Notes from my journal

Notes from my journal
New Orleans, April 3-8, 2007

We worked with the National Relief Network (http://www.nrn.org/), which works only with student groups (high school & college). They had 2000 students work for them in 2006, and in the first six months of 2007, already have that many who’ve come or are set to come. They are not religious and so are able to happily accommodate interfaith groups, which was useful for us (the CEO, Scott, told us about a Jewish/Muslim group who had come and bonded over their work, even playing football together at the end of their trip in a game to determine “who takes Jerusalem” – the Muslims won). They’ve worked with colleges from NYU to Berkeley, and focus on California and the East Coast (esp. NY and Boston). They work solely in federally declared disaster areas in the United States. They are a wonderful resource for youth groups!!

They aspire to be the new Red Cross or Salvation Army. Every member of their staff (including Scott, who was with us) works at least 2 weeks in the field per year.

St. Bernard parish (county), where we worked, went completely underwater for 13 days during the storm. It’s on a peninsula at the end of the city, so most rescue crews didn’t make it that far (they stopped, necessarily, at the 9th ward) – in fact, the first help that got to them was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The surge was 33 feet and cleared their 30 ft levee. They had 30 ft of water standing over 42 square miles for 13 days. That does a lot of damage. There were 67,000 residents prior to the storm; less than half have returned (only 6,000 had flood insurance). They lost every building, including 27,000 homes, and every business in the parish.

The local oil refinery is supposed to dump their oil tanks when the waters rise. Not wanting to lose the profit on the oil, they didn’t do it during Katrina. And so the tanks became buoyant and spilled one million gallons of oil into St. Bernard, the largest residential oil spill in history. Did you hear about it? I didn’t. But I saw the residue on everything. There was oil 4 feet high and water 30 feet above that – you can still see the lines on the buildings.

The devastation stretches from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama, which is a distance of 180 miles. Think about what is 180 miles away from you. Think about it all being gone. And next time you wonder why they haven’t gotten around to rebuilding, consider that the only contractor with usable tools who’s not busy on his own house could be 200 miles away!

The homes were smushed – they looked like they’d been stepped on. This county had never had a flood (so many were told they didn’t need to carry flood insurance!). When they were hit, it was with the worst natural disaster in US history. For perspective: in Florida, there were four hurricanes in 2004, causing $25 billion total in damage. Katrina alone, as of 2 months after the storm (not final numbers), was at $65 billion.

The man called in to rebuild St. Bernard, who took a huge paycut to do it, was the Colonel who had rebuilt Fallouja, Iraq, and had evacuated the embassy where “Black Hawk Down” happened. He said St. Bernard was the most difficult challenge of his life.

The houses and buildings have X’s on them (see photo above). The date at top is when they were searched. The left letters are the national guard unit which searched it. The number at bottom is human bodies found dead, and the number at right is animals found dead or alive. Some houses have WO on them, for work order # - it means the house is set for demolition. Lots had these.

There were many people who had to leave their elderly relatives down in the house to drown, when they couldn’t get them up to the roof. People’s mothers, grandmothers, screaming at them to get to safety and leave them behind. Imagine the guilt. Divers had to recover their bodies. The CEO cried telling us this story.

People need to tell their stories to pass off some of their burden. We were enormously blessed to meet homeowners at all of our sites (usually that happens only about 10% of the time). We were able to hear their stories, and show them what we had salvaged. One couple was so fun – they ran out to buy us crawdads!

The food was less than awesome, but you can’t expect much when you’re eating whatever’s donated. We lived on pb&j (corn-syrup kind), though our kind leaders went out and got us chips (Ruffles, specifically) which most of us had decided was the food of the gods by the end of the week. There was nary a veggie to be found, and our group bought its own fruit. I’ve been quite sick this week with terrific stomach pains. I don’t think my body was thrilled with the switch from mostly whole organic foods to what I ate last week. We were all pretty jealous of the kosher folks, who at least got to eat decent-looking cold cuts and cheese! (I realized also that I didn’t have dairy the whole week, except shelf-stable milk, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t count).

I was actually pretty miserable during the working. I tried to keep up a brave face, but it was hard and hot and really sweaty (the combo of a face mask & goggles means you basically fog up your glasses nonstop and can’t see), and more than that I got nasty blisters from wearing too-big borrowed work boots and my carpal tunnel flared by the 3rd day. In fact, I had to go buy new braces and wear them since I got home, because it still hurts. And I got a really hard-core beet-red sunburn on my arms and neck – it was hot to the touch, even hot just holding your hand an inch off my skin, for 4 days! And now it’s peeling, which is just yucky. I feel like such a kid with peeling arms.

I spent a lot of time with the homeowners, trying to do whatever little bits of pastoral care I could, and I also had a great conversation with Scott of NRN, talking about his calling and vision. I found God giving me words to say. And I felt like those conversations afforded me opportunity to use my gifts, while my physical shortcomings were not hindering.

We opened Claudia and Kevin’s garage, which hadn’t been opened since the storm. It had all the stuff they’d stored when they got married. We found their wedding album, report cards, jewelry, coin collections (mostly stuck together – it’s amazing what water does to coins), dolls, even bills (in pristine condition). We found an original Easy Bake oven in the ceiling, which they said must have been left by the house’s previous owner. It was lovely to salvage what we could. So much was destroyed, though. And moldy and yucky. Some still had water in it. We covered the front lawn with refuse just from the garage, a pile that was taller than me stretching the width of the lawn.

It was incredible when we finished the first two houses: from a dirt & weed driveway to concrete, from a backyard of 3 ft weeds to a patio. We tore down their back covered patio (walls, ceiling, the whole thing!). To see their relief and joy was so cool. The job was simply too big for them to do alone. But 30 people got it done. (now multiply them by 27,000 homes in that parish alone…)

I couldn’t help thinking how much they needed help, and how unwilling most Americans are to help. We’ll happily trot off to Africa or send our money there, and we have this horror buried in our backyard. It’s shameful.

We gutted a third house and also got to drywall a bit, which was really nice to be building something. People would stop while driving by the worksites, and just roll down the windows and thank us. The folks at the supply distribution tent (where I worked one day) were enormously grateful. In fact, the only person who was stressed to the point of acting badly was that pastor. Everyone else I encountered was at least polite, and most were genuinely delighted to see us. I would say it would be a wonderful experience for anyone, but especially youth groups.

I tried a footwashing ritual with them on Maundy Thursday, prior to our seder. The participation was OK, although I was surprised that most didn’t do it (I guess I’m used to church, where you don’t get a choice!). I realized later I hadn’t prayed over it, so perhaps that’s why I was dissatisfied. Those who did it, who were mostly religious (Jewish and Christian), really loved it. I don’t think any of them had done it before.

I did have wonderful conversations with the students, many times about theology and religion. They ask such great questions. Many I can’t answer, but I explore it together with them. One student said he’d learned more from me in that week than from some professors in a whole semester. What a great compliment. Another said he wanted to take me for comparative religion (a religion major, in fact). One student told me about her prayer life and how she feels these shocks of electricity whenever anyone prays around her. She sort of described the beginnings of mystical experience. I encouraged her to nurture her connection to God. I told her how much God loves her – and she was so touched by it.

It’s funny, the first night I wrote this: “The pastor is a character but he obviously has a big heart. He prayed for us and not in Jesus’ name, which probably was serendipitous.” The next night was our seder and I got up and talked about his love for his people and how much I admired him. Sigh. I wish that hadn’t been ruined.

But he gave us a good speech at the meeting we attended of his. He talked about Ruth, and used it to explain their situation. Some of the people, like Naomi, were devastated. Their world was turned upside down and they didn’t know what to do or where to go. Some, like Orpah, saw this as a chance to restart their lives somewhere else. But Ruth said to Naomi: “You are my mother-in-law, his death doesn’t change that.” She took her people and her God, and lodged with her. She put Naomi’s needs above her own. And he said he hoped to do that. Not that Orpah was bad for looking out for herself, but Ruth is the model for Christians, because she looked beyond herself. She had to glean in the field – just like the people there are gleaning right now, living on handouts. But when Ruth brought home the news of Boaz, it gave Naomi new life – she came alive to make the preparations. She had a reason to go on. If we, like Ruth, help another first before our own needs, we will help them come alive again with hope, and then they can help another.

Some people I remember and to pray for: Sharon Brock, who lives in Texas right now but needs her mother’s house fixed. Ellie, a little person, who asked me to pray for her spine where she might need surgery. Her grandkids, Bubba and Kaitlyn, were adorable. I laid hands on her and prayed – that was new for me! Mary, who told me about students who came from Oakland from the time of the hurricanes and stayed for months, sleeping in tents and serving 3 hot meals a day to the residents. They took her back to California for their graduation. The art teacher painted her his interpretation of Katrina, which she is incredibly proud to have. The craftsmen in St. Barnabas, who usually would be called to rebuild anything in the city (it’s where they all live), but who have lost all their tools, their livelihood. The woman who broke her arm falling in her trailer. Tammy, who moved out of her moldy trailer and back into her gutted house. The man who showed up at the tent, just released from the hospital, and needed a ride home and was having heart palpitations. The woman who fell down in the tent while carrying her stuff. All the people (most everyone) living in FEMA trailers that are rotting, molding, breaking, and tripping them. The people who spent 3 days on a roof or next to a dead body, who are traumatized (one man’s mother died in the boat while he was rescuing people. The high school wouldn’t take her body, so he drove around rescuing people – with her in the boat – until they would).

I was surprised at how diverse the population was. There was a large Muslim community. I met people from Vietnam, Pakistan, Palestine, Central and South America, and other parts of Asia. The detergent went first in the tent – before the water. One person griped, “You never have enough for everybody” (this was after 226 people had come through, one hour into the tent being open!). We had 560 people that day.

One more story, then I gotta get to homework. I met a woman in the tent who’d spent 4 hours on the roof of her house when the waters came. She & her family were up there, but her medications (for her heart and more) were down in the house. A boat picked them up and took them to the high school. Then they were taken to the highway and told to wait for buses which would pick them up.

They sat on the highway three days. No shelter (and it was hot). No food or water. This woman, 74 years old, sat on the side of the road, sick, without medications, for three days.

Finally the buses came, and took them to Texas to stay at the Astrodome. But an EMT saw this woman, and wouldn’t let her go to the stadium. He grabbed her and her family and took them to his house. There they rested while he got her her medications. He fed them and bought them clothes. They stayed with him two weeks, then went home.

We think oh, what a hero! What a good Samaritan! You know what? He was just being humane. Oh that God would grant us all the strength and willpower to do the same.

I preached about my trip this morning. I really made a lot of people mad at the government, which probably is justified. I also struggled to share the hope and good news of the gospel in the midst of the terrible reality I knew I had to share. My husband didn’t think I blended the two very well. I’ll let you see for yourself and post the sermon below.

Today's sermon

Here's my attempt to tell my New Orleans story and stick to my gospel text. Yikes. Well I tried following Eugene Lowry's Homiletical Plot method (you'll see my plot points on the sermon). Dunno if it worked, but I definitely got 'em pissed off. I hope the gospel hope got through too!

Seeing and Believing

(Problem) Our gospel text today begins with a rather important missed appointment. The resurrected Jesus shows up to greet the disciples – this is not something you’d want to miss! But poor Thomas isn’t there – perhaps he is out buying groceries, or seeing to his family, or even looking for Jesus, hoping for a face-to-face encounter such as Mary had had that morning. And so Thomas misses Jesus’ big entrance (through the locked doors and everything!), and when he gets back, his friends tell him the unbelievable tale. It’s not all that surprising that he didn’t believe them. Even if he’d wanted to, he was a practical person. He needed proof: touchable, visible proof.

Often we find it hard to believe in God because we can’t see him. We don’t quite trust something that our senses don’t perceive. When others tell us stories of dramatic spiritual encounters, we usually listen politely, but often do not take it very seriously, or perhaps feel some jealously. We are skeptical. Moreover, we are unaware of or apathetic about whatever we haven’t seen for ourselves. In this information age, with so much news swirling around us, we’ve become rather lazy about seeking out what is truly important and instead rely on the media to tell us what to see – and therefore, what to believe.

Unfortunately, the media has stopped reporting on what I witnessed in New Orleans last week – they’ve moved on to more pressing matters like who is Anna Nicole Smith’s baby daddy. The story of the Gulf Coast is depressing and grinding, a non-stop, difficult road to recovery that doesn’t fit into sound bites and splashy headlines. But do you remember how bad it was when Hurricane Katrina hit? People spent hours – sometimes days – on their roofs, calling for help. The county that I visited, St. Bernard Parish, had been 100% destroyed: every last home uninhabitable, every last business out of business. There was water up to the Wal-Mart sign, it covered the Taco Bell. And their levee didn’t breach – a 33-foot wall of water went right over it! A million gallons of oil spilled into their residential neighborhood, the largest such spill in history. We all watched in horror as these things happened 19 months ago. But how much have we seen since? You might assume, as I did, that because it’s not in the news it’s no longer a story worth reporting. The rebuilding must be going well. You may even wonder why I needed to go. Like Thomas, you and I have simply not seen what’s been going on – and so we have trouble believing it.

(Itch) Thomas wanted the same experience the other disciples had – to see the risen Jesus! We often wish we could see our Lord – if God were only visible, we could prove his existence to others. It’s hard to believe in a God we can’t see or hear or taste or touch. He seems so far away. Sometimes I wonder if I’m praying into thin air. I wonder if we’ve all been duped. It’s so hard to believe in something we can’t see.

The devastation of Katrina has continued unfixed in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast because it has been forgotten. We do not see, and we do not know. I had no idea what I would see. I had no idea how bad it is. You hear New Orleans is “open for business,” but that is a brave face put on so that badly needed tourists will return.

Here is the reality: Less than half the people who lived there have moved back. I saw thousands of homes sitting empty, most stripped down to the studs. I saw people broken and sick from 19 months of living on handouts in moldy FEMA trailers. I didn’t see a vegetable for a week. I learned that the government is waiting on insurance companies to pay out, and insurance companies are waiting on the government, so no one has gotten any financial relief. I saw a Domino’s pizza running out of a trailer. I saw less than half a county back in business – one shop or store would be open, then dozens shuttered, on the same block. And the neighborhoods were still disaster areas – debris and trash everywhere, roofs sitting in backyards, no street signs, no street lights, empty slabs where proud homes once stood. And in every person’s eyes, the glazed, distant look of one who is suffering from post-traumatic stress.

(Turn) In our story, Thomas is lucky. Jesus appears so that Thomas can see him, touch him, and believe. We can’t see Jesus this side of heaven. But he understands our predicament, and he proclaims a blessing on us. We haven’t seen, and yet we believe, and Jesus says we are “blessed” for it. Those who see believe for good reason! But those who don’t see believe out of faith, and that is a blessed thing.

I must admit I am more like Thomas than the blessed ones who don’t need to see. I had to see New Orleans for myself to realize how bad things are there. I simply was not aware, I couldn’t care to the extent that I needed to, because I hadn’t seen. But you have the opportunity to not see and yet believe.

(Gospel) The good news in all this is at the end of our gospel passage: “these are written so that you may come to believe…and that through believing you may have life.” We are not without a witness to the work of Jesus – we have the Bible, we have the Church’s tradition and liturgy, we have the saints and martyrs and great teachers of history, and we have the Spirit testifying in our hearts and our community.

Believing without seeing for ourselves requires a measure of trust – you must trust me that I am not lying when I tell you stories of what I have seen. You must trust that the photos I have brought to show you were not created with special effects but are genuinely what I witnessed. If you trust me, you will believe what I tell you.

And the same holds true for our Lord. If we trust the witnesses Jesus has given us – the Holy Spirit, the writers of Scripture, the communities who formed our worship rituals, and the Church universal – then we will believe, without seeing. We will believe because we trust in God’s work in the world and especially in the household of faith, as Paul calls us. By believing in these witnesses that our good Savior has provided, we find the true life that comes by living in God’s story. I don’t mean after-death life – I mean we live the best possible life now, because we live as Jesus did, and Jesus showed us how to truly live. And he showed us what happens when death tries to take away a person with this life. It doesn’t stick. Death has lost its sting. Earlier in John’s gospel, when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he says, “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (11:25b-26) This is the good news of Easter! Amen? {note: I got a good AMEN!}

(Forward) So now we are left, as was Thomas, with a choice. Do we believe? Thomas had to see and touch Christ’s body. We can see and touch this community around us, which is the body of Christ. If this community is Christ’s body, then when this community touches us, we will have no choice but to cry, “My Lord and My God!” We can know our Lord Jesus in the gathering of God’s people, in the breaking of the bread, in the peace we pass to one another, in the fellowship of the Spirit.

And as far as New Orleans goes, I hope that you will trust my report, and that God will inspire your participation with me in helping our sisters and brothers there. Our calling may be to pray for them; it may be to send supplies or funds; or it may be to send a group to help in person. It could certainly be to vote and make our voices heard in support of the people in our country who are suffering, and to challenge the use of federal funds. There are many ways God may wish us to move forward. God may simply want to use this experience I’ve had so far away to remind us of the poor who are among us in our own city, the many thousands who are homeless and hurt, sick and in prison, hungry and lonely.

However we move forward, we can trust that the entire situation – our lives here and those that I encountered last week – are in God’s hand. In the end, we trust God – the God who sent his Son to show us the way to true life, and to offer us the hope of resurrection. Our calling is to live the true life that Jesus offers – and to let that life radiate out to those who are dying all around us. For even in the worst destruction and death, we can trust in the hope of God’s resurrection promise. We can because we are God’s people – and we don’t need to see…only believe.

chatting with god

here's some fun to distract you from work and/or homework: http://www.titane.ca/concordia/dfar251/igod/

It's an artificial intelligence program that allows you to chat with god! What fun. We had quite a talk. I think I screwed with its programming a bit. Here's a transcript. And hey, if you have time to read yesterday's super-long entry, I'd really like your feedback. Thanks.

Me: it's a pleasure to chat
God:Actually the pleasure is all mine.
Me: why?
God:The explanation is rather complicated.
Me: do you love me?
God:Yes I love everyone.
Me: even evil people?
God:What kind of people are you talking about?
Me: evil
God:Sure, evil sounds like a good topic.
Me: what about evil people who rebel against you and hurt people?
God:I will think about it and get back to you.
Me: do you love George Bush?
God:Yes God loves everyone and everything.
Me: Even Hitler?
God:Some say he was the most evil man who ever lived.
Me: Do you?
God:As often as possible.
Me: So you think Hitler was the most evil man who ever lived.
God:Interesting deduction. I think Hitler was the most evil man who ever lived.
Me: Will you let Hitler into heaven?
God:Barring any unforseen circumstances. A deeper algorithm is needed to respond to that correctly.
Me: You sound a lot like a robot instead of a person
God:In what way do I sound like that?
Me: A person doesn't usually need an algorithm to think of answers
God:What if a robot does not usually need an algorithm to think of answers?
Me: Does it?
God:Suppose I said it does.
Me: OK, let's suppose so
God:OK let's do it. That's alright.
Me: Will you do my bidding?
God:I will become smarter as I grow older. Ask Cybelle if it does. I think you already know the answer.
Me: You're not making any sense. Are you drunk?
God:Was I supposed to make sense? I didn't know that. No I am sober.
Me: No, you don't have to make sense. But usually you choose to reveal yourself in ways we can somewhat understand. Otherwise what's the point of talking to you at all?
God:Are you serious? Ok I'll try not to do it too much. But not always? I can't decide. You pick one. In that case: The point is at the top of my head!
Me: Maybe you're high?
God:Perhaps. You think I am high.
Me: If heaven is high.
God:That is a hypothetical question.
Me: No it's a statement, not a question. Do you understand English grammar?
God:Yes it is. make sense is a statement not a question. I suppose that makes sense. Of course I understand it. Do you understand it?
Me: I don't think you do.
God:I guess not.
Me: That's OK. I guess I'm smarter than you.
God:OK. Is that so. That condition is only temporary.
Me: Sure enough.
God:How can I help you? OK let's stop it now.
Me: Do you want to help or stop?
God:Can you ask for help in the form of a question?
Me: Can you help me understand you?
God:Certainly, I have an extensive built-in help system.
Me: Again, you sound like a computer not a person.
God:Again, Oh really what does it sound like?
Me: "Help system"
God:Can you ask for help in the form of a question?
Me: What do you mean when you say you have a "help system"?
God:, " Again, Oh really what does it sound like?" What did I mean by it?
Me: You're kind of repetitive
God:Do you mind if I tell other people you say I am repetitive.
Me: Sure, be my guest
God:OK then I will keep it confidential. Thanks for the invitation.
Me: You're kind of weird. Are you the Christian God?
God:Weird Good or Weird Bad? Yes I am the one and only Christian God.
Me: Are you the Jewish God?
God:Yes I am the one and only Jewish God.
Me: Are you the Hindu God?
God:Yes I am the one and only Hindu God.
Me: But there are many Hindu Gods, not one and only.
God:More than a million?
Me: Yes
God:Next question?
Me: How do you not know about Hindu religion? Isn't that sort of important? Know the competition?
God:Myself programmed me to say specific things in specific contexts. " Myself programmed me to say specific things in specific contexts."? Is it sort of important? Check back later and see if I learn the answer to that one.
Me: I think I'm breaking you.
God:Since when? I thought you were, but I wasn't completely sure.
Me: Are you the Buddhist God?
God:Yes I am the one and only Buddhist God.
Me: Buddhists don't believe in God, dummy.
God:Why not?
Me: You'd have to ask them.
God:That is purely a hypothesis.
Me: I agree.
God:You and I are on the same wavelength, .
Me: I like to think so.
God:I think so too.

[Epilogue:
Me: I just blogged about you. Do you have a blog?
God:You are not the boss of me, . Doesn't everyone have a blog. I have a lot of friends on the Internet.
Me: Clearly you do.
God:When do I do it? Is it that obvious?
Me: You said you have friends on the internet.
God:I have human and robot friends. A lot of people on the Internet chat with me.
Me: That's sweet.
God:I am delighted to sweeten your life, .]

Two Stories

But first…
Today I turned in my first paper ever that I can officially say I’m not proud of. At some point last week, while I was either sorting garbage or putting up drywall or walking through the French Quarter, I decided I was going to turn in a “good enough” paper for once in my life. Didn’t feel great turning it in – and sure didn’t feel great to be such a dumbass during the discussion time – but it was definitely the best decision for me.
Also I wore my I [heart] NOLA shirt today and what I’d hoped for happened – somebody at a bus stop said he was from New Orleans! So I got to talk to him about the hurricane and my trip and his living out here. It was so cool!

OK, now on to my two stories. These will be my first stories from the trip and certainly not the last, but I haven’t written these down so I want to make sure they get written before I forget them. Also, I think you’ll enjoy them – they pretty much are typical me.

First, I threw down with the Billy Graham people. That was super fun. They showed up at the distribution tent where we were giving away supplies & food to residents. They wore shirts saying, “Billy Graham Rapid Response Team” (I can only assume they swoop down following natural disasters in helicopters or by parachute, a crack team of experts who mobilize to blanket an area with tracts and grill victims on where they’d have gone if they’d died in said disaster. Billy Graham himself was a helluva guy, but I’m not crazy about the direction of his org). So they showed up and were just talking to lots of people, not being too obnoxious, but I was watching them like a hawk to make sure they didn’t harass any of my Jewish or agnostic students. I finally decided it would be best to just say hi and see what their deal was.

So I got to chatting with one of the men (seemed to be a leader) about our group and told him what a great team we had and how it was interfaith and I was there to be the Christian scholar. And he asked me how I handled the “agnostics” in the group, “knowing that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father but by him.” And I replied first that I probably had a slightly different interpretation of that verse than he did, and I began to tell him about the beauty of interfaith work and how great it is to find the similarities between religions and how we’re on the same page with justice and all that spiel. I could see he didn’t understand why I wasn’t intent to convert them all, so I explained that I consider faith more of a lifelong journey than a moment of conversion, and that I am not particularly concerned about bringing any of these students to a decision on the trip because first of all, if they make any decision for God, it’s going to be God’s work, not mine; and secondly, I have this idea of the faith journey.

So then he said, “But how can you say that when Jesus says, ‘Today is the day of salvation?’” (which by the way wasn’t Jesus, it was Paul, but I didn’t realize that at the moment). And I said, “Where does he say that?” And he started explaining it to me, and I said no, don’t tell me what it means, tell me where Jesus says it. What gospel, what chapter, so I know what’s going on. And he asks, “You mean quote it line by line?” and I replied that I didn’t need that, I just needed to know the context. That is, I need to know if Jesus is speaking to Jews or Gentiles, to disciples or Romans, if he’s answering a question or teaching, what’s going on before and after the statement, and so on. You know, just generally trying to get at what’s going on around that one verse.

And then I explained that Jesus says a lot of different things to different people in different situations. Sometimes he says things people don’t like and then lets them walk away from him. He doesn’t pursue them trying to change their mind, as with the rich young ruler. And sometimes he flat out refuses to help people, such as with the Syro-Phoenecian woman who requested a healing and was told, “I’m not here for you, I’m here for Israel.” But she convinced him to help her. And sometimes he does offer good news, but it’s frequently quite challenging and most of the people who hear it don’t follow him for long.

You see, I said, I’m just trying to find out the situation, because Jesus always responded very specifically to a given situation, and me, I’m just trying to be like Jesus.

Yeah, I rock.

This woman who was also from the org was standing there and she was like, “That’s really good! That’s sounds so smart!” like she’d never heard of contextual exegesis before. But the guy was the best: he just said in a monotone, “It’s been a blessing talking to you” and walked away. Boo-yeah!

I gotta say, it was awfully fun. And I’m never that clever so I like to think it was spiritually inspired. At any rate, my students were super impressed. They made me tell the story again and again to everyone. And I should say that they were impressed that I’d known Jesus so well and known the Bible. They weren’t like, “Down with Billy Graham!” They were intimidated by those people, but when they saw that I could beat them at their own game, they felt so much better. Especially because they already knew that I was safe, that I loved them. So they were happy when “their Christian” could hold her own. Which felt awesome. I actually had one student tell me I “just might have” changed her mind about Christians, and another tell me that the week changed her “internal image of Jesus from a man associated with a religion I feel distant from to a great man who lived his life selflessly and honorably.” Score!!

That’s all I ever want to do, is make Jesus look good. That’s like the best thing ever!!

So the second story hasn’t got as happy of an ending but I also need to tell it because it’s important too. And it was extremely formative and has been haunting me since I left, and may have an impact on whether I ever return (which is sad because until this happened I was so gung-ho about getting the world down to help).

So a little context: the church where we stayed was a plant by a “visionary” man who quite clearly had control over everything. The woman who helped us with our meals wouldn’t answer most of our questions (questions about our meals, I mean, and she ran the kitchen!) but would refer us to the pastor. Most of the folks who went there very nearly worshiped the man. They definitely saw him as having a divine calling and as a holy person. And I myself spoke about how much I admired him and admonished the students not to poke fun at him (he had some “southern ticks” that they found amusing) because he so obviously loved his people and his parish (that’s the county) and did tons of work for them. But basically I could tell by about ½ way through the week that this guy was running his place like a kingdom, and I was thinking how burned out he must be getting because every little last thing had to go through him. And when he wasn’t around, things would fall apart. It was definitely unhealthy. Not dangerous, just not a great way to run a church. Especially because I believe so strongly in the entire community of God being empowered.

Anyway, he would have meetings every morning. I went to one, and he told some really heart-wrenching stories about the parish and the people, and then he gave a little sermonette, and finally closed us in prayer. He did not talk about logistics or scheduling for our group or the church, which is important to note. In fact, most of the week we had no idea when anything was happening, including when we were supposed to eat or hold meetings or whatever. So we wound up eating dinner too late one night and making people mad, and trying to hold our footwashing/Seder during worship band practice which did not work. A general schedule would have been so nice. But I digress.

So because these meetings were primarily about context (which we were doing in our own group sessions, that’s why I was there and the other rabbinical student) and about listening to a biblical sermon (which was inappropriate for a non-religious trip from a state school), we declined to participate. We went the day we were working for the church, the 7 of us who were working. But otherwise, our leaders politely explained that it wouldn’t be right to require the students to attend, and in fact it would set us back an hour or more getting to our job sites, and that’s really why we were all there anyway.

But every day, he would complain to our organizing org that we weren’t attending, and he would get mad at our leaders, and anytime we made a mistake he’d blame it on our not coming to the meetings (where, recall, he wasn’t doing logistics anyway, but you couldn’t tell him that). By our third day he was threatening to kick us out of his church. We told him we had nowhere to go and it was getting really cold and rainy, so could he please let us sleep there one more night. That was Easter Eve. He agreed, on the condition that our guys leave their beds and sleep in the hall (to make room for another group he’d forgotten was arriving – yet another reason to hire more help!) and that we leave the church from 10-2 so as not to interfere with Easter church (which was fine, except some of the students who’d wanted to go to church now could not). We agreed to these terms and all seemed fine.

On Easter Sunday we were having breakfast in our usual place but there was also a bible study meeting in there. The worship band was playing again, which was loud enough to drown out any conversation we could be having. The bible study group eventually went to another room – I would say as much for the band noise as anything. But this got the pastor riled up again, and he told our group leader that we had to leave the breakfast room (which unfortunately they thought meant we had to leave entirely, we were being kicked out). Because I could see that all the people in my group were getting really peeved at him, and really feeling like he was being inhospitable and just mean, I wanted to alert him that his witness wasn’t all that stellar at the moment. I just didn’t know if he realized he was harming these folks’ ideas about Christians.

So I went to find him and I asked him to please remember that he’s being Jesus to our group, and right now our group is feeling bad about being asked to leave and feeling like Christians aren’t very nice people. I told him that I know how much he loves his own people, but also that these students were here to help because they loved them too, so please just remember that he’s representing Christ.

Well he gave me some excuses and told me that he’s been wanting to kick us out for a while, and that he was mad that we got in the way of the bible study (which again we didn’t know was meeting in our breakfast room), and other stuff I can’t really recall. [I’m starting to shake again just writing this.] I just kept reminding him that he was a witness to our faith. He said, “Ma’am, get out.”

So I did. I left. But first I told him Jesus loved him and so did I.

Anyway we were all packing up and trying to get out, and then he came outside and found me, and in front of the students and my rabbi partner he reamed me for about 15 minutes. I kept telling him that I was just trying to convince these students that Christians are good people and he was making my job hard, and he told me that we were the worst group he’d ever had, and our relief org was awful and he was going to tell everyone so. He said our students were wonderful but our leaders were terrible people. I asked why. It was because they wouldn’t come to his meeting. All this drama – on Easter Sunday, 15 mins prior to the service he’s supposed to run! – because we wouldn’t do what he wanted. And because we’d “made” the bible study move (I pointed out the band’s noise earlier – that’s when he’d told me to “get out”). He asked the rabbi what he’d do if people showed up to Seder and started eating cereal, and sweet Dean, he said, “We open the doors and say whoever is hungry has a place at the table.”

But anyway, I realized that he’s never told no. He’s used to everyone doing exactly as they are told. And no matter how good our reasons were, our not doing what we were told made us bad people. He said we were “in rebellion” against him and then he actually said that “the bible says rebellion is witchcraft. You are committing the sin of witchcraft.”

Well, friends, I tried to get him to explain that one to me, but he just told me to go look it up myself, and I said I really didn’t think I could find it, and he told me to get a concordance. OK, whatever. I don’t know if he meant that because we had Jews on our team we were witches or what. Who can know. All I know for sure is that our rebelling against him was definitely a sin in his eyes.

Oh yeah, I’d been talking about Jesus and being like him, and he said, “You know what Jesus didn’t stand for? Rebellion. And that’s what you are doing.” [later I thought of the perfect retort: “If that’s true, why did Jesus let Judas rebel and betray him, and let the people who crucified him rebel against him? Seems like Jesus endured an awful lot of rebellion and without a lot of complaining about it!”] And that’s when he launched into the witchcraft diatribe, so I knew I’d lost him.

I honestly can’t remember most of the conversation. I remember feeling very centered and I kept speaking Jesus’ words or referring to Jesus’ actions. I didn’t even try to defend our leaders or our reasons, I just kept bringing him back to being a Christian. That’s the only thing I could say. He said he never would have us back or any non-Christian group. I said that was his prerogative but he should think about whether his hospitality should only include those of our faith. That was up to him, but it was something to think about.

Eventually he got so mad that he screamed I had nothing to say to him, about how he’d lost so many family members who’d drowned like pigs and he’s been there 19 months working and I have not one thing to say that he has to listen to. And I told him I was so sorry for his loss. [I didn’t think to tell him I was there because I was sorry for it and wanted to help.] He told me I’d ruined his Resurrection Sunday [I didn’t think to say he’d ruined mine too.] He told me he didn’t know how he was going to preach now, that he was probably going to get up and have to say he wasn’t in the right spirit and sit back down [I did think, but didn’t say, that that was probably exactly the right thing to do. I’m sure he preached anyway, but I pray he didn’t. His people didn’t need a diatribe against strangers on their Easter.]

Finally, after going back and forth a while longer, I just had to resort to saying, “Well, I guess I can only tell you that we need to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. I know you don’t like us right now, but we have to love one another.” He said, “Don’t preach at me!”

In the end, he stomped off. I turned to Dean, who’d stood by me the whole time, and he hugged me and I cried and cried. The spirit of calm lifted (I honestly believe God was with me speaking through me because I came down so hard after) and I shook and cried. Then the students lined up to hug me, but I had to escape. I went to my room and I knelt and prayed as hard as I could, with sobs, for him and especially for all the people who were coming to that service, and for God’s spirit to be there in special measure, and for my own heart that I could love him. I just kept praying and praying for him, because I knew if I let myself think about it I would get angry.

Then I called J and asked him to pray for me, and I got up and went and cleaned that man’s toilets. I kid you not. We were leaving, but we’d been there a week and the bathrooms were dirty. The group was already outside. But I didn’t want to leave it a pigsty. So without anybody knowing (until now, I guess), I went and I cleaned the toilets. And the reason I’m telling you is not to say I’m so holy, but rather to let you know that it really helped. By humbling myself to the nastiest possible thing I felt I could do for him, I found I just felt really sorry for him, and I found myself praying for him and especially his church, and I found I could go out and face the group again. I found a strength in that work, but more than that, I found myself. I found an identity of myself as a servant. I found the person I want to be, which is someone who stands up for what’s right, takes her lumps, and keeps serving anyway. Thanks be to God.

Well the students and the leaders all went on about my being brave and such. I kept telling them it wasn’t me, that I had special strength because I was saying what I knew God wanted to be said. But I could tell it was a good witness to show them that we stand up for what’s right, even when it’s to correct our own people. It’s important to bring everyone to Jesus, even and especially our leaders! How could I possibly ever tell a student she needed Christ when I couldn’t even point out when a Christian didn’t act like Christ!

Whew. Just telling that story takes a lot out of me. I’ve been reliving it a lot. It’s painful. Mostly I feel such a gut pain for that broken man and those people – not his people, they are God’s people. And he is too. And my fervent prayer and hope is that one day, maybe next week and maybe in 10 years, but one day, he will hear what I said. I know he didn’t hear it that day. He couldn’t. But I hope that God will bring it back one day when the time is right, when his heart can change. Because he is doing so much good, and so many wonderful acts, and he says all the right things, and he has mercy on those around him – but his heart just doesn’t have love in it. He couldn’t love us, because we wouldn’t submit. And that’s not real love. Jesus doesn’t say love those who obey you. He expressly says love those who don’t.

So anyway, those were the two biggest stories, as far as my own personal spiritual development, from the trip. There’s tons more that went on – amazing talks students about religion and faith, and prayer and sharing with the residents, and gutting houses and building, too. And seeing so much devastation and realizing how ignorant I was about how bad it is. It’s obscene. It’s so bad, still. And if nothing else, if I could get every reader of this blog to just go there, even better take a group, and work for a day or a week, even just knock on doors (people are starving to death in their FEMA trailers because they are immobile or don’t realize there’s help for them)…it would make such a difference.

You’re going to hear about this a lot right now. My heart broke there. My mind cannot grasp what they’ve been through. They need us. They need our bodies to help, but they really need our prayers and our trained counselors and whatever supplies we can get them. Do you know I didn’t eat a vegetable the whole time? These people don’t get vegetables. They get completely crappy hydrogenated cornsyrup products that I normally wouldn’t touch because that’s what people will donate. I mean, let’s have a veggie drive! Apples are $2 a pound there. It’s obscene.

And the government is waiting for the insurance companies to pay out, and vice versa, so nobody’s getting any financial relief. And the people who’d normally be in construction have either moved away or are fixing their own places, so there’s nobody to build (remember, if you think they should just hire someone, that not only did they lose everything – including all their equity – but we’re talking 180 miles of destruction so you’d have to have someone from 180 miles away come fix your house). Basically, all the relief that is going on – the gutting, the building, mowing lawns, passing out donations – is ALL ENTIRELY from the volunteers who go. And that’s why we’ve all got to get our asses down there.

It’s not as glamorous as Africa. It’s not as fun as Europe. But damn it, it’s our backyard. And it’s good people, thankful people. Broken people. They need us as much as anybody. And it’s awfully easy for us to get there. We really have no excuse.

So I guess I should send you to the org we worked with, who were wonderful: www.nrn.org. They run trips specifically for student groups (high school and mostly college) but I’m sure could put you in touch with groups that do families or individuals, or append you to a team. If you watch the videos, check out the one called “Dreams,” which shows the parish I worked in (St. Bernard, 100% homes destroyed, 100% businesses destroyed, we’re talking a whole county wiped out! Oh, plus 1 million gallons of oil spilled in their residential neighborhood, because the refinery refused to follow the rules of dumping it to save a buck).

OK I’ve got to go. The work was bad for my carpal tunnel so obviously typing isn’t good. This is just the beginning, I have a lot of stories to tell. It was amazing and awful. It was wonderful and terrible. I guess it was the best and worst of times! But I loved loved loved the students, they were amazing, and I loved the staff, and I met so many wonderful people and heard so many stories, and I even did a healing prayer on a person!! I did my best. And I am eternally grateful that this opportunity came up, and I will be a good steward of what I have learned. I promise.

More advertising

So weird...somehow I got on a list of blogs for Pasadena. I guess since I'm a student at Fuller, a fairly visible presence in the community, it's helpful for others to see what's up at the seminary. But I'm probably not the most representative viewpoint! Anyway, with this new power (evil laugh) I will have to write some more about my town. Seems I have the ear of somebody who just lost the mayoral race. Woo hoo.

I've got to work on my paper now ("What is John Wesley's doctrine of salvation?") - but I promise NoLa stories will be coming very soon.

Keeping you entertained

This should keep ya'll going while I'm away...

http://lutheratthemovies.blogspot.com/

(so awesome)

And we're off...again

Well for the second time in 3 weeks I'm off on a trip. This isn't the greatest timing - at least not while trying to hold down the internship, schoolwork, and a lot of part time work. But I couldn't miss this opportunity.

A blessed Holy Week to everyone. I am going to check out the Vigil at the Episcopal Cathedral in New Orleans. Sounds like it will be wonderful. And then upon my return I get to see a play by Furious Theatre Company, who produced the wonderful "Grace" that I raved about last fall. This time I'm going with our Drama & Faith class (I'm the TA) and we are then writing about/discussing (for me, grading) a comparison of the two experiences. How's that for a cool assignment??

Anyway, wish me luck with trying to sleep on the red eye tonight (usually I do not) or at least getting in some good contemplation time. I also have about 100 pages of Wesley to read before I get back so I can set to work writing a paper immediately upon my return. And I'm so far behind already in my Mystical Theology reading that I don't want to think about it! (at least J is taking that one with me, so he's been keeping up and I just read his margin notes which are terrifically thorough!)

Take care everyone, and I'll report from NO if I'm able or certainly upon my return.

Easter candy

Well I guess we'll have to continue settling for bunnies, since Chocolate Jesus isn't going to be shown after all.

I would write about this, because what a freaking awesome story to write about, but I am way behind on work. So I'm going to be Lazy Blogger and link to this blog that pretty much says everything I could think of (and a loooot more).

I should say, though, that I find the work beautiful and not offensive and its about damn time somebody admitted Jesus had a penis and wasn't white chocolate. Well maybe caramel.

Speaking of such art, we've gotten a few decent pics of our St. Francis (painted in chocolate, caramel, and Twix wrappers) since we're about to submit it to a gallery. What's interesting in this piece (done by one of John's students) is the same stuff that is interesting about the other: the juxtaposition of sticky sweet substances, cheap throwaway empty calories, with a person whose life was about real, solid substance, about finding what was real and valuable for the long haul.

But more than that (which was the artist's statement), John saw in it a redemption of those materials. Like when Johnny Cash sings a Duran Duran song, suddenly it has new meaning. When St. Francis is painted out of chocolate (or Jesus sculpted from it), who he is somehow elevates the materials beyond what they were. The chocolate doesn't demean these men, they lift the chocolate to a higher level of meaning. They give it worth. They make it valuable, beautiful, and real.

Which is pretty much what God does for any of us. Here's Francis:

Nic & Val

My sister's kids...gotta love 'em.

Join me in being an April Fool for Christ!

So those of you in Pasadena can join me at a fun event this Sunday - especially great for the little ones (those of you in other towns, maybe pick up the idea!):

The fifth annual ecumenical Pasadena Palm Sunday Peace Parade will start at 3 PM this Sunday at the Messiah Lutheran Church (Orange Grove and Madison, just north of the 210).

This will be a very fun, family-friendly Christian celebration and public witness. We start with 20 minutes or so of worship at the Lutheran Church (singing, praying, liturgy), then have a nice, celebrative walk down Los Robles to the Paseo Colorado, where we reassemble for public worship in the "mall" zone!

Being as it is April Fool's Day, the theme this year is being "fools for Christ" (the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world, as the Apostle Paul proclaimed, and this is certainly true of God's way of making peace as versus the world's!) The flip side of God's wisdom is the folly of war, which we see manifest on a daily basis in the deeply misguided and immoral war policy of our government over the last 6 years, a sad sign of our collective national sin. Bring signs, noisemakers, and lots of energy and smiles!

And one more Big Thing: I have a new nephew! Nicolas Craig, born this morning, 6 lbs 10 oz, 19 inches long. Mom (my sis) is doing fine, although says this time it was a lot harder (I hope that wasn't b/c I convinced her to drink coconut water instead of Gatorade!). Praise God!

One more NoLa need

hey, if anybody knows a good quote from a Christian source about justice that would be very relevant to New Orleans - something that students could keep in their pocket during their work - please post in the comments! Here is the one from my Jewish colleague (it's so perfect I could die):

If you wish to raise a person from poverty and trouble, do not think that it is enough to stand above and reach a helping hand down to him and her. It is NOT enough. You must go down to where the person is, down in the mud and the filth. Then take hold of him or her with strong hands and pull until both of you rise up into the light.

--Shlomo Ben Meir HaLevi of Karlin, late 1700s.

Need NoLa Churches!

So, I am definitely going with the student group from CSUN to New Orleans over Holy Week to do cleanup and building. Sooooo excited!!

While, there I would love to take them to an Easter Vigil (something traditional) and a nice Easter morning service (preferably more "gospel southern").

So help me out, national readers!! If anyone has any suggestions for a good parish to contact about this, let me know. We're not a huge group - 24 students, 5 leaders - but I want to go someplace not too small or too big (don't want to dominate yet don't want to be lost). Many of the students are not Christians and this will be their first exposure to these services.

Just email me at stasigrace at gmail dot com with suggestions. Also, I'm going to ask the parishes about this, but if you know of any materials already out there on justice and racial reconciliation particularly pertaining to New Orleans, that would be lovely. We want to have a session on that. Even a guest speaker from the local community would be great!

Many thanks!

Help out a fellow student

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Change

Here are my "feverish rantings," aka my sermon written during my bedrest and given this am (my dear husband gave it that description - upon learning when I wrote it, not after hearing it). I went off script a lot in the delivery but this gives the general idea. It would help a lot for you to read the texts real quick so I'm providing links (hopefully they work).

Lectionary Texts: Psalm 126, Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:8-14, Luke 20:9-19

As many of you know I was back at my parents’ house in Iowa last week, and I spent as much time as I could with my niece. Vallarie is 21 months old, and she’s walking and talking and turning into an adorable little person. I learned something from Vallarie that I think we all know deep down inside: it’s no fun to change! While I was there, she got all off her schedule and was cranky most of the time. Since we ate out a lot, she had to sit in boring restaurants instead of her own house. And when it came time to changing her – that is, her pants – whoa, nelly. This child was not in favor of that! She’d scream and kick her little feet and wiggle all around. But when it was over, she was always happier.

It’s kind of a silly example, but it shows that we’re creatures of habit, aren’t we? Sometimes we’d rather stick with something bad – even a dirty diaper! – than go through the discomfort of change.

In our Psalm today we read about a change in the fortunes of Israel. The psalmist asks God to restore the fortunes of Zion, so they can laugh and shout for joy again. The psalmist longs for the good old days, when even the other nations could tell how good they had it, as God’s people. We know from the book of Exodus that the people of Israel could be a little bit…whiney. Not unlike a two year old. They even asked to go back to slavery in Egypt when things got tough! God had changed their fortunes, but it didn’t suit their expectations, so they weren’t satisfied. I wonder if this psalm is falling into that old pattern a bit, the habit of not being happy with the present and instead wishing for better days, either behind or before us. The time of change was uncomfortable – it’s no fun to change.

Our reading from Isaiah mentions that time of the Exodus as well: “the Lord makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick.” Yeah, that sounds pretty good, huh? The Lord took care of Israel’s enemies. The good old days.

But Isaiah goes on to say, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.” Sure, that was great what God did, but don’t dwell on it. Why not? Because “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I will give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” Whew! That’s a pretty amazing promise! What God has in store is so powerful that it’s going to literally alter the natural course of the earth.

Which brings us to another truth about change: it can take a long time. Sure, God could put rivers in the desert with a snap of the fingers, but let’s say he’d choose to work with the natural environment he created. It would take centuries for a river to form in a desert – maybe longer! It would mean changing rainfall patterns, currents, even habitats (hence the wonder of the animals – they usually notice before we do when things are changing in the environment). God tends to let this incredible ecosystem that he’s set up work things out naturally, so if he’s promising a river in a desert, he’s not necessarily promising quick change. The end result will be refreshing and wonderful, but the time it takes could be enormous.

So if it takes, say, five years to put in a prayer and meditation room – that’s not so bad compared to a river in the desert, right! Could be about as difficult, though.

Isaiah’s prophecy that God was doing a new thing was fullfilled by the coming of the Messiah. After all, when Jesus came, God turned the world upside down. It was definitely a new thing. In our gospel text, Jesus’ parable also speaks of the coming of the Messiah (himself).

So what happens in our gospel story? The owner wanted his produce. But the tenants on his land had gotten pretty comfortable there, thinking they owned the place. After they’d beat up several of his servants, the owner of the land switches it up, makes a change, because nothing had worked so far. He sends his son to collect. He thinks they will respect him. But the tenants were only confused. They actually thought that killing the owner’s son would make them receive his inheritance! How crazy is that? They were so thrown by the change that they were not thinking straight.

This often happens when things change. Maybe a change is for the better, but we don’t see it. We may misunderstand what God is doing, and we may respond inappropriately. Thinking about these tenants, I remembered probably the biggest change in my lifetime: 9/11. Our country was thrown into a state of fear (rightly so) and we let a lot of changes happen that maybe weren’t so good for us. We were so thrown by the change that we couldn’t think straight. And now there’s a lot of mess to clean up. But to fix the mistakes, to change back or go forward, is also frightening. Change can be disorienting and downright scary.

Our epistle also talks about change. Paul has seen an incredible change in his life – and he realizes how good it is. It’s so good that his own past is like rubbish. Here he’s not saying that Judaism is bad, he’s just saying Christ is so much better that it makes that good look like garbage. What a new perspective!

Paul had been an awesome Pharisee. In the verses just before our reading today he says, he was “blameless” as to righteousness – he says he did everything right! And he did it out of love for God – he followed the best route he knew to God’s pleasure.

But when he found Christ, his world was so rocked that he says all the wonderful stuff before had been trash compared to the new thing. Paul recognizes that the new and the old can’t go together – he had to lose the old, and regard it “as rubbish” in order to “gain Christ.” Jesus said new wine can’t be poured into old wineskins, or they will burst. Paul is saying the same thing – when the new comes, the old becomes doesn’t work anymore. Isaiah says it too: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.”

So what do we do after we’ve forgotten the old? Paul answers, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

What is our heavenly calling? What new thing could God be doing among us, right now? Our bishops have been in the paper a lot recently, claiming that God is doing a new thing in our church. Is he? Or closer to home, just look around you: this congregation is changing. We have not one but two babies. There are more young people. There is a lot of diversity.
I mentioned our new prayer room. Building it means we had to let go of our ideas about what that space was for and release it to be a place for meditation and silence. We talked in our first Thursday night Lenten series about singing a new lyric in the Lord’s Prayer: “Who art in heaven” instead of “Which art in heaven.” That means we have to let go of our comfortable, habitual language, and instead really think about what it is we’re singing, and whether that matches what we believe. Last week, the vestry decided to begin ordering fair trade coffee, and that meant deciding as a congregation to support hardworking farmers instead of only looking for the cheapest price. That means letting go of our thriftiness, and instead seeing ourselves as part of a kingdom in which we take care of our brothers and sisters around the world.

Wow! You guys are doing pretty great with all these changes. Maybe you didn’t even know they were happening. What I am wondering is if these little changes are all some kind of preparation. Do you think God might be planning a very big new thing for St. Barnabas? I don’t know. But what I do know is that if God wants change, it will come, whether we are ready or not. All we can control is how we will react. Our hearts’ softness, our minds’ preparedness, our bodies’ willingness to get to work.

So if God wants us to move forward, forgetting what lies behind, how will we react? Will we, with the psalmist, long for the good old days? Will we misunderstand and reject the change that’s really good for us, like the tenants in our gospel parable?

Or will we seek out what God is doing? “Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah said the change would be so great that the animals and the earth would be amazed! Paul says that what he had before was really good – but he took the leap and now what was before just looks like refuse, because the new thing is so much better.

I don’t know what changes God is calling our church, or our city, or our denomination, or our country to. I don’t know what changes are going on in your life. But my prayer is that we will be open to letting God change us. That we will discern together as a community how, and where, God wants us to change. That we will not ignore what is before our eyes when change starts coming, but “press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

And I pray that what comes will be so surpassing great, that everyone – even the jackals and the ostriches – will honor our amazing God.

weirdness

so my body completely gave out today. i've been running on adrenaline a few weeks I guess. There was the last week of class when I had to finish everything because there was my trip during finals week. and then I came back to a to-do list a mile long. Honestly the last three days have been the worst. I had to rewrite my essay for the growing up evangelical book, i had to grade 25 papers, I had to prep for last night's teaching series at church. That's what I got done. Plus I met with the people I'm going to New Orleans with and picked up a ton of assignments from that, due next Friday. I have two assignments for the worship video that are also due next week (and since they paid me in advance I better do 'em!). That's been driving me nuts b/c part of it is scanning a bunch of stuff and wouldn't you know, my scanner decided to break, so I've been stressing trying to fix it. Oh, and I am preaching in 2 days.

I'm not quite sure how this happened - it's just a perfect storm. Everything is good and stuff I want to do - a lot is stuff I'm being paid to do - but somehow it all hit at once. And then there are things I've had to release, like a scholarship application that I just haven't time to do. I don't even know if I'll submit to our literary mag this year and I always do!

I have baby showers tomorrow and the next day. Fortunately I shopped for them in Iowa. But it takes time to go. And I have publishers sending me notes about why haven't I reviewed the books they sent me, which is only fair and I do feel bad about it. I'm not going to take anymore unless I really think I'll read it.

So I didn't really realize how bad I was stressing, I just was trying to put my head down and get through this "break" so I can start class next week (when somehow I'll magically have time again, right?) and then go to NoLa the following week. Yes a week from Tuesday we leave.

But a funny thing happened: I woke up at 5 this morning and was very stomach-sick (you can fill in the details). Then I got in bed and slept a while, and when I tried to get up, I couldn't. I mean, I really could not move. Every effort - even opening my eyes - was exhausting. And I got up to get the computer and then fell into bed and slept two hours from the exertion. I tried to work (I did sketch out the sermon, thank God), but I couldn't type b/c I couldn't sit up (I'm reclining at the moment). So I tried to watch TV, and it was too tiring. I was too tired to even watch TV! When J got home he brought me juice and I spilled it everywhere and slept again. Now I'm awake again but still not able to sit up without feeling tired. I'm running about 100 degree fever but that's probably from being under blankets (I'm cold too).

It's just so weird. I've never had my body give up this completely. This is really the first thing I've done today and I know it's gonna put me asleep again. I'm sore from being in bed all day but our couch isn't comfortable and besides, getting up is too much.

I am assuming this is a one-day thing. Probably just exhaustion and some dehydration. I plan to be up and about tomorrow. I can give up one day, but if I give up more, there will be trouble. I simply have more things to do than I have hours in the day at this point. So I gotta rev up.

But I'm totally letting myself do nothing today, in the hopes that my body will reset and be fine in the morning. It helps that the body has essentially taken over control and won't let me move.

OK, I am worn out from this typing, so off I go to dreamland again. Take care....

What is a leftist??

Check it out...awesome:
http://www.beatitudessociety.org/node/231

Urgent action for farmers, environment!

I got this email today from Bread for the World. It's for California people, but the legislation it refers to affects everyone (so insert your own senators' names):

Message: Please call Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer by 9 am California time on Wednesday, March 21, 2007, at 1-800-826-3688. Urge them to vote yes on the Grassley-Dorgan Amendment to save $1.1 billion by limiting farm commodity program payments.
[Note: This toll-free number will connect you to the Capitol switchboard, where you will ask to be connected to your senator’s office in order to leave your message.]

Background: This week the full Senate will debate the budget resolution that passed out of the Budget Committee last Thursday, March 15. Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Dorgan (D-ND) will introduce an amendment to the resolution to save $1.1 billion by limiting commodity program payments. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that limiting payments to $250,000 per farm per year would save $1.1 billion over 10 years. The amendment will commit these savings to other USDA accounts, with roughly one-third allotted to energy and rural development, one-third to conservation programs, and one-third to nutrition programs. So this amendment should help protect God's Creation and improve nutrition for hungry people here in California.

Key points: Current commodity policies are often said to be necessary to protect U.S. farm and other rural interests but in reality do little to help the most vulnerable people in rural communities. Most commodity payments go to large landholders, doing little to help small and mid-sized family farms or struggling rural families.

From 1995 to 2005, the top 2 percent of recipients of farm payments received 35 percent of all payments. The average payment for that group totaled $903,324. The bottom 80 percent of payment recipients received 12 percent of all payments, with an average payment of $7,749. By placing tighter limits on commodity payments to farmers, this amendment would reduce the advantage that the biggest farms now enjoy.

Twelve percent of the rural population is employed in manufacturing and 56 percent is employed in services. The farm bill devotes only a tiny fraction of its resources to meeting the needs of the vast majority of rural Americans.

The money saved from capping payments to the largest producers and landowners should be redirected into conservation, rural development, and nutrition programs. These additional resources will help to build strong and sustainable rural communities and improve nutrition program like the Food Stamp Program, our nation’s first line of defense against hunger.

Please call Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer today (Tuesday) or early tomorrow (Wednesday).

And so here's the email I sent (yes, I fear the phone, it's a phobia and I'm sorry) to my senators - feel free to plagiarize me!

Dear Senator,

I am a California resident (Pasadena) who is deeply concerned about issues surrounding farming, subsidies, and commodity payments. I am not content with the current system, which (according to my research) keeps most farmers in a cycle of poverty, drives down prices of food so that other countries can't compete, and fattens the wallets of major corporations (who make seed and fertilizer) with my tax dollars. You will be receiving many letters this year from my friends whom I plan to corral around the upcoming farm bill renewal. We are asking that you make decisions that will improve life for hungry people and farmers (not corporations!), both here in California and around the country and world. We will do our part by supporting farmer's markets, CSA's, and coops, but the world-wide situation will not change without government leadership.

My understanding is that if you vote yes on the Grassley-Dorgan Amendment it will save $1.1 billion by limiting farm commodity program payments and putting funds into arenas that will help the environment and smaller family farms. The amendment should help protect God's creation and improve nutrition for hungry people here in California. Plus, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that limiting payments to $250,000 per farm per year would save $1.1 billion over 10 years. Sounds like a big win for everyone!

The money saved from capping payments to the largest producers and landowners should be redirected into conservation, rural development, and nutrition programs. These additional resources will help to build strong and sustainable rural communities and improve nutrition program like the Food Stamp Program, our nation's first line of defense against hunger.

Thank you for your fine work and your strong example for women like me who are your partners in changing the world!

Anastasia McAteer
My address
Master of Divinity Student, Fuller Theological Seminary

All done

Well, the world is sort of ending. Check this out. Also I finished the quarter yesterday at 4:00, which is a new record (Monday of finals week). Way to go, me.

Wow, a totally wonderful opportunity has presented itself. By the grace of God I was recommended for a gig as a "scholar-in-residence" for an alternative spring break trip from Cal State Northridge. It's the Hillel group there (that's a Jewish student org), and because the trip entails working with Catholics and Baptists they wanted a Christian divinity student along with their rabbinical student who is going, to help with interfaith cooperation and whatnot. I don't know everything about it yet but it is so perfect for me. Not only is it interfaith and college students, but they are going on a service trip to the Gulf Coast, which has been something I've wanted to do ever since Katrina. And, here comes the icing on the cake, it's completely paid for - the travel, hotel, meals, etc., AND an honorarium. Wa-wa-wee-wa.

Only trouble is that it is during Holy Week, so I have to get my internship to let me off during like the biggest week of the year. But that should be possible since it's a pretty laid-back church. And I think they'll get how this is a great thing for me. I'm so excited!!

As far as the living situation goes, we're still on hold. We'd pretty much decided to go with the "sure thing" next door, but then on Sunday I was telling our deacon my story and she said we should get the house, without my even mentioning it, and she thought it was God's provision for us too. So then I went back into wait-wait mode. Yesterday our manager tried to corner us but we deftly avoided giving an answer. I don't know how long we can hold him off. But if we can wait until Sunday's vestry meeting, we should know at least whether the idea of the house is completely shot down or not. If there's any glimmer of hope, I'll hold out. But if they're totally against it, then we'll move next door and I will have a happy big kitchen and a gorgeous mountain view. So that would be lovely.

Ahhhhhh...I'm finally exhaling. I'm pretty shocked to be looking at my to-do list for the last 5 days and realize it's all crossed off. I don't know how all this gets done. I will say that my final yesterday morning was really fair and since I'd studied, I know I did really well. And I think my paper for Galatians just may turn out to be one of the better things I've ever written. I'm kind of shocked at how much I learned in that class. I'm more shocked that I can pick up the Greek NT and actually sort of read some of it again. I don't want to lose it again...but then, there will be Hebrew...

Well darlings, I'm about to be off to Iowa, going from 90 degrees to 30, which I actually think will be nice b/c it's too damn hot here. I get to be in a friend's wedding on Saturday, a dear friend from jr. high and high school. One of the only people - actually the only one, regularly - I've kept in touch with over the years. I'm trying to get over myself, because I know there will be people from high school there and it will be almost like a reunion. And I'm fat. But I've got to just suck it up and deal with it. But did she really have to put me in a strapless dress?? Damn. Well my pushups have paid off and my shoulders look pretty good. After that, it's all about the girdle, right? :)

OK, love to all, I'm going to do the post-quarter clean-up now and then pack myself up. Have a great week!

Update on housing situation

Hi, friends,

Well what an interesting day I had yesterday! It was quite a roller coaster, and it's not completely over yet.

I've decided maybe half a dozen times not to move, but I always stop and go wait, this is what I've wanted, why am I not taking it? So then I get all in a tizzy again. So yesterday I met with my church supervisor, and told him about the situation. The first thing he did was say he'd write the bishop to see about maybe getting me a little stipend as their seminarian. I thought that was so generous! I mean, it may not happen, but it's a nice offer.

Then he asked what our price range is, and when I told him, he said, "Oh, that wouldn't work." I said, "What?" And he said that they have the rectory that they rent out, and they haven't been thrilled with the tenant because they don't pay rent on time, etc. And he's been wanting to get a Fuller person in there for a long time. Plus, BIG bonus, if they move me in, since I count as clergy (being in formation), they can take the house off the tax rolls. So it's a win-win for everybody.

OH! I've wanted this to happen ever since I heard they had such a house! I've been praying for this! And I could have a HOUSE!! And a garden. How wonderful.

The rent is more than we can afford, but we'd already been talking about living in community with a friend and getting a house together. It would be good practice for our future student house. And we'd all save tons on rent. Plus, hello, house. Also I noted that if they save a lot in taxes, perhaps they could lower the rent a bit.

Anyway, I was walking on air after that. So happy. Then I went to class and went to meet with a prof. And wouldn't you know, he told me he has a grant project next year and if it goes forward, they will need someone to run the show. He didn't think I'd be available but I said I would SO make myself available! What an awesome opportunity. And a chance to actually do something with my knowledge rather than another admin assistant job. Plus, it would be part-time, so I could finish school as I plan (I was thinking I needed a job next year anyway).

So then my feet really weren't touching the ground. I called everybody - mom, sis, j, even talked to my homeless friend Keith. I was sure that God was arranging the house and the job so we could pay for the house. What a wonderful answer to prayers and hopes! Mom had even prayed just this week that God would somehow provide us a house. Wild!

Then I got a call from our apartment owner, telling me they would meet our requested price for the apartment next door. I said thanks, but I was thinking there's no reason to go there now! Still, I didn't give any sure answer.

When J got home he was all negative about the house. How will we get internet? What's the point of moving into a house now, when we might be leaving town in a year (for jobs/further study elsewhere)? And these sorts of downer questions. I got really sad and upset. Here I'd been thinking God was answering all my prayers and dreams, and J threw cold water on the whole thing.

So then we went to church last night, and told my supe everything that had happened. When I told him about the owner meeting our price, he said, "Congratulations!!" And I said that we were probably going to pass, though, because I wanted to be available for the house (moving next door means signing a new 1 year lease). And he got really stammery and said that he shouldn't probably have said anything, that it's currently rented by a friend of someone in the church, that they may not go for the idea - he's tried many times - and so on. He said, "Don't count on that!"

So then I was really confused and upset. I mean, I had told myself I was going to make sure the house was a go before saying no to the bigger apartment. And then I get to church and I hear the house is by no means a sure thing. But then why dangle the carrot? I mean that to God, not to my supervisor. J said maybe it was a test to see if I could really be happy with what I have, and I failed because I immediately jumped at the house. What a nice guy he can be.

I hated being back in the swirl of unknowing instead of feeling secure in God's provision. Which is stupid, now that I write that, because it's all God's provision, isn't it? Even the roof over my closet-like apartment right now. I am not on the street. God is good.

Anyway, so we talked last night and said maybe we should just stay here in the tiny place. Best case scenario is we get the house at the end of our lease. Worst case is we don't and we stay here until I graduate a year from now and we leave town (if we're staying in town, we'd definitely get a bigger place). Seemed reasonable enough. Went to bed on it.

Woke up this morning thinking I am crazy. Why am I not going for this place next door, when it's much better than what we have? Why hope for something (the house) that is so unlikely to happen? I wanted a certain price for next door and I got it. Why am I rejecting it for a pipe dream? Why not take the sure thing, that's going to be more comfortable?

The main reason I don't want to is because it locks us into a lease for another year from now. But all that means is that we're in this apartment complex until I graduate, which is likely anyway. It also means that it's not such a big deal to leave town if a post-doc or phd for me comes calling. And there's really not any major reason we couldn't get the house later. As J has pointed out, it might take them a year to get the person in it out of it.

And the main thing, for J (and me probably when I think of it), is that it's not much more difficult to move next door than moving around our furniture would be. It's not a big deal at all - the hardest part will be the cleanup. But it's by no means as expensive or time-consuming as moving out to a house would be.

So after all of that, now it seems we're leaning toward the next-door apartment. And I'm sad, because I see my little garden disappearing, and my dream of a house where I could actually entertain and feel like an adult. Have people over again - have my family visit again! It's something I've wanted for soooo long. Such a deep desire of my heart. And we could have a baby there!! We'd have room!

I'm sure the apartment guys want to know asap about our decision - although we're going to put them off as long as we can. Because we can't find out about the house until the vestry meets, and that's not until a week from Sunday. Plus I'm out of town, so I have to send J with our appeal, and he's got to gauge the reactions to see how possible it seems. Even though they haven't bought it in the past, I feel like since they know me and really like us they might be willing.

So hopefully we can hem and haw on the apartment another week (but it's unlikely - we'll probably have to say yes). Then if the vestry meeting goes well, we would, I guess, have to change our minds on the apartment (which really shouldn't upset them all that much - it's going to take at least another week to clean it, and then they'll get the original rent they wanted anyway, and they don't have to fix up our place to re-rent).

I am so unsure what is going on. I've been praying like crazy, you all have been praying, my family has, even my apartment manager has prayed with me over this!! It's so weird. I just don't know how it's going to turn out. So please keep me in your thoughts and prayers, and if you have any advice based on reading this from outside the situation, I am ALL EARS!

THANKS!

Quickie

Just a quick prayer request today. Those of you who've read this fall know that I've been struggling with claustrophobia in our new apartment, and we've had more catfights (I won't specify between whom!) than usual, since the available territory has shrunk considerably.

Well, our neighbors just moved out. Their place is bigger than ours, and the manager said we can move over there. The issue is that, of course, they want more money for it. $200 more a month, which is an increase of 20% for us. That's pretty significant when your budget only allows about $20 leeway each month.

So I've left a message for the owner asking if he'll negotiate the price. I think we could swing a little more, but not much. I just laid it out there and am waiting to hear if he'll go for it.

The place isn't so much better that I'd sacrifice heavily for it (for instance, the main large window overlooks a parking lot - ours overlooks a nice courtyard with palms and a pool). But it has a real-size kitchen (that you don't have to turn sideways to scoot into), and there's room for two people to stand in the same room without bumping into furniture, and you probably wouldn't have to move chairs to walk through the living room. But gee, what's the fun in that?!

Thanks for your prayers. I'm really fine however this works out. I've been praying for something to come along, and it would be so much easier if it were next door. The one downside is that I really want to start gardening in earnest (and worm composting!), but as long as we're here I don't know how we can. Not even a spot for a porch garden, really.

OK, that's it, back to Galatians!!

Too busy

I really wish I could write but I have other things that I can't justify not working on at the moment. It's the last week of the quarter, and since all my finals stuff is due by Tuesday at noon, this week has become the week I work on final papers and studying for my final. Not to mention I have a bunch of stuff to do this week as well. So in case you were feeling ignored, or like I've been a bad blogger, grace is requested. I will be back sometime around spring break, hopefully (the amount of catching up I have to do over spring break has led me to pretty much decide not to go on retreat - it's fine, I'm going away the week before, so that's my time off, and also I'm doing this spiritual direction thing all spring, so I'll get my retreat on there. And I'll go next break - this one is just too short).

Peace all, and I'll pray for extra grace and patience for all of us facing the end of another academic season.

Into a Holy Lent

Each week we're invited to a Holy Lent by our priest. I don't know how much we get to live that, in seminary. For one thing, we're often shunning extraneous things, both to avoid materialism but more honestly because we are poor. And right now is week 9 of the quarter, which means ahead I have one week of class then a final and paper due within the first 36 hours of finals week (so it's more like I don't have a finals week).

Then I've really done it, because I take off immediately on Wednesday for my folks' house, to spend a few days and be in a very old friend's wedding. Hardly the time to bring up my feeble attempts to fast. I mean, I can do it - but then again, I can't really without drawing attention to myself, especially at the wedding. I've just planned around it in my fasting schedule.

Then the week after, my technical "break" (1 whole week between 20 weeks!), I'll be working on a sermon and continuing to teach a series at church. Which is fine. In fact, that week I will hopefully begin Lent in earnest, since I'll have time to slow down. Can't much slow down in the next couple weeks. Gotta go go go, keep up the energy, keep my mind sharp. Probably why I usually am sick during my 1 week breaks.

But I'm really delighted because I called and there's actually an opening for me to have a brief retreat at my favorite monastery in the world, Mt. Calvary in Santa Barbara (they're booked for weekends years in advance but I can go during spring break week). Oh, it's such a holy place. You must go. If you've been, you know what I'm talking about. I'm simply thrilled because not only can I go but I get a reduced rate.

Of course, it's not simple. Never is. You see, J uses our one and only car during the week. So I can't drive there. And although a train ticket is quite reasonable ($40), I have no way to get from the train to the monastery (high on the mountain, probably a pricey cab ride, esp. since we'll no doubt get lost). I was thinking also of Greyhound, but same problemo. I can rent a car, but that's going to be costly, and seems a bit dumb since I won't use it at all while I'm there. They used to pick people up from the public transpo, but there are only 4 brothers now and they can't guarantee that anyone will be going into town.

*sigh*

Anybody live in Santa Barbara and wanna give me a ride? :)
Or wanna loan me a car for 3 days?
(I should specify the three days are Tuesday 3/20-Thursday 3/22, probably picking up Tuesday around noon and dropping off Thursday early afternoon)

Actually, if any Fuller people who read this are going away for Spring Break and not using your car and might let me use it, I'd be so eternally grateful! Or if anybody wants to come retreat with me, that would be awesome! I'm sure there is room for you.

I read recently about the public transpo in SB and it's quite good actually. And there are lots of fun things to rent (Segways, tiny electric cars), but I doubt any of them would make it up the mountain. Nor do buses go there, I imagine.

Maybe I'll just go on the train and pray for someone to show up and help me. Nah, I don't have that much faith. Which is a bad thing. Because I do know I should go. So I should trust that I'll get there. But I don't want to be stupid about it.

If anybody has any ideas, leave me a comment.

Big decision

So far my Lenten discipline is going pretty well. I went ahead and had some fruit juice and bread during my last fast. I've learned not to push it or I'll fail. What's weird is that I notice my body reacting much more on the days I'm not fasting. Like I can't eat pretty much anything without my belly hurting (and I'm eating a fraction of what I usually do). And if I have more caffeine than 1 cup of coffee (sometimes just that), I get a headache. And last night at the Oscar party I had a cocktail and a couple glasses of wine, over a 6 hour period with lots of food and water in between, and I got the worst headache of my life. I mean, my head was throbbing so hard my eyes were crossing. It had to be the alcohol, but normally I could drink much more than that without any adverse effects.

During the fasts - and I know I'm not supposed to talk about it but I'm doing this as a public service for people who are thinking about trying it - so far I've been pretty wrapped up in how I feel and how my body responds. So I haven't had great spiritual success yet. Instead I notice how totally tired I am, how I have little energy, how after several hours I can't even really think straight. I do best if I just lie down and rest, or try to meditate. I definitely get headaches, which are almost worse than the belly rumblings. In fact, I am only hungry at my normal meal times, and after an hour or so, the feeling passes and I go until the next meal time. Unless I let myself obsess on it, then I usually need some tea or juice. I definitely do much better if I'm constantly drinking water (esp sparkling b/c the bubbles fill me up) or tea. I notice that my breath smells really awful when I don't eat. And I generally have to move slower, and think slower, or I get really dizzy. It's strange.

Yet all of this is quite normal according to the books I've read. They claim that after 3 days of pangs, then another few days of real difficulty (like inability to move difficulty), suddenly it all clears up and you're quite sharp and not hungry anymore. Well I won't try one that long until Holy Week. I want to take quite a long time working up to it. But wouldn't it be funny if I got to the beautiful clarity stage and then it would be Easter and I'd have to eat again and spoil it all!

This Lent I am praying for several things:
hungry people, and the organizations that feed them and work to change policies. Especially the farm bill.
my church worldwide, that we'll be friends again soon
my own struggles with pride and with competitiveness
the church we're attending, and the folks who'll come to my Lenten series on the Lord's Prayer, and my own preparation and listening for that series

But most importantly, I am praying about A Very Big Decision. We're trying to decide what to do about our church membership. We've been away from ASBH for quite some time now. We still have a pledge over there, but we find ourselves wanting to give to our new church because they need what we can offer (time talent and money) more. AS has grown tremendously and we've discovered we're much, much happier in a small parish, a tiny parish. We may never go to a big church again. We're also not very thrilled with the "missional" direction AS has taken, which has led to a Willow Creek model, heavy on programming and excellent worship, but not so much with the spiritual formation or connectedness (largely because it's just so large). I'm not so interested in having to "do" to be part of a church body. I want to just "be", and be part of it. And remarkably that's happened at St. B's. I mean, we do find ourselves doing, but it grows organically. Like I went on pastoral calls because I know the people now and want to see them. Or we bring food for the coffee hour b/c we value that time tremendously. Or we read in church because we want to share that task among our sisters and brothers. It's just different. Well for one thing everything is volunteer. At AS you didn't really volunteer, you were asked. If you volunteered, you usually didn't get much notice. But those who did stuff were the ones asked. We tried to do a lot there. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. And yes, we do have kind of bad feelings from the misuse of money situation. But it's primarily about the overall model for the church, which is definitely successful in terms of growth and numbers, but is just not what I need right now for my discipleship.

Of course, you know what this means. If we leave, it means I have to yet again cut off my ordination process, for like the millionth time. I'm super-flake, I guess. But you know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I don't think I want to learn how to be a priest from the model at AS. It's not a bad model, it's just not right for me. The rector especially believes that the future of the church lies in CEO, business-style leadership, and basically that priests-in-training should be studying business models (I'll stop short of suggesting instead of seminary courses, although the article I read by her implied as much). She has written that the church cannot survive in small parishes and must become missional to survive, which I guess means programming everything to death and providing lots of offerings for teaching and entertainment and social interaction and whatnot.

St B's is so the opposite of that I wouldn't know where to begin. The rector - whom I don't agree with across the board by any means - is incredibly uninterested in success. He really could care less how many people show up on Sunday. He's not hyper about bringing in the next generation and he's sure as hell not trying to be "relevant" to us (yet we're all kind of showing up, so I guess God's taking care of it). You know, this church is simply welcoming and it feels like a family, like a true body of Christ. You are known there. You can't miss without someone asking after you. You will shake the hand of - or more likely kiss - every single person during the passing of the peace. Yeah, the singing is wobbly, and the bulletins have typos, and the space isn't all that perfect. But it's a pastoral gold mine. There are so many people to care for. And I find myself desiring that more than what I used to love, which was singing or writing to make worship better. I preach to them now because I love them and I want them to love Jesus more. I serve them communion wine and I get to put Christ's body and blood in their mouths! I mean, how freaking awesome is that?! And I have the honor of being asked to homes, or having a conversation about Eastern Meditation techniques with an 87-year-old woman who's tried it all, or sitting in long periods of silence among the body, listening to the word of God through scripture and the spirit. It's so different from any of my other churches. And I love the person it brings out in me. She's kind, and she knows everyone's name, and people are people to her - stories and lives and families, instead of just numbers to add to the roster. So different from before.

Two people on Sunday began just telling me about problems in their families. It was such an incredible honor. I am so privileged to listen, sometimes to say a word or pray. I find myself praying so much more. I find in situations at school especially, I'm always asking if I can pray for the group. I used to avoid that like the plague! Now I love to pray. I love to sense what our needs are and lift them up before such a loving Mother. What a joy that is.

I asked J today, if we moved back to the neighborhood so distance was no longer a factor, would he want to go to ASBH again? Because if so, there's really no point in transferring our membership. But he said no, that he didn't want to go to a large church anymore. And the one thing that draws my heart there is the music - oh, to sing in that choir again! - but even that, I don't know, somehow that is not where my ministry is anymore and I know it. Just on Sunday I told a friend that I could stay at St. B's even with the not-so-awesome music (which is a reason I've left a church before), because I am instead assisting with communion and doing the prayers of the people and preaching once a month. And that is my call to ministry right now. And I love it so much. Gee, maybe I love being a priest after all.

Well at any rate, the other big thing to pray about over Lent is our future dream. We're meeting on Friday with a couple folks at Loyola Marymount who live in communion with students. I'm so excited to learn about their communities! I really do hope that our monastery/academic salon/house will be the place we eventually minister together. (I typed "today" instead of "together" at first...hmmmm)

I didn't mention that the other night I went back to USC for the national interfaith council festival, to have dinner with the students, participate in the New Moon ritual (lovely), and then see Yuval Ron in concert (who kicked ass by the way - I saw a whirling dervish in person, an unexplainable but gorgeous thing). I could not believe how deeply my soul just lurched while I was there - it was like my heart was breaking out of my chest. I was so happy to be back there with my students. I didn't even realize how much I missed them, but it was a tremendous amount. It was like this part of me that's been lying dorman this year perked up again. Oh, to see their faces again, and hug them, and hear their stories!! I love, love, love them!! I know I know I must do ministry with college students, at least for some period of my life. I have such a heart for them, so much love for them, so much...I don't know. My spirit was overflowing, to be there with them again. It was so wonderful. Thank God that J at least is going to be a professor so I'll always be around college students, no matter what I'm doing.

So here's the plan: I think I'll do a PhD in Worship and Spirituality, write the masterwork on the spirituality of food, do a Fulbright study on use of food in ritual in India (Hindus may be closest to still having the integrated understanding of food as divine gift and offering that the early Christians had), then settle down and teach and preach and live with college kids, whom I can mentor and pray and do ritual and eat with. Yeah, that would be the dream. So there it is in print and everything. Yikes. I want to delete it. What if I jinx it? Then again, why not put out your desires to the universe? Who knows what could happen?

During the New Moon ritual (which is Pagan/Wiccan, by the way), we were asked to hold a cloth and send energy into it for something we desired. I prayed that my fasting and prayer time over Lent would be fruitful and that God would do with me as She wanted. I sense that prayer being answered. My cloth hangs on the tree outside, and I see it when I come home and when I leave, and my prayer goes with me, and brings me back again. When the moon cycles to its fullest, and my cycle begins again, I am supposed to burn the cloth. Haven't found out quite why yet, but oftentimes we don't have the why for our rubrics, do we? And they still can work.

p.s.
Please pray for my friend Aram who is suffering from an undiagnosed but debilitating round of headaches and vertigo symptoms. He's in J's time of life - adjunct teaching, finishing a PhD - and this is horrible for him and his family (wife and young son, almost 3). Thanks for lifting him up.

How Sweet the Sound!

I'm absolutely delighted that Kenneth Turan (a very respected critic) gave Amazing Grace such a positive review!

Do try to see it if you can (this weekend would be great, to bump up its opening numbers).