, Simon was weeping. I had never seen him shed a tear! There wasn’t a single stray catfish in the haul. (We would have had to throw the catfish back, as we are prohibited by the Law from eating them.) All of them were beautiful tilapia, which after that day we started calling by the name “Simon’s Fish,” and then when Jesus gave him a new name, “Peter’s Fish.”

Simon stumbled out of the boat, and made a plea to everyone there, “forgive me for how I’ve wronged you. Forgive my impatience and my temper and my haughtiness. At these words, James and John fell to their knees as well and joined in the prayer. Jesus stood in the boat, with the fish flopping around at his feet. He said, “Today these men bring in plentiful fish, but I am going to make them fish for people. Care for their families while they are gone. They will return, and you will have the chance to follow too.” Then, he turned to Simon and his brother Andrew and James and John and said, “Come, follow me.”

And they did! They left the fish and the boats and their homes and followed him. I looked at Simon’s wife Ruth, expecting her to be frantic, but she was peaceful. Ever since he had healed her mother, Ruth had spoken of Jesus with reverence. She looked as serene and joyful that day on the beach as she’d been that night, laughing and darting around the room serving the guests with her newly rejuvenated mother.

I wondered what would become of Simon and our town. I wondered if I would go if Jesus had called me. I wondered all of these things, because later that man who seemed so glorious and powerful in that boat would be nailed up on a cross and left to hang and die. Simon Peter would tell everyone who listened that he had seen him in the flesh after his death, but I never saw him again. And so I wonder, because his voice still echoes in my ears, and he seemed to be speaking to me when he said, “Come, Follow me."

Shaking the Foundations

2010-01-30T22:20:00.002-06:00

I'm preaching on 1 Corinthians 13 tomorrow (lectionary) particularly 9-13 and so read a bit of Paul Tillich's The Shaking of the Foundations in order to do some study. I cam across the following paragraph in Ch. 13 that reminded me of the following clip from Being John Malkovich. I think it may be too weird for the church people tomorrow, so I wanted to share it somewhere.

Tillich, then Kaufman

Mankind has always tried to decipher the puzzling fragments of life. That attempt is not just a matter for the philosophers or priests or prophets or wise men in all periods of history. It is a matter for everyone. For every man is a fragment himself. He is a riddle to himself; and the individual life of everyone else is an enigma to him, dark, puzzling, embarrassing, exciting, and very being is a continuous asking for themeaning of our being, a continuous attempt to decipher the enigma of our world and our heart. Before children are adjusted to the conventional reactions of adults and have grown out of their creative individuality, they show the continuous asking, the urgent desire to decipher the riddles they see in the primitive mirror of their experience. The creative man, in all realms of life, is like a child, who dares to inquire beyond the limits of conventional answers. He discovers the fragmentary character of all these answers, a character darkly and subconsciously felt by all men. He may destroy, by means of one fundamental question, a whole, well-organized system of life and society, of ethics and religion. He may show that what people believed to be a whole is nothing but a fragment of a fragment. He may shake the certainty on which centuries lived, by unearthing a riddle or an enigma in its very foundation. The misery of man lies in the fragmentary character of his life and knowledge; the greatness of man lies in his ability to know that his being is fragmentary and enigmatic. For man is able to be puzzled and to ask, to go beyond the fragments, seeking the perfect. Yet, in being able to do so, he feels at the same time the tragedy implicit in his being, the tragedy of the riddle and the fragment. Man is subject, with all beings, to the law of vanity. But man alone is conscious of that law. He is therefore infinitely more miserable than all other beings in the servitude to that law; on the other hand, he is infinitely superior, because he alone knows that there is something beyond vanity and decay, beyond riddles and enigmas. This is felt by Paul, when he says that the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
Man is a fragment and a riddle to himself. The more he experiences and knows that fact, the more he is really man. Paul experienced the breakdown of a system of life and thought which he believed to be a whole, a perfect truth without riddle or gaps. He then found himself buried under the pieces of his knowledge and his morals. But Paul never tried again to build up a new, comfortable house out of the pieces. He dwelt with the pieces. He realized always that fragments remain fragments. even if one attempts to reorganize them. The unity to which they belong lies beyond them; it s grasped through hope, but not face to face.

This part of the film is where John Makovich goes through the portal into his own mind (which has been being exploited for profit by John Cusack and Cameron Diaz, and runs into the reality of the vanity about which Tillich speaks. I was surprised that HOllywoodJesus didn't even have a review of the film. Well, maybe I'll find the time to write one (laugh). If you haven't seen the film--find it and remedy that ASAP. The first from Charlie Kaufman, (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and directed by Spike Jonze.

bulletin art

2010-01-16T13:08:00.004-06:00

I'm preaching on Psalm 46 and Luke 13: 1-9 to address the crisis in Haiti and Pat Robertson's drivel.The gist will be how Pat Robertson makes a grave error in pointing to some concocted myth to explain the "evil" that God must be punishing (Haiti made a deal with the devil to get rid of the French.) for with the earthquake. On one hand, I don't think this is even worth responding to, on the other hand, when I preached on something else that fit that description (refuting 2012 end time hysteria) it seemed that the people were really "met by" the sermon. If I can help the churchpeople see one more reason Pat Robertson and his ilk don't speak for them, and what a more authentically Christian response to the people in Haiti might be (hmm, I wonder what it could be?), I think I'll have given the message I'm supposed to give.

We're saving money by not buying bulletins anymore--so I was inspired by some friends on the Facebook Textweek page to draw a little thing for the bulletin. I'm not saying I think it is great (it is a stick figure, and my handwriting isn't great)--but I'm posting it here so that you can use it or use the idea and improve upon the art if you're doing the same kind of thing I'm doing (or if you plan to use the scripture later on in Lent.

Novelty and Nostalgia

2010-01-12T14:17:00.007-06:00

What is it about us that takes comfort and pleasure in nostalgia? Everyone nods their head in church when I bring up something like learning to drive a stick shift. We connect with one another through shared recollection. Our recollections are both novel and shared. My story is somewhat unique in its components, but it is essentially common. You can imagine what that experience must have been like for me because you too had a similar experience. I can really drone on about some concept or some idea or principle in church in a sermon, but if I can authenticate for the listeners that concept in a concrete example that they have experienced, they can tie the concept to things about that recollection.

This is in the ether for me because I recently ran a few errands and decided to keep the radio on the pop station that Lara listens to on her commute rather than immediately switching to NPR (aren't I a bore?) because she'd been singing a song to herself about 10 mill

ion fireflies--could the radio really be playing a song about getting 10,000 hugs from 10 million lightning bugs? If it isn't on SiriusXM 40's on 4 or on my Pandora Dub station, I probably don't hear it.

It turns out the radio is playing some such song, and it was a sweet sounding song with lyrics that are simple and strange, and hinting at some deeper rumblings. (I read something about the artist being primarily inspired and driven to make music by a persistent insomnia. "Please take me away from here.") I pictured my son Wesley liking it, and I liked it too (though when I sang it to him later that day, he said flatly--"I don't like that song." He highly prefers Johnny Cash's Orange Blossom Special or Bob Dylan's Santa Fe--which until Wesley's train obsession

((why he likes the song)) I had always assumed was about the town, not the train).

Owl City lyrics

Owl City - Fire Flies Video - Owl City Music Videos

Music Videos by VideoCure

Fireflies video The video is a phantasmagoria of nostalgic toys and light up items, and I can't decide if it is overly nostalgic or not, but perhaps you can put in your vote. The sheer volume and speed of which I was shown things from my own past in the video (such as a light up globe or a "Spell and Say" or a hot air balloon lamp, etc.) gave me a dip into my childhood by showing me images of many things with which I played. The effect is heightened in the video, because the singer remains unlit at a keyboard instead of getting any "face-time" whatsoever. It is like a music video for a child's toy-room. It got me thinking about nostalgia, and how we use it to "sell something." I use it to sell an idea. Artists use it to sell their ideas or their works, Commerce uses it to sell a product.

I don't think it is only my generation that has a special penchant for nostalgic "retro" stuff, but it certainly is prevalent in my generation. The video is one example. The "retro" Mustang, Camero, Challenger, and other new muscle cars is another, this kind of thing is another: There are hundreds of examples. We want to combine the old with the new. We familiarize ourselves with the new by linking it to something from the past. Or, perhaps we just like that feeling of "Oh yeah, I remember....!" How many facebook surveys have to do with our favorite toys or our favorite old cartoons or our favorite whatever it is. Is a certain extent of this connecting to products of our shared history due to the fact that my generation doesn't really have a galvanizing event that we all connect to in childhood or formative years? Instead we all remember products that shaped our play and our collective "identity?" (i.e. Lite Brites, Rainbow Brights, He-Man, etc.) I was telling Wesley about McGruff the Crime Dog and O.G. Readmore this evening. Why would I do such a thing? Is it just me, or does my whole generation (I was born in 1978) have an unusually soft spot for nostalgia?

Is it possible to be engaged by the completely novel? Perhaps that's what it's like to encounter God. The school of the Via Negativa found illumination in the notion that God is completely novel, and nothing in the world can ultimately describe God. Instead of holding up what God is in our prayer and discernment, we can only ultimately understand what God is not. A pitfall of nostalgia is that it can be hollow for some. While I may really get excited about football or dinosaurs, they could mean nothing to you. God is free from nostalgia. Nostalgia works because it is extremely personal. We get sucked into our past experience of life (not a bad thing) and it hits a soft spot with us. Though God, like the advertiser or the artist, has a desire to connect with each person through their sense of nostalgia, it is a carrot to pull us into a relationship that is completely novel. That's one way that I think of Process Theology. God is involved in our past and our identity and our nostalgia for the past, but God is drawing us toward a relationship with the rest of the world, with ourselves, and with God, that is completely novel. Process Theologians love this word, "novel." I think they like it because it speaks to the idea that God is fundamentally creative and fundamentally connected to creation. God takes the collective potential of the universe and instills a possible novel and creative outcome in our soul. If we follow this impulse toward the novel and creative, we follow God's "will." This relationship with God may involve nostalgia, but it may be completely novel. It involves "going out on a limb."
What do you think? It's not that our parents or grandparents or great great grandparents don't pine away for nostalgia (how many times have you heard it said "in the good ole' days."), but perhaps our generation is the first to have a product driven nostalgia (as showcased in the video.) Is nostalgia binding or freeing? Is the novel divorced from nostalgia, or shaped by it?

Little Boy's Dreams come true and why I like Streamlining

2010-01-05T22:28:00.007-06:00

Wesley is really into everything trains these days. He loves model trains, and even got a special invitation via grand-daddy to ride an engine at the Little Rock Port Authority as they shunted cars full of things from the various plants by the river to the train yard. (We hauled a bunch of pipes that had been reclaimed from Canada by an Indian company and then sent to Arkansas to be refinished and then sent back to Canada for a oil pipeline to the U.S-((Wesley got an early taste of globalization)) as well as around 100 or so desert painted Hum-vees on flatcars.) We got to ride in two different engine models--a 45 ton switcher (the photo with the Little Rock port authority engine) and a Santa Fe engine that you're probably more accustomed to seeing pulling long trains . Of course, Wesley had a great time. It was one of those experiences that will surely last in my memory, and I am sure will live in Wesley's memory for a long time. How many 4 year old boys get to do that kind of thing? Thanks, Dad.

Wesley's whole fascination with trains has schooled me a bit on trains too (I never really was into them), and while he prefers the Diesel engines he can watch pull trains through Okmulgee, I like all the beautiful designs from the age of streamlining. The other day, I was listening to Studio Tulsa on our NPR station, and heard that the Tulsa Philbrook museum had been given a new collection of industrial design from the same era. Tulsa is a big hub of art-deco and streamlined architecture. I used to work at Boston Avenue UMC, which is a paragon of art-deco architecture.

We got to go up to the chapel on the top floor of the tower (right above the pastor's office--the pastor, by the way, is afraid of heights) the other day when we got our flu shots. It is interesting to me that art deco and streamlining really fits into the mystique of the era when those designs were popular. It really breathes optimism. Everything, including toasters and vacuum cleaners and camper trailers, deserve to look like they are poised to take off in flight. That suits me.

Mary and the Beatles

2009-12-19T21:05:00.003-06:00

I've been doing reading a lot about the Beatles this week. I was clued into a good slant on the annunciation and the magnificat in preparation for the sermon this Sunday by the Ekklesia Project

Actually, the lectionary doesn't include the annunciation, but I wanted to include it since it is actually when Mary says "Let it Be," and it worked better for where I was going. But, down one of the tangential paths I typically meander when doing sermon research, I found what I think is going to be a great tool: Songfacts. There is a youtube clip of Paul singing the song there, and you can watch all of the Let it Be documentary (both it and the album Let it Be were released after the Beatles broke up, and Abbey Road was actually recorded after Let it Be, so it is typically considered their last album.) on Youtube. So, I'll treat you to the Ethiopians cover of the song, which is also great:

Anywhoo--I noticed on the songfacts page that John Lennon was so put out by what he considered the overt Christian symbolism of the song, that he made sure it was followed on the album by Maggie Mae, which was about a Liverpool prostitute. He also referred to "Let it Be" as "Angels we have heard on high." Paul, apparently wasn't speaking about the Virgin Mary at all (but didn't mind the lyrics being taken however they were by the listener) but instead was referring to his actual mother, named Mary, when he wrote "When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom: "Let it be." His mother died when he was 14, and appeared to him in a dream when he was going through a difficult period of life. I like that the song can be interpreted into the gospel text, and we are going to focus on the song during some time of lectio divina this Sunday during the service. Questions printed in the bulletin include:
In what ways is God calling me to be a vessel for Christ? What CAN I do to be God’s servant? In what areas of my own life could I echo Mary’s words, “Let it Be?”

In what ways do I ascribe to Mary’s radical song (the Magnificat: Luke 1: 46-55)?
“His mercy is on those who have feared him from generation to generation….”
“He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts….”
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly..”
“He has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich empty away….”

You'll be able to hear the sermon or read the notes on the church blog tomorrow.

John, The Jordan, and Joshua

2009-12-04T14:22:00.001-06:00

John baptized in the wilderness at the Jordan river. He drew people to the boundary line of Israel. Perhaps he baptized specifically at the Jordan since it was the boundary. The boundary is where you enter or re-enter. The first time the Israelites had crossed the Jordan river with Joshua leading the generations of wanderers out of slavery, God caused the river to part so the Israelites could cross on dry land. God reminded the people of the miraculous beginning of their journey at the Reed Sea as a symbol that their wandering was over.

John brought people back to the Jordan. The people of Israel needed to be washed from that journey out of slavery and wandering. Though the dry passage over the Jordan allowed the Israelites to remember their salvation, it did not afford them the opportunity to be washed of their past. The people of Israel were still living like slaves in their own land. They were wandering without a leader like Joshua. So, he washed them in the Jordan. He washed them of the residue of slavery. He poured water over their head, and got the dust of the wandering wilderness out of their hair. He proclaimed that they were free and that when they left the water of the Jordan, they were coming forth from their mother’s womb. A new Joshua would come and would lead them.

When the new Joshua came, he told his people how deeply enslavement had pervaded. This Joshua saved them from the slavery to sin and death. He led them toward a promised land that would not and could not be conquered or colonized.

The Pax Romana, Power, and Christ the King

2009-11-18T12:11:00.003-06:00

By the way, the "Living by the Word" segment for this week in the Christian Century by Leonard Beechy is very very good, and inspired this post, but is not available on the internet. Here is a piece from Beechy on the Theolog though--gives you a taste of his writing.

“Jesus Christ is Lord” means something to us today, but it meant something very specific in the ancient world.

To say “Christ is Lord” was to challenge the Roman empire. A common greeting in the time was “Caesar is Lord” There was also a cult of the emperor, a belief that the Roman Leader was a god on earth.

The imperial cult was strong in many of the cities that our that are the birthplaces of Christianity. Cities that had an imperial cult were given special status and benefits in the empire.

The cult made sense to the Roman mind. Who but a god would be able to achieve the things the Roman empire achieved? Jesus lived and the church was born during something historians have called the “Pax Romana,” the Roman Peace.

It was a time when the Roman Navy made the seas safe and clear of pirates and robbery The Roman legion patrolled the various regions of the Empire and were kept free of “inter-tribal” wars lawlessness.

Technological improvements were blooming, and roads were being built to serve the population. The average person, the average Jew, was appreciative of the world the Romans had created.

Rome’s goal was to bring about peace on Earth enforcing a peace on earth. Who but a god could bring about this reality?

This is why someone who rebelled against the Roman rule was called a Zealot. Zealots had let their zeal for the ancient prophecies of God cloud their rationality. It was so clear: The Romans had things pretty well under control. This is why the Sanhedrin (the Jewish sacred leadership approved by Rome) was threatened by rumors of his Jesus’ “Kingship.”

So, Pilate’s question to Jesus, and Jesus’ response should be heard in this context. Pilate was concerned about any threat to the Pax Romana when he interviewed Jesus. This is why he was interested in suppressing any “so called king.”

A new king would mean “inter-tribal” battles, (headaches for the Roman legions in the area assigned to keep the area peaceful.)

This is also why Jesus’ response is also to be heard in this context. “My kingdom is not of this world—this is why my followers do not try to stop you from arresting me.”

“My kingdom is not of this world.” I am not here to threaten the earthly rule of Rome. I am not here to invalidate the peace that has been created. I am here to qualify that peace. It is a temporal peace. I am here to establish everlasting peace.

I am here to proclaim a spiritual peace that only God can give.

Jesus had never made any claims to power. He took the opposite route. He made claims to service. He said he’d be the servant of all and if we wanted to follow him we’d take the lowest positions—the positions of slaves.

To display the rule of his kingdom, he got down on his knees and washed his disciples feet. What he was displaying was that everlasting peace—the peace that transcends space and time—is won through gentle acts of serving others.

It comes through opening your eyes to the holiness of those who are rejected by even the most gloriously peaceful empire that had been known.

This is why Jesus’ ministry was among those who had “fallen through the cracks” of the Pax Romana and the Jewish society upon which it encroached.

He defended an adulterous woman from being stoned. He put his arms around tax collectors (who though served the Roman empire, were shunned by their own communities for doing it.) and zealots (who were marginalized by the powerful and “polite” society). He lifted up children, and said they possessed the truth about the Kingdom of God.

Though temporal peace was and may be won by “enforcing the peace,” as the Romans did, Jesus shows us that everlasting peace is achieved through becoming vulnerable.

Vulnerability is finding humility. Vulnerability is taking the role of a servant. Vulnerability is opening up to someone else in love and covenant. Vulnerability is asking for forgiveness.

Jesus went to the cross in the ultimate display of vulnerability. As Paul says in Phil. 2, “He made himself empty.”

This is the ultimate expression of Kingship. Jesus showed that he is the King who brings everlasting peace by pouring out all the power that he possessed. He made himself completely vulnerable, and thus displayed supreme power.

What king has more power, the king who has to guard his power or the king who is so secure that he knows he can pour out his power among his people?

It is our heritage then to serve in the task of creating everlasting peace through acts of service. We pour ourselves out to those who have fallen through the cracks of the Pax Americana. We proclaim the greatest King when we get on our knees and wash feet.

Education and the Poor

2009-11-17T09:35:00.003-06:00

I was recently impressed with an article I read in the Higher Education supplement in the "United Methodist Reporter." In it two friends and frequent contributors to the UM Reporter raise some poignant issues about the church and the universities that our church has founded. What is the future of the relationship between the church and the academy?

Is there a lasting heritage that our church has imbued into the colleges and universities we built?

Today, my sister sent me a link from the NY Times about the prison education program at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. The selective school offers the same professors who teach at the university, which costs $51,000 a year to attend, to the prison population for free. The University is no longer affiliated with the UMC, but they point to the basis for their program being the example set by John Wesley's passion for prison reform.

In the UM Reporter conversation between Andrew and Eric, Andrew raises the issue of our educational institutions' service to the poor. I think the NY Times article gives a great look at a nuanced example. Here is a program that "distanced" itself from the institution in it's 1937 independence from the church, but still indicates an interest in upholding the principles of our heritage.

I love the college environment and the possibilities for spiritual life in that context, and worked at Occidental College for 2 years and UCLA for 1 while I was at seminary. At UCLA, I helped to organize a tutoring program between UCLA and an after school program in Baldwin Village. Students from UCLA would give 3 to 12 hours of their week to helping kids from a pretty gang-influenced part of the city learn to study and cultivate positive habits. The jr. high kids gave their attention and their willingness to learn to the UCLA students.

I think Andrew's diagnosis and desire to see more colleges employ their Wesleyan heritage is right on. He offers further thoughts in a blog post (Oct. 15--couldn't figure how to link it) after the article came out. Good work ya'll.

Everything Crash

2009-11-12T14:22:00.003-06:00

Based on some things going on in my community, I'm going to take the Mark passage from the lectionary to preach with this coming Sunday. This is unusual for me, because Mark 13 is all about the apocalypse, and even though that seems to be a popular subject for preaching in this part of the world, I've typically viewed it as dicey material for sermons. (I did take a Jewish Apocalyptic literature class in college, and have taught bible studies on Revelation in churches--I don't ignore those sections of scripture, but have also viewed them as too prone to be heard literally to be used in a sermon.) Apparently, there is a church in my community that is getting people all worked up about 2012 and the end of the world. The movie 2012 also comes out this weekend.

So, I'm going to delve into Jesus' description of the apocalypse in this passage with special care to work in Jesus' admonition that "no one knows the day nor the hour." Jesus also says that those who claim to know are leading people astray (mark 13, 21-23,) so I'm calling the whole notion of whipping people into a frenzy about the apocalypse a bluff and a con, and questioning the motives of churches that indulge in that kind of stuff. Also, it may do well to dispel some of the theories about 2012, which can be found on wikipedia.

The whole 2012 thing was brought to my attention last year or so by a friend who wondered what I thought about it, being a minister and all. At that point, I hadn't heard of it at all and then found that a movie was in production, etc. etc. Unsurprisingly, the Movie Promotion channel (Discovery Channel) has done a whole slew of shows about 2012 too. (as they did with "the technology of Batman" and "Legends of the Crystal Skull" in anticipation of other movies). I wonder if they get paid by the studios to run those kinds of programming prior to big movie releases?

Jesus speaks of "wars and rumors of wars" and natural disasters as being "merely the birthpangs" of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps our role as Christians is to be a "midwife" for the kingdom. There is also "birthpangs" imagery in Romans 8: 22 that I may link to this text, to speak about "Creation herself, groaning out in birthpangs for her redemption." And the lectionary choice of Psalm 113 also has childbirth imagery as well. "He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!" We are those who are called to minister to the suffering, to stand in the midst of wars and famines and cataclysms and "share the gospel." (As Jesus says in Mark 13 must happen.)

I'm not referring to "sharing the gospel" as simply telling people about Jesus, I'm referring to it as showing people Jesus, showing people the gospel. "Faith without works is dead," says James.

So, in short, the idea of the apocalypse shouldn't prompt us to sit around and obsess about all the speculations that are proffered by the latest con artist preacher. (I say "con-artist" since preachers should know that stoking the flames of people's fears and anxieties about the End of Days is a cheap trick for cheap faith. If Jesus says that even he doesn't know the day nor the hour, then what would prompt a preacher to have the gall to believe that he or she does. Jesus himself warns against these kinds of cons in the passage. I admit, speculating about the apocalypse has an allure. It is mysterious. It is fun. It is intoxicating. And some people who are intoxicated on speculation about the apocalypse spew out some of the most hateful and anti-Christian things I've heard.

The idea of the apocalypse should instead prompt us to action for the sake of Christ. Jesus says "Be alert!" (Mark 13: 33) Being alert doesn't mean alert and alarmed about latest prognostications about an occasion that we can't possibly fathom, let alone predict. "Alert" means "awake" and "about the tasks that we were left with." That's the summation of the whole passage, in the parable about the man leaving his house to the care of his servants. We don't want to be caught sleeping or daydreaming.

St. Francis moment

2009-11-02T11:56:00.004-06:00

Sunday afternoon was sunshine and beauty, so it was easy to "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." My son and I dug in a sandpile, burying his Thomas train and then uncovering it like paleontologists. I remembered being a kid and wanting to dig up dinosaur bones for a living when I got to be a grown up.
I spotted a big grasshopper on the edge of the sand pile.
"Look at that," I told Wesley.
We carefully stepped closer to where we saw the grasshopper land and then blend into the grass. It sprang up again, waist high and landed a few feet away. Again we edged closer. It sprang up again and we followed, repeating the crouching stance of a cat. This time, we asked the grasshopper if he would let us look at him for a minute. I placed my palm up on the ground, and the grasshopper climbed on. I raised him close in front of our faces.
"See his green eyes, and see there under his legs: you can see him breathing!"
Wesley stood and watched in amazement.
"Why is he sooooo so green?" Wesley liked the idea of being green.
"He's green so that he can jump into the grass and be hidden from animals that want to eat him." We looked at the grasshopper longer.
"Look, see his big hind legs? That's why he can jump soooo high." The grasshopper takes the cue as we stand back up, and it jumps off my hand.
"If we had legs like grasshoppers, we could jump over those trees, or right over the church! We could just stand right here and decide, I'm gonna jump over that tree, and do it without even taking a running head start. That's how big we are to the grasshopper, and you saw how high he could jump." I turn around like I'm going to jump over the church, eying the steeple like I'm going to skip right over it, and then I jump as high as I can. Wesley laughs, and then jumps as high as he can.
"Like this?" He says and turns around with his shining eyes pointed at the top of the old pecan tree, and jumps.
"Yup," I say.
Then he runs around and jumps, enjoying his life as a grasshopper.

Will they remember in November?

2009-10-28T12:39:00.002-05:00

I've noticed a declining attendance at church over the past couple of months (which are usually "rebound months" from the summer) My DS told me this is happening all over the district. Is it the case for you? Here's how I interpret things for the church.

Pastor’s Perspective: “They’ll Remember in November.”
“The Righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17
The celebrated football coach and athletic director of the illustrious Arkansas Razorbacks, Frank Broyles, always liked to say to his team, “They’ll remember in November.” His point was that a team could gain the attention and accolades that would get them a bowl invitation if they played the last few games of the season (in November) strongly. I’ve noticed that we as Christians might take the same approach to the end of the year in our faith lives, and I hope it is again the case this year.
This summer, we had many people missing from worship, giving was down, and a general malaise took hold of our congregation. Were we particularly uninspired, or is this the general rhythm of faith life? It concerned the leaders of the church when we continued to see the “slump” continue into September, when things usually “pick up” again, and people resume the schedule that includes attending to faith life. Did we suffer because the habits of summer were harder than usual to shake off? Though our October attendance average of 69 is the highest it’s been since May, it is lower than 4 of the 5 months that began our year, and is lower than our average attendance from last year as well. Our Sunday school average attendance of 28 for October is the lowest of the year. Our district superintendant advised us at the church conference this past month that our report of a general malaise in the congregation reflects what she witnesses all over the district in other United Methodist Churches. While this is a relief in one way (“whew, it’s not just us!”) it is also more deeply troubling in another (“what is the matter with the general church?). It is generally true of us humans that we attend to our faith life and the “big, important questions” when things are troubling and uneasy, but when things are going seemingly well, we tend to put our faith life on the back-burner. If there were a terrorist attack or a natural disaster that afflicted us during the week, it would not surprise me to see the church packed to the gills. It is how we are. We turn to faith in times of crisis. This is why some critics of religion call faith a “crutch.” Just as you stick a crutch under your arm when you’ve suffered an injury to your leg or hip, some stick their church life under their arm only when they feel spiritually injured by the hostile world we live in. With this kind of approach, it is perfectly natural to use your faith to hobble along through the world as long as it takes to get over the injury, then you put your faith back in the closet. Is the declining attendance at church a sign that things are going well with our people? If so, I’m glad that your life is untroubled, please come back to church and give thanks to God in community.
The first Sunday of November is All Saint’s Day. On this day, we remember those who have passed away during the year and honor their memory. We believe that our loved ones are held by God in an eternal life beyond death. On Nov.1st we celebrate this “communion of the saints” that is a powerful reminder of God’s saving grace. This grace saves us from a destiny of decay and finality. As Christ conquered his grave, he also conquers ours, and so “gathers us in” to the great fellowship that transcends this earth and our earthly concepts. I’ve had the blessing of conducting many funerals where I have been given the honor of recounting the life of the person who has passed. Sometimes, I have conducted funerals for people for whom their own faith life was not a priority. Generally, the deceased’ loved ones assure me that though I never saw him or her in church, the person who died was kind and generous and loving, and perhaps even “faithful.” Other funerals I have conducted have been for the family members of people I like to call “spiritual redwoods.” They are those whose faith is literally “in fellowship” with others in their church life. As I prepare for these funerals, no “assurances” are necessary on the part of the family members or close friends. They know that I knew who the person was, as did the other members of the church. Their faith was “obvious.” It was “lived” and not only “recalled.” It was in relationship with others. That is how it grew to be a redwood.
So, this is my sermon to those of you who are connected to this church in some way, and who live in the area, and yet do not participate in our weekly gathering for worship and for tending the spiritual life through education and fellowship. If you want to call yourself a Christian, I hope you can be convinced that there is more to faith than what you believe. If you believe Jesus is the Messiah, then you will follow his teachings. His teachings aren’t just applied in your private life—they occur in the community that bears his name. We will indeed remember in November. We will remember the lives of those who have passed not “away” but “into” the everlasting on All Saint’s. When the pastor who conducts your funeral recounts your life, will he or she need to be “assured” that you were a person who was shaped by faith, or will it be obvious? Will your faith life be remembered? Will it be remembered by a community? Will the church in general be remembered by future generations as a powerful force of love and redemption and grace? Will it be obvious? Making it obvious begins with your participation. Let’s make sure they’ll remember November. Let’s finish strongly.

The Revealer and Killing the Buddha

2009-10-19T13:18:00.006-05:00

I didn't say in advance that I was going to take a month long break, but it looks like I have. To tell the truth, I was not planning on it, but since I have just now drummed up the gusto to actually write, and it happens to be a month since the last post, we'll just call it a month long vacation, okay?

So, I'll make it easy on myself and wade back in to the blogging life with a link and commentary.
I just started reading Jeff Sharlet's The Family tonight. Looks like it's going to be great--more understanding of American religious history and theological nuances involved in the fundamentalist movement than I expected I'd get--and I've just finished the introduction. I checked out the author's blogsite thereveler.org, and was led to http://killingthebuddha.com/ from there. First time I've stumbled upon this bit of real estate. Looks very interesting. I'm sure to return. Okay, that was fairly easy. More to come.

Moltmann conversation conversation

2009-09-18T11:12:00.003-05:00

Here is the conversation I had with the 5 others from Oklahoma regarding our experience at the Moltmann conversation. Also--Blake Huggins (riding shotgun in the minivan) chewed on things when he got home on his own blog.

How Moltmann made me excited to be a Trinitarian

2009-09-10T10:57:00.005-05:00

When I was in seminary, I read Spirit of Life in Philip Clayton's Pneumatology class. An excerpt from this book really gave me an image of the Trinity that I took along with me:

Where the Word of God is, there is also the Breath of God in which it is uttered. Where God's breath calls created being into life, there is also the Word whcih calls them by their names. 293

After this, Moltmann shows why the Filioque must be abandoned in Trinitarian formulation. I've carried this understanding of the Trinity into the churches I've served and have always found that it resonates with the people and gives them a Scriptural basis for the Trinity in the Creation Story.
I thought of this today because Moltmann said, "We don't believe in the Trinity, we live in the Trinity." I appreciate this and Moltmann's general adoption of the Eastern Orthodox understanding of participation in the Trinity (drawn into the parichoresis of the Trinity as if in a dance. (Part 2 of Spirit Life, called "Life in the Spirit" elaborates on this theme and includes Moltmann engaging Wesley) I see Wesley's theology of sanctification hitting on the same things.

@ Moltmann Conversation

2009-09-10T09:23:00.000-05:00

#moltmann

Illuminated Interview with John Lennon-very cool

2009-09-01T10:46:00.002-05:00

Hat Tip: Blake Huggins,

Two places I could really see myself worshipping.

2009-08-21T11:08:00.003-05:00

We ministers spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of environment we'd like to worship in. Or, at least this minister does anyway. That's kind of odd, since in most contexts (mine included) we're kind of the master of ceremonies when it comes to creating a space for worship. I choose the hymns, the liturgies, the sermon texts, the sermon, what goes on the altar, etc. etc. I don't control what happens in worship--I believe the Holy Spirit has that responsibility. But, I draw the blueprint so to speak. So, why in the world would I be looking with longing at other communities of faith? I will here refrain from answering my own question. If you have an answer, you let me know.

So, I've before pointed to a places where I'd love to worship. I've also filled you in on my plans for a treehouse church. Probably what you've noticed about these two posts is that I'm a sucker for aesthetics. I fit very squarely into that 2/3 of young people mentioned in that poll in the second link who would rather worship in a Gothic or ancient looking church than a new-fangled technology enabled convention center. The darker and danker, with the lingering musk of incense, the better. So, I'm obviously not one of those who holds to the "we could be in a storefront or a sale barn, or where ever as long as the Spirit is there" kind of philosophy. Well, I don't deny that. I uphold that truth very much--worship happens where people gather and invoke the presence of the Spirit. It doesn't matter where people are, real and meaningful worship can happen. But, I'm also one who loves to be surrounded by beauty. For me and my personality, the Spirit of worship is translated through my physical surroundings. When I'm sitting in the light of a stained glass window and the hymnal I am using is bathed in blue, that's the kind of thing that gets me. I can get past a humble sounding choir. I can make it through an asinine sermon. If I can visually experience worship, then I am there.

Also, it helps if I'm worshipping with a group of people I connect with. That being said, I happened upon a couple of church websites that are both very aesthetically pleasing that lead me to explore churches that I could imagine myself connecting with. Perhaps you do too:

Dayspring Waco, TX-- a new Cooperative Baptist church

The Table, Sacramento CA-- a new UMC start

Oh, and then of course there's the church that Jonny Baker belongs to, Grace

Sabbath Rest and Getting Over Ourselves

2009-08-20T22:28:00.004-05:00

I'm doing some research for my second sermon in the "Family Ties" Sermon series for the church. I felt good about last week's sermon on food and faith, but unfortunately forgot to record the thing on my ipod, so you have no sermon to listen to over at the church site. Speaking of food and faith, our church farmer's market is going pretty well this year. I've had calls form people wondering when the cantaloupe's are going to be ready, and I've posted some pictures on the church website as well.

I'm preaching the second sermon in the series on "Work, Rest, and Purpose," and it's about how the cycle of work and rest should be observed by people of faith and how this cycle can instill healthy work habits in children. I've never been a workaholic, and I don't think workaholism was modeled for me as I was growing up either. I appreciate a Sabbath and would probably not find myself getting too angsty if I had to quit working and just stay at home all the time. I'd probably make a good "house-husband" if I were ever needed to be one.

Some of the resources I've found on Sabbath and work have been great. I listened to an Adam Hamilton sermon from July on faithfulness in the workplace. He pointed out that we'll spend around 96,000 hours in the workplace in our lifetime, compared with around 2600 hours in worship (even for the regular workers), so the way we are faithful people at work matters a lot more at least in terms of "exposure."

I've also enjoyed the Baylor U. Christian Reflection on Sabbath. Lot's of good stuff there. One thing I just read in the inspirational piece by Milton Brasher-Cunningham is that Sabbath reminds us that we are not indispensable. The world will carry on without us. The scriptures frequently remind the people of Israel that God will see to it that they are provided for on the Sabbath. Milton Brasher-Cunningham contrasts the sense of indispensability instilled in us by our consumer culture that "bombard[s us] with the distorted “truth” that enough is not adequate, overachieving is average, acquisitive is better than imaginative, networking

is building actual relationships, and padding our resumes makes us more

important." He says, "Hearing and heeding the Still, Small Voice is no easy task."

In another piece in that Christian Reflection study,Richard Lowry says that the "Biblical sabbath offers a way to think and act theologically as we confront

the spiritual, ecological, and economic challenges before us. By celebrating

a hoped-for world of abundance, self-restraint, and mutual care,

sabbath traditions critiqued ancient royal-imperial systems that created

scarcity, overwork, and gross economic inequality. These traditions can

serve a similar critical function today, offering words of proportion, limits,

social solidarity, and the need for rest, quiet reflection, and recreation in

the face of never-ending work and consumption. In our world, sabbath

consciousness may be the key to human survival, prosperity, and sanity."

Today our family life committee decided to postpone indefinitely a retreat that we at first had to move from a popular riverside camping resort about an hour away to right here in town on account of a fundraiser for a principal of one of the schools who is battling cancer. The committee didn't know about the date of the dinner that a lot of our churchmembers would be involved in when they first started planning the retreat (which they were planning to center around the "ReThink church campaign." After the committee decided to still hold the retreat but relocate it to town so that the folks involved in the benefit could still be around to help prepare, etc, I was reminded of the Luke passage where Jesus heals on the Sabbath and is confronted by the Pharisees. What better way to spend time focusing our time and energy on rest and relaxation than to be present to a person's healing? Today I heard from one of the leaders of the committee that our list of participants was dwindling because of various other things that have sprung up, and the committee was okay with indefinitely postponing the retreat. Here again I was reminded of the scriptural witness of Sabbath reminding us to remember that "there is a God and we are not It." The world doesn't rely on us or our programs. Things will go on. I was proud of the committee for putting so much work and effort into the task of creating an uplifting and challenging program for the retreat, but if we had actualized it, the work would have been tangled up with the results. Now that the work has been done and the retreat postponed, the committee can either think of the work as a "waste of time" or as a "gift to God." I think that Sabbath rest helps us reorient our work toward God. At the end of a life without Sabbath rest, I think there are often folks on their death bed saying to themselves "What did I do with my life?" "I wasted so much time!" Sabbath grounds us in the notion that our work is dispensable. We can lay aside time to be at rest and we will survive. Not only will we survive, we will flourish!

Garden Update, and a beautiful picture of Julianna

2009-08-09T00:01:00.002-05:00

We planted our zucchinis too close together, so some of them had to be taken out. The tomatoes are growing in up the fence, and both are very healthy and full of tomatoes. I've already taken around 20, and there are probably 50 more on the way--and that's just the first of the year. last year I was picking tomatoes at the end of October. (I remember because I got a burn on my hand a couple of days before Julianna was born because I tossed a slice of green tomato into some hot oil.) There is some kind of vine all over the tomatoes and the cannas, but it doesn't seem to be adversly affecting them, so I leave it be. We didn't spray anything on the garden, so I see the vine as added camoflauge from the birds. We havent' had any bird or bug problems. Maybe Lao-Tzu is helping with the birds. She likes to crouch in the garden like a jungle cat. We're growing sweet peppers, and none have come to fruit yet, but the plant is getting big. Our butternut squash are looking good, around 4 or five of them growing now. The sunflowers are a beautiful reddish purple as you can see, and we also have carrots that may or may not be good. Our neighbor said our soil wasn't sandy enough for them here. Then again, he doesn't come to church, so maybe the Lord just isn't blessing his garden like He has mine :) We've got some beans and some sweet potatoes and some russett potatoes too, but I guess we won't know how those have done until we dig them up. We're enjoying the gardening, and Julianna is enjoying the baby food Lara makes her.

"A Fool Gospel Church"

2009-08-01T21:27:00.002-05:00

Just for the record, it's been a couple weeks now, and no-one has noticed that that is what I changed our church's title bar to read on the church blog. I thought it was funny. Maybe it's just me.

Free Study Series on a number of topics

2009-08-01T20:02:00.002-05:00

I just found a Bible study series through the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University that I bookmarked and thought I'd share. It is well written and fairly broad in scope. There are topics ranging from aging to children, global wealth to mysticism, sports to pornographic culture, and much more. I came across the study series by way of a particular study called "Prophetic Ethics," which included a session on "The Prophet as Storyteller," which was linked to this week's lectionary readings on textweek. (Thanks Jenny!) Each subject has a number of resources, including art, articles, hymns and worship services, inspirational pieces, book reviews, and a collection of 6 study guides and lesson plans. I know where I'll be looking next time I need an idea for a small group study! You can download all the material for free on the website, or sign up for a free issue in print.

Jurgen Moltmann in Chicago Sept. 9-11

2009-07-28T09:07:00.003-05:00

This has been a big summer for me! Not only did I get to spend a week with Eugene Peterson at a writer's workshop with 11 other participants (now friends), I am getting the chance to go to Chicago in September to participate in the "Moltmann Conversation" that Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones are putting on. It looks like a great opportunity to hear from someone I consider to be the greatest living theologian. When I was in seminary, I was very impressed with Spirit of Life, which I read as part of my Pneumatology class with Dr. Phillip Clayton. I have carried the notion of the Trinity as the "One Who Speaks, The Word, and The Breath" to the churches I have served, and it resonates with people. I appreciate it because it weaves the Holy Spirit as Breath concept I first encountered in Sallie McFague's Body of God into a whole Trinitarian concept. Moltmann explores this and other characterizations of the Holy Spirit in the book Spirit of Life. Here's the review from Amazon

Moltmann, "the foremost Protestant theologian in the world" (Church Times), brings his characteristic audacity to this traditional topic and cuts to the heart of the matter with a simple identification: What we experience every day as the spirit of life is the spirit of God. Such considerations give Moltmann’s treatment of the different aspects of life in the Spirit a verve and vitality that are concrete and existential.

Veteran readers will find here a rich and subtle extension of Moltmann’s trinitarian and christological works, even as he makes bold use of key insights from feminist and ecological theologies, from recent attention to embodiment, and from charismatic movements. Newcomers will find a fascinating entrée into the heart of his work: the transformative potential of the future.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:08 -0400)

Bill Viola's The Passions

2009-07-27T23:23:00.001-05:00

I'm on vacation this week in Arkansas. We've had fun meeting with old friends and family. It has been relaxing! I ran across an old pamphlet from a visit we made to the Getty one time when we lived in Los Angeles. It was Bill Viola's The Passions. It was a very poignant exhibition. Viola works with high resolution video and then plays back at very slow speeds. He bases many of his portraits on old medieval religious portriats and devotional items. I remember being transfixed by all of the portraits. He had a real technical mastery of lighting and videography. I saw it in 2003, when LCD screens were just coming out, so the colors seemed to really scream out at you.

Collegeville Institute Summary

2009-07-13T11:19:00.002-05:00

Don't expect for the summary to be comprehensive. I just mean that I'm sitting here waiting for the shuttle to show up, and I'm the last person to leave, so I thought it'd be a good time to put down some of my thoughts about this experience.

Of course, I'm fortunate to have attended. I now feel like I've gained 12 colleagues. I'm always glad to gain colleagues. Eugene Peterson is now a mentor and a collegue, not just a writer I admire. I'm fortunate to count myself in this regard now, as he's a very quiet and reserved person. He's not someone that you could go to a massive conference and ingratiate yourself to and try to hang out with. He wouldn't be doing much "hanging out" at a conference. So, this kind of environment: rural and slow-paced and in-depth, is the perfect kind of setting to build a relationship with a master writer and really learn something from him.

I've learned that writing, as my friend Katherine said on her blog, "is not complimentary to our pastoral lives, or an avocation tacked onto our vocation. Writing is part of our pastoral lives. We don't need permission to write. We don't even need permission to write words that can't be put to good use. We can (must?) simply weave writing into our pastoral lives - a life that can be lived in freedom, not busyness, if we can find a rhythm that works."

I'm a conversationalist, so I did more hanging out and drinking beers with new friends than hard core retreat writing. This is okay with me, although I also sometimes thought, "well, if I don't write now, then I'm going to be caught up in the multitude of other things when I get home." I just found the opportunity to talk about writing to be valuable too, so that's what I did for the most part. I did add to my writing project on music and the Spirit, and I also did some exercises that were helpful, and then I found myself rewriting something that haunts me.

I had told the folks here at the retreat when we were committing to a writing schedule that we'd hold each other accountable to that I'm not too hard on myself. They all laughed as I had a hawaiian shirt on and a beer in front of me and a open bag of cheetos on the table. I suppose I hadn't needed to say that :) I committed to 1000 words a week, whereas most others committed to a number of hours. I mentioned that I'm not too hard on myself because I was deciding to do a number of words, something more tangible for me than a number of hours that I could just while away and then rationalize that I actually had spent on some tangential element of writing.

I shared the story of tripping Clint (below) as a counterpoint to that image of me as one not troubled by much. It was effective. With that, here it is:

Get behind me Satan.
I remember the undulations of the asphalt on the school blacktop. We had our toes lined up on the spray painted line, readying ourselves for our track meet qualifying race. The undulations were caused by years of busses turning around in the cul-de-sac and lining up to pick up elementary school kids. A crack of the starting pistol, and I saw a flash of legs leap ahead of my own. I struggled to catch up.
The P.E. teacher was probably right. I didn’t run like I was supposed to. Otherwise, I’d probably be able to keep up with the others. My parents told me that when I was a baby, I had to have casts on my legs to straighten them out. My mom told me that when I used to get finished with my naps, she’d know because she’d start hearing the click click clicking of the casts as I knocked my legs together in the crib. I wasn’t supposed to jump on a trampoline as a kid. They were supposedly bad for my hips. But I had never noticed any problems. I guess the P.E. teacher did though.
There was one who was as slow as I was. Clint: sullen, sandy-haired Clint. He never had any shirts with the transformers or anything like that. All his shirts were striped or solid. He didn’t have Nikes or even Reeboks. He wore Velcro shoes with stripes on them as well. He didn’t have much. I stuck out my foot as I ran and I felt Clint drop to the ground. I crossed the finish line. I wasn’t last!
Clint hadn’t finished. He was lying in a heap on the humpy pavement. He was crying and rolling around. He was clenching his leg and grunting in pain. The kids who had finished the race were looking at me. Then Ms. Guinn grabbed me by the ear and twisted it. What made you do that, Nathan? What had made me do what? I was running, and he must’ve run into my leg. He must’ve bounced off my hip like one of those tie fighters ricocheted off the edge of the city wall canyon on the Death Star. She wanted an answer. She was aghast and disgusted at what she had seen, and now she was large and hovering over me like an eagle snatching a fish out of a lake with it’s claws buried deep. “The devil made me do it,” I stammered. Her eyes narrowed. She looked at me like she actually believed me and that Lucifer himself must be there behind me, caressing the shoulders of his favorite pupil and tending my wounded ego. All those kids were looking at me after all. She pulled me inside, with her red fingernails jabbing into my wrist, and slammed me into a chair at the principal’s office while she went and got him and took him outside to check on Clint.
I sat in the office on an orange plastic chair and looked at the ground as the kids filed by and looked at me with scorn. I could feel their looks. There was Sheri, who I had a crush on since the 3rd grade. There was David, my neighbor and best friend, who knew this wasn’t like me at all. He was perplexed but also forgiving and loyal. Then came in Clint, with an arm around Ms. Guinn and the Principal. I’d find out the next day that he had a hairline fracture in his ankle. That moment, sitting on that pavement trying to find an explanation for why I had tripped Clint, that is the moment that personal competitiveness was killed in me.

The Name of God

2009-07-09T09:34:00.003-05:00

I'm at the Collegeville institute, and in my free time took a look at the New York Review of Books that was sitting on the coffee table. I noticed a review for a new book called

Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity (Belknap Press), by Graham and Kantor It looks interesting, and I was curious about the "Name Worshipping" thing, because it reminded me of the movie Pi in which a mathmatician is hounded by some Hasidic Jews who are searching for the number which is the name of God. Turns out the "Name Worshipping" movement was big at Mt. Athos and the story of its rise and suppression reads like a historical novel.

The most un-p.c. firework ever?

2009-07-03T21:05:00.004-05:00

Saw this tonight at the firework stand. You might not be able to see it, but there is a Stealth bomber flying over a bunch of Arabs on camelback. Interesting what the Chinese think we'll like, huh?

5 Stones

2009-06-20T00:00:00.002-05:00

I'm preaching on David and Goliath on Sunday. I'm ruminating on why the story describes David choosing 5 stones to meet Goliath when he only uses one to bring him down. I googled the question and could find nothing satisfactory. One Christian mystical interpretation is that the life of David foreshadows the life of Christ, and that the five stones correspond to the five wounds of Christ. Both acts "bring down a giant," in a way.

I didn't find this interpretation anywhere, but wouldn't it make sense that the storyteller would be thinking of the five books of Torah when accounting for the number of stones? The stones packed by David, the warrior for God's people, could symbolize the number of testaments that God has given Israel to "defend herself." The law is the defense of the people of Israel?

Just speculating. Feel free to comment if you have knowledge to share.

It's not that I don't believe in God

2009-06-12T21:10:00.003-05:00

I just don't believe that God, the God whom I know and love, would instruct humans to commit infanticide. See, I'm trying to concentrate on 1 Samuel 15: 34-16:13, where God guides Samuel to the house of Jesse to select a new king. On the way, God tells Samuel not to worry about physical appearances, (or family tree for that matter, since Jesse's lineage isn't that spectacular, including Canaanites, prostitutes, and others) because God sees what is on the inside of a person. That's how God will select David--by his inward character. (Yet, when David is selected, all the storyteller has to say about him is that he has beautiful eyes and is ruddy and handsome.) The text is rich and beautiful. It is a great beginning for what will be a great story about a king "after God's own heart," a lover and a fighter, a man with the tenderness to write some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible, and with the brazenness to face a giant. It is pre-packaged in the lectionary with the mustard seed parable for a great, inspiring sermon about God bringing forth great things from humble beginnings--and how we shouldn't judge something's value by the exterior.

But, what keeps haunting me is the first half of chapter 15, when the reason is given for God's disapproval of the existing king, Saul. Unsurprisingly, the lectionary skips over this little detail to the story. Saul has other faults and foibles (as does David) but the thing that really gets him the pink slip is that God commands him to go and completely annihilate the Amalekites, including "man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” Saul carries out the assignment, for the most part. He spares the king, whom he brings back with him as a captive, and he also spares some of the choice livestock, which he apparantly also intends to burn on the offering pyre. (Or at least that's what he tells Samuel after the fact) So, God decides he isn't worth spit anymore and instructs Samuel to go fetch David, "And God was sorry he had made Saul king over the Israelites."

This isn't the only time God commands his people to slaughter innocents in the scriptures, and it's not like I'd never run across this dilemma before, but it's just sticking with me today. My usual way around this is to attribute these kinds of scriptures to the author's interpretation that God's will is being carried out in the violence, and so the author of the scripture puts the "command" in God's mouth, attributing something to God something that makes sense at the time, but seems utterly repulsive now. This is really the only way I can square some of the violent aspects of the Bible and remain a person who leads a faith community. So, obviously I'm not a biblical literalist. Perhaps it is more appropriate to call me a biblical denialist. I deny this scripture. I don't deny it is there. I'm sorry it is part of scripture. I shake my fist at it. I just don't think it is an accurate revelation of God. I see no redeeming quality to God ordering the massacre of infants. There's nothing that can make it "okay." I realize this may be an easy way out, but it is the only way I see fit to keep the faith and uphold a set of principles that are humane. I hate that it is even there for me to have to wrestle with. Why muddy the waters, God? Thou shalt not kill? Well, perhaps this is just one more reason against bibliolotry. But in this part of the country, it seems like questioning scripture is tantamount to denying God's existence. On the contrary, I think questioning this scripture is tantamount to advocating God's existence.

(I've had to take several brakes from this post over the evening, so I've lost some of the initial fire and angst that prompted it: I watched a stupid movie with Wesley and Lara, Bee Movie, man was that disjointed, I've gotten Wesley and Julianna to bed (Julianna took a good bit of time), and then there was a tornado warning just about 10 miles southwest of us (which moved south, fortunately) so, I don't want to seem flippant about something as heart wrenching as struggling with God and ethnic cleansing, but I've just lost a bit of gas on the issue.

One thing I really wrestle with is the intellectual honesty of subscribing to this "well if it makes my conscience want to throw up, it's probably not an authentic aspect of God, even if it is attributed to God in the scripture" kind of approach to scripture when the "official stance" I take as an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church is that scripture contains all things "necessary to salvation." Perhaps salvation sometimes comes in being willing to say to God, "this scripture really sucks and I really hope you're more than what is portrayed here, otherwise you're just some two-bit tribal god who's not worthy of worship or respect. So, God, explain to me why you'd allow people to either a: worship you with you issuing genocide, or b: write about you in this way and then guide a whole church to treat these stories as divinely inspired."

Summer Reading, Summer Camp

2009-06-11T17:11:00.007-05:00

I have a stack of books I'm presently reading--it is the summer after all. I just picked up The Brothers Karamazov today at the library. I usually try to read one or two classics each year. Last year I read Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick, both on audio book, by the way. With all the driving I do, it is the best way for me. I really enjoyed Melville's description of the pulpit at the sailor's church in the first few chapters of Moby Dick, and also the winding, encyclopedic steeping in all things whale. As to the narrative of that book, it is spellbinding and rich, and equal to the task of keeping the reader engaged over close to 2000 pages. As to Huck Finn, it was great enough that I was lobbying for Huck or Finn to be considered for boy names had Julianna been a boy. (My first choice, Atticus Rex, was gaining some traction I think with the mother shortly before we found out she'd be a she after all.) Mark Twain's characterization of a revival in Arkansas was so funny I found myself literally slapping my knee in the car. The book also had me obsessing over the word "corn pone." The pictures these two greats painted in my mind are treasures to me now.

I'm also in the middle of Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in 10,000 Places. I've actually already read Eat This Book, but I don't think you have to read any of his Spiritual Theology books in order. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm trying to get that one finished before I'll be sitting at a table with him taking writing suggestions in 3 weeks. I recently read Oliver Sacks's (is that right? Sacks's?) Musicophilia on audio (great reading by the way) to give me some insight for my own writing project. I'm also enjoying Mary Roach's Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. I really enjoyed Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers, and think it is a bit more funny than Spook, but still Spook is thuroughly enjoyable. She tends to use footnotes as I'm prone to do. Speaking of the way I use footnotes, my own chapter contribution to a Chalice Press book, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God: Young Adults Speak about Sexuality and Embodiment in Faith Life is going to be out in January of 2010. I think the editors were going for knee slapping or eye catching or something with that title, but I'm not too thrilled about it. I let them know, but I think it was someone's pet. My chapter title is called Like A Wild Ass at Home in the Wilderness: Sexuality Fidelity in a Hypersexualized, Consumer Driven Culture. That is, if they don't change it to Getting Ass at Home and in the Wilderness or something like that because they think that will appeal to the edgy postmodern type.

Since I'll be deaning Muskogee District Youth Camp at Camp Egan next week, I guess I've also been reading the curriculum for camp and preparing for that. Our plan for the worship services is going to be cool, I think. I'll take photos and post that later. I'm also going to lead a group of teenagers in teh creation of a Cretan labyrinth. We'll have to gather river rocks for it on the Illinois river, and I've scoped out a good spot. I'm looking forward to it, and hope it turns out like or better than I'm envisoning.

I'm also preaching a sermon series this summer on David, so I'll be spending the whole summer in 1 and 2 Samuel. I think this is the first time I've done an extended sermon series solely on a Hebrew Bible text...I think I did one on Isaiah before, but that's a bit easier. So, it will be a storytelling sermon series this summer. I picked up a couple books I thought might be of value in preparing for it, Tales of the Hasidim, by Martin Buber, and Wise Men and Their Tales, by Elie Wiesel. Anyone have any suggestions for good books, either Biblical Study or contextual stuff, on 1 and 2 Samuel and the character David?

Oh, and Wesley has taken a shine to the Berenstein Bears recently, so I've been reading a bunch of them too. :)

Shadowdancer

2009-06-03T14:49:00.005-05:00

Lara took these great photos with our new camera using the continuous shooting

feature. I like it.

Oklahoma Annual Conference

2009-05-27T14:22:00.002-05:00

I'm at Oklahoma Annual Conference right now, looking forward to seeing some of my good friends ordained tonight. For the first time, I'll get to walk them in with all the big kids. I've also had fun spending time with my fellow bloggers in the Oklahoma Conference. We're a motly crew. Jeremy at Hacking Christianity will be moving right down the road to Checotah this summer. Matt Judkins is an associate at Church of the Servant. Kevin Watson at Deeply Committed is working on a Ph.D at SMU. I enjoyed a text message converstion between Jack Terrell Wilkes and Blake Huggins while I was waiting to give our Young Adult Ministries Council report to the conference. Seems they are about as enthusiastic fans of "Victory in Jesus" as I am. Which, to quote Dr. Doofenschmirtz from Phineus and Ferb, if by enthusiastic you mean repulsed. That fact disappoints my congregation, which loves to sing the song. We still sing it, I just grit my teeth when we do, and do that funny protest of not singing particular parts. There are other bloggers, but I should probably return to the floor. We had a good turnout at our Young Adult Luncheon--about 50. That's the best showing yet.

We're anxiously awaiting news of our votes on amendments 1-32 to the constitution of the UMC. They need to pass with 2/3 votes to be ratified. Judging by the the dialogue, not many of them look very likely here.

See ya Jesus!

2009-05-23T23:39:00.004-05:00

In honor of Ascension Sunday, I share with you my favorite Dali painting. I read somewhere that the background is the ecstatic vision Dali had of the nucleus of an atom. I wonder what he could be saying about Christ or this event to combine the two images. Let me know what you think. I interpret it as saying the Christ is the central or elemental reality of life...you know, "through whom all things came into being..." or something like that.

I also like that Jesus' feet are the main focus of the painting. I preached a sermon on this one time called "Jesus Walks" I read that this perspective was a tribute to Mantegna's Dead Christ (below), which he admired and considered a precursor to his own form of art.

I also like that the Shekinah is portrayed in the feminine, as She should be, (at least I'm assuming that's what Dali was portraying by the face of the woman) and that She is fused with the Dove imagery for the Holy Spirit, who is descending as Jesus ascends. They're kind of passing each other along the way, like "okay, your turn!"

Also, Jesus' hands--they look like they are clutched in pain, perhaps. What do you make of them?

Yes, I take my design cues from the Swiss Family Robinson

2009-05-18T15:55:00.002-05:00

We have a new porch on the back of our house, thanks for a memorial gift to the church for a dear man named Ralph Johnston. (He would always bring us corn on the cobb, garlic, squash, and other things from his garden a block away--now we're trying our own hands at his craft.) I remembered this conch shell I got in the Bahamas a few years ago that was packed away in a box. Now it gets its second use in life (the first, of course, being the home for a snail that Bahamians like on their salads--I didn't care for it, sorry.)

Music and the Spirit

2009-05-15T12:56:00.007-05:00

I haven't mentioned it yet, but I got accepted to a writer's workshop I have dreamed of going to for 2 years now. This July, I get to spend a week with 10 other writers and Eugene Peterson at St. John's Abby and University in Minnesota. I had spent a week there right before I started seminary in 2002, and had been impressed with the St. John's Bible project, in which they are working on the first new handwritten Bible for quite some time (by the way, my friend Aidan Hart is one of the illuminators for that Bible. I spent some time at his then hermitage in Shropshire, England.)

I've decided to write on the subject of music and spirituality. I'm kind of enlarging a concept I brought up a week or so ago, so if you want to contribute to the converstion that feeds that enlargement, comment on that post, yo. One last link in this linkomania. One of my favorites over there ----->

has been a sight on Reggae and the Bible (Words of Wisdom) . I appreciate what the kind lady has been doing at that site for a number of years, and took some time today to read her bio. The way she parallels the words of Scripture with exisitng Reggae lyrics has been a nice appendix for my appreciation of that music over the years, so I sent a long overdue thanks for her attention to the subject. I was wondering about a song I heard on Pandora, Scientist's A Plague of Zombies and didn't see it in her body of work, so I did a little homework and sent it along. I thought I'd include it here for your enjoyment too: (I couldn't figure out how to get 2 columns within a post. code anyone?)

Methodism and Membership

2009-05-12T11:23:00.003-05:00

the Methoblogworld is buzzing about the upcoming constitutional amendments proposed by General Conference 08, which must pass this year's annual conference by a 2/3 vote. The usual suspects are coming out against an amendment to strengthen language about membership in the church being open to all (as if we need another psychological barrier to encouraging the whole idea of membership in this individualistic age). A friend of mine made a rebuttal. I thought it was well articulated, so here you go.

My Church's Farmer's Market

2009-05-04T10:45:00.003-05:00

Last summer two women in the church came to me with the idea of hosting a farmer's market at our church. One is a chili pepper and herb grower. She makes all kinds of chili rubs. I bought some pear honey for her last year too. The other woman is an elementary school teacher who had previously expressed interest in promoting good eating habits among children.

Morris had no previously existing farmer's market. The two women thought it would be a great example of "Radical Hospitality," which is a principle of The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, by Bishop Robert Schnase. We had been studying the book together as a congregation through a sermon series and a book study. I thought it was a great idea, and told them so. They went with it. By the end of the summer, our parking lot was ringed with farmers with their tailgates open and tables of vegetables. We opened the church so that bathrooms would be accessible for farmers and shoppers, and welcomed the kids to play with the church air-hockey table. The market was to be on Saturdays, which meant that our church might not be perfectly clean on Sunday mornings for worship. The church considering the ramifications of this fact during church council was a good opportunity to for us to reflect on the true purpose of a church.

We submitted the idea to Bishop Robert Schnase's website that corresponds with the book and study material, fivepractices.org

This past week, I was also contacted by someone at The Interpreter magazine who wants to include a photo in that magazine of the market.

Hooray church. We plan to continue the program this year.

Kid's first music

2009-04-28T13:50:00.011-05:00

I really resonated with this report on NPR the other day about people making the choice of the first music to expose their children to after they are born. I'm a music lover, so this is something on which I too spent quite a bit of attention. The guy in the interview said he chose John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. I must commend this choice, for the same reasons that the Church of St. John Coltrane use his music as a prophetic gift to the world.

For Wesley's birth at the UCLA Medical Center, I chose another prophet, and brought the whole Songs of Freedom box set to the hospital to listen to while waiting for Wesley to be born. I remember a tall pretty nurse with

braids smiling and commending our choice. The doc asked to turn it down at a particularly intense moment (Wesley had to have a vacuum assisted delivery), and after Wesley finally came into the world and I got around to turning it back up, Bob was singing "Everything's Gonna be alright, Everything's gonna be alright." That was serendipitous. Both of my kids had a healthy dose of reggae in utero and afterwards. I found the old headphones my dad had for our record player, and I'd put them on

Lara's belly for a bit of music time. After Wesley was born, we had 10 songs we'd sing him at night, including Beach Boy's Barbara Ann (which we changed to "Wea, Wea, Wea, Wea, Wesley G. He's all right by me e e.") and Summertime from Porgy and Bess. He also heard Bob Marley's Thank You Lord. That's kind of his evening prayer song. He ended up singing that one and Deep and Wide, and Into my Heart (like I did as a kid) as prayer songs. Almost every night, he also listens to a CD of lullabies that Katherine gave us when he was born .

For a while, we were going to name Julianna Susanna, and I enjoyed playing for her Dandy Livingstone's Susanne Beware of the Devil in utero. But we went with Julianna instead, and I have yet to think of a song called Julianna. Sometimes I sing to her Fleetwood Mac's Rhiannon

substituting Julianna for Rhiannon. I knew what I wanted to play for her as soon as we first knew we were having a girl though: Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely? That one's made to sing to a baby girl after all.

We didn't bring music into the hospital for her, so she only heard silence for her first day or so, then listened to that in the car on the way home from Tulsa. Since then, she also really seems to like the 40's on 4 on Sirius radio. That's what we listen to most of the time as we prepare dinner and eat. It seems to make things taste better.

Perhaps the appreciation of music will be something my kids can pick up from me. I used to love sitting by the record player and listening to my mom and dad's Stevie Wonder and John Denver and Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Aretha Franklin. Every time we go to Eureka Springs, I hear Ann Murray. My first records were Thrller, John Denver and the Muppets, and the soundtrack to the Fox and the Hound. I also had the Hands Across America benefit album. Hahaha. I went to "Hands across America" by the way. Was I in line with any of my readers?

I look forward to finding out what sounds have imprinted themselves on the minds of my children. Perhaps this kind of environment building is important to me because I hope those imprints are something beautiful.

Do you have first songs for your kids? Any first songs you recall? Comment away!

Ring Lake Ranch

2009-04-26T23:17:00.007-05:00

I mentioned Ring Lake Ranch in my last post in association with Earth Day because it was at Ring Lake Ranch that I met Belden Lane, who is one of the best writers and storytellers I know. His topic of research and writing for the past decade or so has been the geographic context of spirituality. This same topic has caught my imagination ever since I was a teenager, when I first remember thinking, "I wonder if our scriptures would be the same if they had originated in a temperate/forest kind of climate (like mine in Arkansas) rather than a desert/Mediteranean kind of climate?" How much of Judeo-Christian religion is due to the landscape that birthed it? Belden Lane helped delve into these kinds of questions and much more at a seminar hosted by Ring Lake Ranch, and the setting (picutred above) and the experience were emblazoned on the "desktop" of my soul from then on.
While I was there, I did quite a bit of hiking and horseback riding and thinking and writing. The context really spurs on the creative spirit. One day when I was hiking around some hills that had been pushed up by a glacier moving down the valley millions of years ago, I felt a kind of "tap" on my shoulder, and when I turned around, the barren tree had sprung to life with the foliage of a bright white cloud. The story of St. Francis standing in front of a tree in the wintertime and inviting it to "Tell me of God!" came to mind. In the story, the tree springs to life with foliage and fruit. In my own experience, the harmonization of the tree and the sky combined to bring about another miracle of revelation, and I had the camera around my neck, so I captured the moment on film. To me, the revelation is that the world works in concert in ways that we infrequently recognize or pay attention to, but sometimes the moment just slaps us in the face like a Zen master. That's why I chose that photo to use as the header for my blog. I am most interested in the moments in which I/we sometimes catch a glimpse of the harmony that I believe is Divine. This happens for me when I am attentive to the outdoors, but it also happens when I am attentive to the relationships that fill my life and the creativity of the human spirit.
Perhaps God does mold our minds and cultures with context and environment to receive particular glimpses of the Truth. Or, perhaps our location in life bleeds into our creation of characteristics that we ascribe to God. Either way, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning said


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.: Oh, by the way, I noticed Belden Lane is coming back to Ring Lake Ranch this Aug. 2-8. That's right over my birthday. Well, how about that! You should really consider going. Oh yeah, and if you ever read the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology , keep an eye out for the book review I wrote for the paperback edition of Belden Lane's book The Solace of Fierce Landscapes. I just got a request to send in a consent to publish, so I suppose it's coming out soon.

Faith and Earth Day

2009-04-21T22:00:00.005-05:00

Over the years, the intersection of environmentalism and religious faith has been a major source of inspiration to me. When I received an Fund for Theological Education grant before starting seminary, I designed an immersion in eco-stewardship. That took place in 2002, and so in many ways I feel like I was able to witness the rise of the evangelical voice in that area. I remember meeting Richard Cizik, now deposed VP of the National Association of Evangelicals, and thinking--"wow--he's cool, I hope he has an impact!" He did, and his success caused him to become a divisive focal point in evangelicalism's renegotiation of the essential concerns for that group in the 2000's. When I first started observing and participating in "eco-stewardship," I recall hoping that the evangelicals would begin articulating environmental justice rooted in the scriptural witness. It seemed like such a powerful potential movement. At several of events and conferences I attended, I met Lyndsay Moseley, who was an evangelical with a keen interest and commitment to creation stewardship. I noticed recently that she edited a book published by Sierra Club. So, if you need some good sources for voices of faith on environmentalism, give it a look.

Earth Day always reminds me of my time at Ring Lake Ranch in Wyoming as well (where I took the photo of the cloud-tree right up there). I'll post on that next time--I have a girl crying.

Thank you God, for stealing my precious gold ring from the pirates and giving it to me.

2009-04-12T17:28:00.003-05:00

That was my prayer, five minutes ago, at the behest of Wesley.

We were washing his hands, and I explained that you always had to wash your hands after going to the bathroom. It is one of the rules.

"And Dod made the rules?"

"Yes, God made the rules about cleanliness so that we wouldn't get sick."

That seemed to be an acceptable reason to wash hands.

Then,

"Why can your ring get wet?"

"Becasue it's made of gold, and gold doesn't rust."

"Oh, that's why pirates like gold."

"They sure do, don't they? It's a precious metel that everyone wants."

"Dod must have stoled your ring from the pirates and given it to you. That's nice. You should pray to Dod and tell Dod thank you."

all hell

2009-04-03T10:05:00.003-05:00

sitting here, blogging 1-handed

listening to the 40s on 4 (sirius radio) through the baby monitor while Julianna gnaws on my thumb.

Somehow, the all hell I thought was about to break loose is staying in the can. Perhaps God is tapping my soul like I tap the top of a Coke can after it has been shook up.

Garrison Keillor had some good insights on Writer's Almanac.

I love the "Lies My Mother Told Me" poem by Elizabeth Thomas, especially the part about God "ratting you out" and "exaggerating." That's good. I sometimes wonder if life after death is completely and utterly open. Whatever we hide or bear is common knowledge not only to God, but among the new fellowship. We are open books. Maybe that's how we find ourselves in heaven or hell. If so, no doubt there's grace to see things in perspective.

I also liked the quotes from the late birthday boy Herb Caen.

"Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?"

As an Angeleno who loved San Francisco too, I can see the humor there--NoCal people just love looking down their noses at SoCal. I think it's equivalent to Arkansans hating Texans--it is something that gives us Arkies a bit of passion, but the Texans don't really care. It isn't reciprocated. They love themselves too much to be distracted by any cultural vehemence. My good friend and girlfriend from my first year in college was a Dallasite who was genuinely surprised that I hadn't taken "Texas history" in high school (in SW Arkansas). It is that kind of oblivious state pride that makes Texans humorous and charming.

All hell breaking loose had to do with dealing with this wreck and the purchase of a new car,lots of travel, helping a family experiencing grief and strife over the loss of a loved one and funeral planning, getting the Vundo computer virus, annoying changes to a book title I've contributed a chapter to, preparing for Holy Week and other commitments...It just seems like things kept piling up.

Last night Wesley knelt by his bed and prayed. He thanked God for "mommie and daddy and sister and grandmama and grandaddy and gammy and papi and all my toys." He told Lara she needed to pray to, then he told me I should pray as well. I prayed that God would help us be good to each other because some of us were stressed out.

Later that night, the vundo virus was just gone from the computer. Perhaps it's a virtual miracle.

Disgusting

2009-03-26T11:54:00.007-05:00

Wesley was at the sink washing his hands so he could sprinkle the brown sugar on his oatmeal lunch. He was commenting on the "different little square bar of soap" I had put in my bag after a recent hotel stay and brought home to use. (Waste not, want not!) I reach around his little four year old frame perched on a "stepp-n stool" and grab some Burt's Bees Banana hand salve sitting in the windowsill. I put it on my knuckles and wonder if Wesley knows the smell of bananas well enough to pick up the aroma. He doesn't really go for them, so I doubt it. I hold the little jar under his nose,

"What does that smell like?"

"It smells like disgusting," he says matter-of-factly. He pronounces the g so hard it is almost a c.

I look at him with a smirk, then just to clarify: "You mean you don't like it?"

"That's right."

Then we look out the window. Our calico, Lao-Tzu, is crouching in the big 12x18 hole that was dug yesterday for a new back porch. Like a soldier in a trench, she's peering her head over the edge of the hole at two robins. She springs up into action and darts at the birds, but gets there too late. Part of the ground had previously been covered by a smaller slab of concrete.

"You know why those birds want to root around in that dirt?" I ask.

He nods and looks at me with bright brown eyes.

"Because there are lots of worms and bugs that used to live under that concrete that used to be there, and now the birds can get to them!" I say.

Then I realize Lao-Tzu is prowling the area like a lion waiting at a watering hole. We open the door and call her back in. The birds come back to the Shangrila pretty quickly and we sit there watching them hop around and pull worms out of ground.

Beware the Ides of March

2009-03-24T09:16:00.004-05:00

Over Wesley's past three birthdays, we've found ourselves covered in puke (2nd), getting Wesley stitches in his chin (3rd), and this year with Lara in the ER the night before his party. Beware the ides of March, indeed. Lara was hit in Tulsa by a little old lady: Not physically punched,(that would be interesting) but rammed into by the other lady's car. I told the church that was one more reason they could think of Lara as Wonderwoman, since she evidently has an invisible car like Wonderwoman has an invisible jet. Thankfully, she's okay with some burns from the airbag and soreness. But now we're dealing with purchasing another car just a few months after already buying a car. Hooray.

The best tomato soup ever

2009-03-17T18:25:00.002-05:00

My church is full of great cooks. I was fortunate to score the leftovers of Lori Kellner's tomato soup from our "Souper Bowl Luncheon for Missions" and Lara and I relished it all week afterwards. I ate it for dessert one night. It's that good. Impress your friends with this recipe.

Sherried Tomato Soup

6 Tbsp melted butter

1 med. Onion

1-46 oz. tomato juice

2-14 oz. cans diced tomatoes ( I use petite diced)\

3 Tbsp. chicken base ( 4 boullion cubes if need to substitute)

salt

pepper

1 cup cooking sherry

1 cup whipping crème

chopped fresh parsley and basil

Saute diced onions in butter until transluscent.

Add tomatoes with juice.

Add juice, base salt, pepper and stir.

Bring to a near boil, turn off heat.

Add in sherry and cream and stir.

Add parsley and basil to taste.

This is the original recipe.
To this I add 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
And 1 tsp Italian seasoning and ¼ tsp crushed red pepper

The Face of Grace

2009-03-17T09:51:00.005-05:00

I've always been impressed by iconography. One of the most important icons in my own life is also the oldest known icon of Jesus Christ Pantocrator at St. Catherine's monastery at Sinai. I think it was my mentor from college, Jay McDaniel, who first exposed me to this icon. The seperate halves of this face of Christ each convey such different expressions. When I look at the right half of the face, I see anger, almost a sneer. McDaniel said that eye feels like a laser boring right into his soul. The left half of the face expresses compassion and tenderness. Do you see the difference? The left half has a softer eye--it is a gaze of love.

A truth that I have learned from this icon is that grace is both halves of this icon. Jesus expresses both tenderness and anger. I think it is conventional wisdom that grace is only that tender acceptance. The power of a Wesleyan concept of grace, with the dynamic movement through prevenient, justifying and sanctifying grace is that notion that grace is also perfecting. "Going on to perfection" sometimes involves deep discomfort and difficulty. That's one reason I think Lent is such an important season of faith. We are confronted with Jesus as a rebuker, as a wild man, as an angry man. Often, we are lulled into the false idea that being a person of faith means we are nice to everybody. Augustine said "Hope has two beautiful daughters, Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and the courage to try to change them."

Sum

2009-03-12T15:08:00.004-05:00

Here's the book I'm reading. I heard the author speak on a Tulsa NPR station and thought it sounded good. It is 40 vignettes on the afterlife that are off the wall, but also probing. The book fits in one hand pretty well--Lara and I both read it while we feed Julianna. It earns a thumbs up from me so far-the dust jacket says the afterlife scenarios are "never previously thought of," but I know I've daydreamed about a couple of them. Perhaps they're something in the collective unconscious. Am I dwelling on the afterlife? It first came to mind when I tried to think of a good question for the Transforming Theology Conference (a few days ago). I also wrote this little bit in my journal.

Almost Four.

When she returned at fifteen minutes till midnight, we sat on the couch with her legs resting on mine—me finding it hard to take my eyes off my little girl—she told me that my father had told her that he remembered his mother. His mother had died when he was three and a half years old. His older sister was five, and their two older brothers were already in their 20s and married.
I had never given my grandmother’s death much thought as an actual event. It was more of a circumstance. My grandmother had died when my dad was almost four and my dad’s dad had died when I was almost four.
The circumstance became more of a event in time for me when my wife mentioned that my dad told her that he remembered his mother’s death. He and his five year old sister were at home alone with her when she had the stroke that killed her. He said that they had just finished eating cherry pie, and for the longest time my dad and his sister thought that if you ate cherry pie you would die.
Hearing this was odd to me. I had never heard this before. Furthermore, just that weekend, while Lara and Julianna were away and Wesley and I were home alone together, I had the terrible daydream that I died while Wesley and I were home alone with each other with Lara away. What would my child do? Would he try to wake me? Would he panic? Would he try to find my cellphone and start punching buttons? My son is almost four. He is now as old as my father was when his mother died. He is now as old as I was when my father’s father died.

Perhaps Lent has really soaked into my bones this year.

My Dad and the Grapette bottle

2009-03-11T10:13:00.003-05:00

This appeared this morning in the "Paper Trails" section of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Pastor gives a message in a bottle

LINDA CAILLOUET

THROUGH TIME AND SPACE:

Until last week, the empty vintage Grapette bottle rested on a shelf in Rev. Michael Mattox ’s office.
The pastor of First United Methodist Church in Little Rock , known for his quirky collectibles, was given the bottle in the early 1990s by a member of his congregation, then in Arkadelphia. When he became district superintendent and moved to Little Rock , he packed up and brought the bottle. Later, when he became pastor of First United Methodist, he again packed and moved it.
Then he learned that Billy Parker, the man whose funeral he was to preside over last Saturday in Rison, had on many days in his youth bought nickel bottles of Grapette and bags of peanuts for his high school crush Estelle, who eventually became his wife of 51 years. That’s when Mattox knew why he had the bottle and what he needed to do with it.
“It kept staring at me,” the pastor tells Paper Trails. “I thought, ‘It was a gift to me, and I need to make it a gift to Estelle.’”
He took the bottle from the shelf and filled it with water and daffodils he’d plucked from his backyard. During his sermon, the pastor shared the couple’s Grapette story and placed the flower-filled bottle amid the grand arrangements flanking the casket.
Call it a revelation. Or a reassuring message from the departed to loved ones left behind. Or a God moment.
Just not a coincidence. The date on the bottle? 1946 — the first of the four years during which Billy and Estelle shared the drink at a local store during recess breaks.

Night Rainbows

2009-03-05T14:32:00.008-06:00

I submitted another application to the Collegeville Institute writing workshop with author Eugene Peterson. Last year I submitted a midrash on the Transfiguration, and that got me a spot as an alternate (12 are accepted). I had to fight the urge to unimaginatively submit the same thing again, since it got me so close before. But, I decided to expand on a journal entry I made a few years ago.

Night Rainbows

I had just gotten my son dressed for bed, and a wave of dissatisfaction crashed over me. Questions raised at a church meeting about my salary had provoked defensive thoughts about my worth to the community. What was it that I did for them exactly? I didn’t render any service but the occasional visit to the hospital or home. And what exactly did I speak about with people when making these visits? How the football team was doing, how the grass was growing. Not exactly the kinds of conversations I was having in seminary. I didn’t produce any product except for some words on Sunday, hopefully helping people deepen their relationship with God—but that isn’t exactly a measurable quantity. I needed some inspiration, so I prayed for it.

I took these questions with me outside to smoke my pipe in what had turned out to be a cold night. I lit my pipe and stood there focused on the shed in my back yard. As I was standing there, it suddenly grew brighter. The trees cast shadows on the grass. I looked up in the sky and saw a full moon. The low hanging clouds were moving rather quickly across the sky, and as they passed, the moon would peek out from behind them and illuminate my whole yard. The radiance of the moon lit up the contours of each cloud moving across the dark sky. I felt like I was on the bottom of the ocean looking up at silver gilded hulls of great ships, moving in from the north. From time to time, Venus or Jupiter would also peek through a small break in the clouds, framing the planet momentarily. It looked surreal, like a photo negative. As the moon drew my yard out of darkness and cast shadows of the fence and trees, the moment also drew my mind out of the darkness of self-doubt and worry. I went inside to get Lara, and she had just finished putting Wesley down for the night. I asked her to get a coat and come out with me. She was thrilled by the sight as well, and pointed out that the moon was so bright that as the clouds grew thinner at the edges, you could see the water vapors in little wispy rainbows. Rainbows at night: Symbols of God’s promise that aren’t restrained to the light of day. Even on a cold dark night, the moon reflects the piercing light of the sun to the extent that it can be broken into colors by the prism of water vapor. What a miracle! I was overcome with joy, and took it as an answer to my prayer.

The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 65 was overcome with awe and reverence for the work of God in the natural world. The poet lifts up the mountains and the oceans and all the things that generate a sense of wonder in the human heart. That night, Lara looked up in the sky and said, “there is proof of God’s existence!” She was thankful that I had shared the moment with her, and I was thankful that she had shared her experience with me.

That moment in my first year of parish ministry has reminded me to look for the rainbows even at night. I have learned that I can either accept the readily apparent darkness, or I can search for those uncanny and unexpected signs of God’s presence in the abyss. God is like the wind. Or perhaps a stronger statement that is no less true is simply that God is the wind. The wind is more noticeable when it is blowing hard and rustling the trees. We can see its activity by the things it moves: The leaves it blows across the yard, the tree limbs waving back and forth. Yet we sometimes forget that we take this wind into our body and it moves us too. It brings oxygen to our blood and powers the spark of life and consciousness. Our relationship with our Creator is as basic as breath.

So, any moment is “crammed with Heaven,” as Elizabeth Barrett Browning observed. There have been many night rainbows that I have been too bogged down in myself to notice along the way. I have been a blackberry picker. God’s presence takes that acute awareness that Zen monks cultivate toward their own breath. As Solomon prayed for wisdom, I pray for the attentiveness to “take off my shoes” and acknowledge the presence of God. I pray for the patience to look at the world around me in wonder. I pray for strength and insight to jettison all the burdensome mental cargo that makes me unwieldy and slow to shift course. I pray for the humility to know that even when I see something spectacular, a more profound vision can be attained with the help and companionship of another.

My question to the TRansforming Theology conference:

2009-03-04T11:08:00.004-06:00

I heard about Transforming Theology on the Emergent Village. Looks like a bold plan, and I look forward to seeing what comes of it. At the invitation of Tony Jones and Tripp I submitted the following question to be posed to the people.

New project designed by Phillip Clayton

2009-03-03T16:17:00.002-06:00

Lenten Discipline

2009-02-26T15:20:00.002-06:00

I thought the MethodX description of the Ignatian examen was good. I'm linking it on the church website to give the people another option for Lenten practices. I remember learning about the examen from Andy Drietcer at Claremont. We used this book called "Sleeping with bread." That book's hard to forget and beautiful.

this video made me happy

2009-02-20T12:37:00.002-06:00

I hear echos of Sgt. Peppers--do you?

I heard her on my Jem channel on Pandora. It's truly outrageous.

I was listening to a Brahms cd with Julianna yesterday and Prelude and Fugue in F minor. That reminded me of Jem, who I remember Nick Harcourt playing frequently on "Mornings become Eclectic" (why can't more NPR sataions be like KCRW?)

Anyway, I decided to see if "They" had a video that I could share with you, and there are two. One looks like it was made in the indie days, and one looks like it was not.

Jem - They (2005)(TMF){MTV} @ Yahoo! Video

Space Striptease! (Not that I'm complaining--it's a good song!)

Checking in on KCRW clued me in on this: Gotta love Femi Kuti

Katherine Hepburn's laugh

2009-02-11T11:08:00.004-06:00

I enjoy little things about movies. For example, I really like the way Toby's character in American Splendor says "nyurd."

Last night, I was also enamored by Katherine Hepburn's little sarcastic laugh in Philadelphia Story. At the beginning of this clip

Long live youtube! And for the record, I consider myself a nyurd!

It's been a while

2009-01-16T13:30:00.003-06:00

Sunny and 34 degrees

When it’s dry and cold,

You don’t even get that satisfying

puff of steam from your breath.

Trumpeting from your mouth

like visible soul.

You just walk around clear

Eyed and shocked

At the wonder

Of the cold air crammed

In your chest.

It will probably be a while

2009-01-05T23:08:00.005-06:00

That is, before I get back to blogging on a semi-regular basis. I'm sorry, but I have this little girl smiling at me these days, and that takes a lot of time.

Something to dream on

2008-12-16T00:02:00.001-06:00

Like a Wild Ass at Home in the Wilderness

2008-12-15T23:01:00.004-06:00

That's the working title for a book chapter I am working on. I'm writing about fidelity in the age of a hypersexualized, consumer driven culture. The title of the chapter a reference to Jeremiah 2: 24, where Israel is described as a donkey in heat, sniffing the air with unrestrained lust. I'll perhaps turn to a discussion on sexual fidelity being a celebration of relationship, vs. sexual “freedom” being the enslavement to the animal appetite. I've been reading Rob Bell's Sex God, CS Lewis's chapter on marriage and sex in Mere Christianity, and a I've read this review of Raymond Ortland's Whoredom: God's Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology. Looks good. Anyway, that's why you have had no posts. Does that topic sound interesting to you? I begin with Jesus' passage to "pluck" (that word is so graphic--I always visualize a fork popping an eye right out of the socket with this noise as my mental soundtrack.) out the eyeball if it causes you lust after another. By the way, as I was trying to find a link with that sound, I stumbled upon this. Kinda cool. I've used it before to get the sounds of pigs feeding for a prodigal son experiential worship setting for the Muskogee district confirmation for a couple of years now. Well. Back to the grindstone.

2008-12-09T23:54:00.001-06:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Is God mean like Captain Hook?

2008-11-24T23:35:00.004-06:00

Actually, "is Dod mean like Captain hook," asked Wesley (with his mouth full of Cocoa Puffs) as he thrust his crow's nest from his pirate ship at me across the dinner table.

"No," I said, "God is really nice." (Even though my recent sermon prep. has taken me through Leviticus and Joshua, so I kind of smirked at my own simple answer, considering if I were a Canaanite, I would indeed think God was like Captain Hook, or worse, but hey, the kid's three.)

"Because God loves us?" asked/stated Wesley, more a statement to be confirmed than a question to be answered.

"Yes, God loves us very much."

"But Captain Hook doesn't love anybody?"

"Hmmm.. I don't know. Maybe he loves Smee. But, do you think anyone loves Captain Hook?"

"I don't know."

"Well, maybe that's his problem! Maybe he just wants to be loved."

"Like Darth Bader?"

"Mmmm hmmm, like Darth Vader."

(Wesley wanted to see what Darth "Bader" looked like under his mask, so I cued up the scene from Return of the Jedi, and it opened up a whole world for Wesley about how sometimes villains are good on the inside and just need to be loved. I've always loved the bad guys.)

Excuse for minimal posting in Nov.

2008-11-22T23:36:00.001-06:00

I've been enjoying these kinds of things, and that hasn't left much time to write.

Links

2008-11-06T19:13:00.003-06:00

Did you know one original use of blogs was to keep track of links and make them available when you were away from your home computer's "add to favorites?" I'm gonna do that now. Feel free to connect yo-self.

http://empireremixed.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/to-hell-with-romans-13/

http://propheticheretic.wordpress.com/

http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/worship_tricks/wt82.html

By the way, I'm finally getting to achieve my dream for the past 6 or 7 years of sitting at a table picking Jonny Baker's brain. Jealous?

The final countdown...

2008-10-22T22:23:00.002-05:00

That song always gets stuck in my head in times like these. Sorry for the long hiatus, but we're anticipating the birth of our daughter Julianna Lee any day now, so we've been making lots of preparations, and haven't had time to blog really. We went to the OB today, and after doing some measurements (which aren't that accurate, but oh well) said that JuLee was about 8 pounds already--he predicted 1o pounds if we got to due date (Nov. 7). So he let us know that if we wanted to induce, it would go lickity split. Lara's "readings" are favorable for a quick delivery, but perhaps we're just being overly optimisic. She had about a 18 hour labor with almost 4 hours of pushing with WG--but every pregnancy is different, right!

So now we decide if we want to "schedule" her birth or not. There are definate pros (like getting her out before she is gigantic), but then there's an odd feeling to tampering with nature and the "due course" of things too. (Of course, we don't feel weird getting an epidural). So--look forward to photos sometime soon! Maybe not next week, but maybe so.

A place that makes sense

2008-09-29T21:19:00.002-05:00

I wanted to pass along this great article by Bill McKibben I found in the Christian Century. It's about a community close to Stockholm that is virtually waste free. I like the idea of putting my bananna peels in a pneumatic tube that whooshes them away into some community compost pile. That sounds like a lot of fun. It reminds me of the laundry shoot that my friend Brandon and I used to send our He-men down at his house. That's why I wanted to live in a two story house--so I could have a luandry shoot. So far, the dream remains a dream.

My new name

2008-09-17T21:43:00.009-05:00

According to the "Sarah Palin baby name generator," I'd be Chalk Revelations Palin. Hahaha. I love that it's "Revelations" instead of "Revelation." That's funny. Wesley Garrett would be Wesson Scalper. Yikes. I'm leaving it to Lara to have fun with her name and Julianna Lee (who's on the way in Nov.) Not too late to change her's to a Palinesqe Jinx Lounger or something like that.

Missing Los Angeles theaters

2008-09-17T21:43:00.008-05:00

When the weather is a perfect 70 degrees, I miss Los Angeles, where the weather is like that most of the time. One thing I loved about living in Los Angeles was going to the movies in theaters that had real character and history and lore and beauty. One of my favorites was the Majestic, just south of Wilshire on Westwood Blvd. There's a beautiful backlit mural of the Hollywood Hills and Westwood that glows during the showing of the movie. I think I saw Finding Nemo and the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind there. I tried and tried to find a photo of that for you, but as far as I can tell, they are just "coming soon."

Another great theater is the Fox Westwood Village.

This is where most of the premiers are when you see Hollywood stars walking in on the red carpet. It is beautiful inside and out (as evidenced by the photos.) Mission revival architecture, and a big star of david on the ceiling in the theater.

I think we saw the Lord of t

he Rings movies there, waiting in line with fans dressed like all the characters.

This one was

convenient too, cause it was a block away from the UCLA medical center (where Lara worked).

The El Capitan theater, on Hollywood Blvd, just opposite the famous Chinese Theater, isn't spectacular from the outside, but inside is something else.

Disney owns this theater and they use it to premier all their features. It's weird to see Sleeping Beauty

and Cars right next to

the

scuzzy Hollywood shops hawking sex toys. We saw the premier of Pirates of the Caribbean here. Oh, they also have a house organist who plays before the film rolls.

Oh, and if this is your kind of thing, there's a website called "Cinema Treasures" that I've enjoyed visiting. They have the story of historic theaters, with photos, for theaters around the country. They even have a profile on our local "Orpheum" in Okmulgee, OK!

It's just a motto

2008-09-04T21:57:00.003-05:00

One of Andrew Thompson's articles about the UMC slogan "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors," has always stuck with me. I understand where Andrew is coming from, but his perspective is a little more rigid than mine (an influence of the cantankerously brilliant Hauerwas on Andrew, I would guess) Not that you can't have your own opinion, Andrew--just making a connection, that's all.
Well, I ran across an article today in the Oklahoma Contact that gave me the confidence that appealing to our motto in matters of debate and doctrinal discussion is not ill founded. Whether it came from an Ad-agency or the Holy Spirit--others think of our church in this way, obviously. The article tells of a fatality accident on I40 involving a young Jewish girl on her way home from college in California. When her distrought father searched for help--he googled the local Methodist church nearest his daughter's accident because

"Aren't you the open doors and open hearts church? You people do things like this to help others, don’t you?’"
Brack assured Neuman the church members would do whatever they could.

It may not be hard-boiled dead german white guy theology, it may come off as mamsy-pamsy anything goes religion to critics--but it worked in conveying the heart of the church to this man. That's the power of the Gospel.

Near Death Experiences

2008-09-02T11:57:00.003-05:00

I'm listening to a pretty good interview on Studio Tulsa with Sam Barnia, a guy who is a contributor to National Geographic program on the subject airing soon. He's a director of the "mind/body" symposium of researchers, doctors, etc. I suppose anyone who'd living is somewhat interested in what it is like to die--since it's a ride we're all in line for. The descriptions of out of body experiences and traveling toward a light or through a tunnel are intriguing. I read a book called "The Brief History of the Dead," that had a lot of great imagry about the body transforming into the spirit body. I'm also looking forward to reading Spook I really enjoyed her earlier book, Stiff: The Curious lives of human cadavers. Interested in a quircky, good read--well there you go.

Getting caught up on films

2008-08-27T16:18:00.002-05:00

During the late summer, I've always seemed to find my way to the library or video store to check out some movies that have slipped by without me seeing. (After my senior year of high school, this practice got me several dates with the foxy video store girl. I distinctly remember trying to look for movies that would impress an older, more sophisticated woman. I guess it worked!) Now that I'm married with silver hairs (Lara loves to point them out.) , my interest in getting dates with the video store girl has waned, and I settle for turning the Tulsa public library website into a free version of Netflix. Here are some that I've seen.

There Will be Blood--Danial Day Lewis is his usual brilliant self. The movie is sparse (first 15 minutes go by without a word) but with a great story filled with sawdust and oil.

Thank You for Smoking-- Aaron Eckhart (sp) is a tobacco lobbyist and a mentor to his son. I love his self perception as one who defends the right for people to make their own minds up about things. Very funny movie.

No Country for Old Men--The new face of the grim reaper! I got into this one and can see why it won the Oscars that it did. I felt edgy and pursued the whole time I was watching, and because I broke it up over lunch and later in the evening, I felt edgy and pursued all day.

The Children of Men--Okay, it was my second time on this one, but had to skim through it again, specifically for two shots--the long long long shot (like 7 or 8 minutes of action without a cut!) of Clive Owen and Julianne Moore getting attacked on that country road, and for the scene with the seige on the projects and "Key" carrying out the first baby born on Earth in 27 years--it's quite a good metaphor for the Nativity, I'd say.

Darjeeling Limited--I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson, and this is the only film of his not in my collection. First one I also did not see in the theater. Well--having kids'll do that to you. This seemed a lot like Bottle Rocket to me, with Owen Wilson playing a similar character: Idealistic schemer set on bringing about a reunion and living life to its fullest. Wes really dresses up the set and background (which he's been doing since the Royal Tannenbaums, I'd say). But set in the visually rich and colorful world of India, his palette has grown larger. That's where he seems to pour his increasing budgets for his films. It's like a kid who keeps getting a bigger crayon box until he finally has the huge-assed one with the crayon sharpener.

If my reviews are lacking something you want--sorry, go to IMDB

on the high seas

2008-08-27T15:08:00.003-05:00

I never liked these, but Wes said he wanted to go on it, and mom is preggers, so that leaves me. You can call me Ishmael. Oh, and uh...yeah, that's me. And Wesley loved it--we rode it no less than 10 times.

Best summary on the value of doubt I've heard

2008-08-16T23:47:00.002-05:00

In a recent interview in the Christian Century, author Ron Hansen crystalized what I've always thought in an unspoken cloud of ideas. The question is about his new book based on Gerard Manley Hopkins (a poet I've always loved). Now I've requested the book from the library--it's called Exiles. Anyway, the question and answer are as follows:
When people think of Hopkins they often think first of his faith. But he also wrestled with doubt.

I have a priest friend who points out that the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. I think God intended that--it is a way of making us creative instead of smug in our belief. God plants in us the seed to love and worship God, and the seed is enough to make us want to seek God out, but not enough to fully get there. That reaching, that striving, is what God is really interested in--that creative activity that all of us should pursue.

Amen Bro. Hansen--I'm gonna comment on Jeremy's "one minute sermon" post that this would be my entirely borrowed one minute sermon.

Eucharistic Theology in Film

2008-08-07T13:20:00.002-05:00

I finally watched a movie that had been suggested to me by one of my mentors years ago. It is the Oscar winning Danish film from 1988, Babette's Feast. (that link is IMDB--wikipedia gives away a plot point that I wish I had been surprised with, although knowing it while watching the film was somewhat enjoyable too). There are many beautiful aspects of the film, but what appealed to me was viewing the film as an analogy of the Eucharist--something that important plot point that I found out about before the film hammers home). I won't give you all the details, because maybe you haven't seen it and would like to watch it without spoilers. But, you should check it (Tulsa Library had it) out and comment below. One thing it portrays is the Protestant struggle with Pietistic dualism. Nothing illustrates better the broad indictment of life contained in the words of Ecclesiastes, "Vanity, Vanity, All is vanity," than when they come in this film. Also, I don't know that I've seen a more poignant symbol of the Eucharist than what is in this film. I'll give you a few days to watch before I go to the comments and analyze more deeply. (so if you don't want to have any more info about the movie than this before watching, don't click on the comments if there are any there.) Don't be like me and wait years to watch this one!

The Theology of Potty Training

2008-07-30T22:25:00.001-05:00

I was reading this parenting book that Lara had read and found helpful, and it sparked some theological thinking. The passage read as follows:

“If guilt is an ice cube, shame is an iceberg: it’s in the same basic category, but it’s bigger, goes deeper, and can do a lot of damage. Guilt goes along with remorse, and tends to be associated with a particular act of misbehavior. Shame, on the other hand, tends to pervade the entirety of the person in question. Shame goes along with disgrace and humiliation. Whereas a person feeling guilty can rouse himself to make amends, a person feeling shame has a much more difficult task.

Shame has to do with a feeling of being wrong, stupid, bad, inept. Shame is the hot potato of mental states: No one wants to be left holding it for long. No sooner do we find ourselves with it than we set about to find some way to hand it off to someone else. There is no wrong without right, stupid without smart, bad without good, or inept without competent. IF you are to get rid of shame—itf you are to feel right or smart or good or competent—then someone else has to be assigned these other, less desireable qualities. As such, shame tends to travel from person ot person. It gets handed off.

(Dana Chidekel, Parents in Charge: Setting Healthy, Loving Boundaries for your Child. New York: Citadel, 2002, 206.)

That got me thinking about Christ taking our shame at the cross, the most shameful way of dying that was available to the God-man. After dying in humiliation, even uttering an unanswered plea to Elijah, he is buried with the shame of the world, and he leaves it there. We can turn over our shame to God, because God has willingly taken it. 1^st Peter 2: 6 says “For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." We can put a halt to the endless “passing” of our shame to others by giving it up to God. God fully takes that shame in the form of a cross, and rises from shame and death to show us our potential as “re-born” beings. Chidekel states that “Babies do not feel shame.” And then makes a good case for tying shame, which kicks in during the toddler years, to a legacy of toilet training.” As for the soteriological aspect of the freedom from shame, We can be re-born into the world, free of shame…like an infant. We can be saved from shame by yielding this one most private and personal emotion to God

Chidekel states about shame,

“Shame seems to be hard-wired into humans. While someone can certainly set out intentionally to make you feel ashamed, shame will arise in the absence of another’s conscious intent to inspire it within you.”

The author says that shame is seemingly “hard-wired” into us. Perhaps the concept of shame and the concept of the “original sin” are the same. The story tells us that after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve cover themselves “in shame.” God’s action in the cross is said to be the “equal and opposite reaction” of the shame that is inherent in the human condition. God is offering us a freedom from our shame by taking that shame from us. The only way to stop the cycle of shame, to stop perpetuating it onto those whom we love, is to yield the shame to God and understand that we’re not created to bear it. It is alien to our core as Good Creation.

Poem from the Christian Century: As I sleep

2008-07-23T10:32:00.002-05:00

This caught my eye and then my soul.

Turning as I sleep, I take
Across my eyes the silent words
Sung by our old sun's golden birds--
They hope I will awake.

Learning, I have longed to shake
An apple from the sacred tree
That sings sleep into unity--
Before my true day-break:

Yearning, at the end, to make
My entrance in a gown of light
Woven of day, woven of night--
Hearing, at last, "Awake!"

Treehouse Rock

2008-07-22T11:07:00.005-05:00

I've been on a treehouse kick recently, I suppose, since I blogged about the treehouse chapel idea yesterday. Couldn't get enough of browsing thru treehouse images, and came across the world's largest treehouse in Alnwick Garden, in Northumberland. Looks like a good vacation destination for the future. The Alnwick Garden in England has the world's largest treehouse.

6000 feet would be big enough for a whole college religious life center! The frame of mind that treehouses inspire would just seem to lend itself to a place of worship, dontcha think?

The church I'd build

2008-07-20T16:03:00.007-05:00

I came across a note I had made to myself some years ago when I used to carry around a day planner. It said, "Chapel Idea--small chapel built in a tree. A treehouse chapel. Icons Painted on Walls."

What a good reminder. I haven't built a treehouse chapel yet, but I had a dream not too long ago that I do someday. What better place to worship than a treehouse? The loftiness, the views, the unique feel of the closeness of the structure to the tree (with the best treehouses incorporating the tree in the interior of the house, in my opinion.) to me engenders a natural feeling of the soul's closeness and being infused by the Divine.

Doubtful this would ever fly in Oklahoma though--maybe the Pacific Northwest would be a good home for a treehouse chapel. I think in the dream it was in Florida.

Since then, I bought a book called Remarkable Trees of the World, and found that it has actually been done in France. The Chapel Oak in Normandy, built in 1696 (the Oak was a sacred relic for centuries before that) . I like elements of all the other treehousese pictured too, and the chapel would likely be a combination of all of them. Haven't decided if I'd use stained glass, only clear glass, or a combination.)

Perhaps the idea comes from my early experiences at Fay Jones masterpiece chapel in Eureka Springs, AR--Thorncrown? It's tree-housy, and incorporates the landscape around it, no?

Revenge of the Little Cups

2008-07-07T15:40:00.003-05:00

Some time ago,
I gave you a little taste of why I regretfully preserve the custom in this church of using little plastic shot glasses of juice during communion. This past Sunday they came back to bite me again. If you're keeping score here are the list of pros and cons for little cups:

Pros:

Cons:

Destroy the symbolism of the sacrament messing with the image and words related to "one cup."
Aren't found in scripture.
Look silly when I hold up a little cup or a tray of cups while saying, "and after supper he took the cup."

Okay, so many in my church would add "are sanitary" to the list of pros (which in their mind would outweigh the 3 strikes against) but still--this is my blog, so the little cups have a running tally of -3. And today we make it -4.

4: You have to either over-estimate how many are coming to take communion, or scramble to get another tray in the midst of the worship service.

From now on, we will over-estimate.
This past Sunday, with about 10 left to serve at the chancel, and with a family of visitors just kneeling there for 5 minutes, my ushers had to do the "little cup scramble." My communion server turned to me with wide open eyes after I had gotten to the end of the chancel distributing bread, and I saw my trusty usher at the back getting ready to head to the kitchen. "Get the big cup," I mouthed to him while gesturing in a chalice type motion. He misunderstood what I was asking for and brought me the "little cup filler" thing with the bulb that Wesley likes to play with. We hadn't given him a tray to bring in the little cups, so this is what he had to do. Un-beknownst to him, I had put bleach in the little cup filler before the service to try and clean the mold that had accumulated in the bottom of it. However, in the heat of the moment, I'd forgotten this little tidbit of information. The juice had a strange look to it, like purple kool-aid instead of juice. "What--are we out of juice?" I thought as I began to fill up some little cups on the table. My next thought was--"hmm....what is that smell? Bleach!" I'm glad the Spirit opened my nose to smell or else we might of been like another kool-aid swilling church. So, I turned around again and simply said to the usher, "we're going to need the chalice." Chalice to the rescue! I gave the 10 or so who hadn't yet partaken another piece of bread, and they dipped them in the chalice. Communion accomplished. I explained to the congregation what had happened (because some of the folks who had been the last to receive the little cups were visitors who had been kneeling there for like 7 minutes while we got the whole thing straitened out, and I didn't want them to think communion regularly included such theatrics.) Even so, this isn't a change I'll be making soon--most of the people are just a little too skittish about it, and I want to encourage a welcoming stance toward communion. On every other Sunday we offer communion in the chapel after church by intinction, so....

Any freudians out there?

2008-06-28T17:56:00.001-05:00

Dream about preaching

Church was full to the gills. My liturgist was off the bulletin, had prepared something different, but very Spirit led. Randy Johnson, a musician from Bartlesville, was also in attendance and played a bassoon and a flute during the call to worship, which I had written using the lyrics of a contemporary song, but that the liturgist took to mean she was supposed to sing. I could tell the church had been working behind the scenes unbeknownst to me.

During announcements, I started by asking congregation what they would announce. Many evacuees were there to worship, they started sharing great things. Testimonies. Katherine stopped me when she remembered she had an announcement. The evacuees had opened these doors in the side of the church to let in the fresh air. K went weaving in and outside the doors as she gave her announcement. I remember her saying, “and there are going to be canoes, and wilderness, and pine trees” it was kind of a spontaneous thing.

When I finally decided I needed to give my sermon, (first of all I couldn’t find a bulletin, and secondly I couldn’t find my sermon. I could find a bunch of old sermons, but not today’s sermon..

The whole time I was fumbling around, kids were just running around like crazy. They were going up to the microphone and announcing car washes and all sorts of things. Some of the kids in my present church mixed in with some of my youth from Bartlesville.

Another interesting thing, the pulpit kept changing size, and I kept taking apart the microphone trying to get it to work. I remember walking up to give the sermon, and I couldn’t find it, but even if I could, you couldn’t even see me behind the pulpit. There were also flowers right in front of the pulpit to where when it was the right size, even the flowers were obstructing my view and the cong’s view of me. I kept embarrassingly trying to move the flowers. Worried that the cong. would think they “had” to be watching me, and thinking they would think I was full of myself for moving the flowers so they could see my face as I gave the sermon. But I was actually just concerned for the people who hear better when they can see what they are listening to.