Lenten disciplines in a time of turmoil

Yesterday, I celebrated at a parish that's going through a rough patch. I was planning to preach on the Transfiguration and psychedelic drugs, but I ended up giving them this list of Lenten disciplines instead. I think they might be more generally useful, and so I'm sharing them here. Please know that this list is not in any way proscriptive. If it is helpful, then use it, and if not, not. These are just some thoughts I’ve had in the past couple of days that might be useful for groups or individuals, depending on what's going on for them. Take what you need and leave the rest.

5 things to give up 

1. Give up ascribing motives. I find that this is incredibly difficult because what we each want to know is why. Why did this happen? And that’s why it’s so tempting to try to figure out people’s motivations. It gives meaning to the story that we’re currently confused about. But for right now, all we can really determine is what did or did not happen, what was or was not done. Ascribing motives leads us to be suspect of the positive behaviors of those we disagree with (“I wonder what s/he’s really trying to get from me”), or to excuse the negative behaviors of those in our camp (“but s/he didn’t mean it”). 
2. Give up figuring out what you or anyone else should have done or could have done. It didn’t happen. For whatever reason, whatever it is you think should have happened didn’t happen. There is no use trying to go back because whatever it is that happened is in the past. Yes, we can learn from this. But now, in the midst of the crisis, is not the best time. Let it go. Forgive yourself and others. 
3. Give up the need to be right. Every single person is going to have a perspective on what is going on, based on personal experience, history, and the information s/he possesses. That perspective is neither more nor less right than your own. When we give up the need to be right, it helps us to listen, to recognize that this person’s perspective is valid without needing to answer, without needing to prove, without it being a springboard to our own response. 
4. Give up anticipating the future. We don’t know what the future will hold. We don’t know what new development may appear even as soon as tomorrow. When we anticipate the future, it closes us off to other possible futures that the Holy Spirit may want to lead us into – the possibility that God, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. 
5. Give up trying to fix or save. It’s such a temptation to leap in with grand gestures and solutions to everything. But at this point, fixing or saving is more about trying to reach an anticipated future or trying to correct the past. 

5 things to take on

That’s not to say that we should sit back and do nothing. There are things we can do, things we can take on for Lent. They may seem simple, but I believe they are the actions that will bring healing, trust, and community.

1. Take on small kindnesses. One thing I learned early on in my ministry was that there was a much better chance I could be there for people when they were in the middle of a crisis if I was there for people in all of the small, day to day things. One percent of the time, they needed me to show up when something went really wrong. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they just needed me to answer their friggin’ email. What are the small kindnesses we can do to care for one another? The accretion of these small gestures, day after day, are what is going to make the difference in the long run, building the foundation of trust, support, and hope as you work together. 
2. Take on time to pause and reflect. In the midst of temptation to do something to make things better, sometimes the best thing to do is to sit quietly, look around, and see where you are. And that may mean feeling a range of feelings: sorrow, anger, relief, grief, guilt, confusion... But I believe that it is in sitting there and feeling the feelings that the healing hand of God is allowed to enter. It’s when we show God our wounds that we are able to be healed. And that happens when we take time to actually find the parts that hurt. 
3. Take on smiling at each other. This sounds very small, but I think there’s something important that happens when we simply look at one another and smile. Please note that I’m not saying, “Keep on smilin’!” What I’m trying to get at here is staying connected with one another with hope. You don’t need to agree about anything to acknowledge another person’s humanity and connection to you. 
4. Take on breathing. It’s amazing how important this is and how much it helps. About a week ago, I got a “Wellness Newsletter” from our HR department. I was stressed and anxious about a ton of things I needed to do and said to myself, “I don’t have time for this ‘Wellness’ crap!” But I looked at it, and on the list of suggestions of things to do, it said, “Breathe 3 times.” Well, I figured I had time to do that. So I breathed 3 times. And then, because it felt so good, I breathed a fourth time. And I was thrown by how much difference this small thing made in how I felt about the day. So when the anxiety comes up, breathe three times. Maybe four. 
5. Take on the mantra, “All will be well.” Julian of Norwich was a 14th Century anchoress and mystic who lived through the plague that wiped out 1/3 of the population of Europe. In the midst of this and in the midst of her own suffering, she received this word: “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall all be very well.” It may be helpful to remember that in the grand scheme of things, this is all small potatoes. As you breathe, remind yourself that all will be well, and all will be well, and all things will all be well. God loves you. God will always love you. God will always be with you, no matter what. And all manner of things shall all be very well.

Lessons from the Greensboro Four

A little over a week ago, I read this obituary for Franklin McCain who, with three others, all college freshmen, staged a sit-in at the Woolworth's in Greensboro, NC in 1960.

It was not the first such sit-in. After the Supreme Court’s order to desegregate the public schools in 1954, activists tried to integrate lunch counters in Oklahoma City, Baltimore and other cities on the periphery of the segregated South. There had been similar efforts in the Deep South, particularly in Orangeburg, S.C., in 1955 and ’56 and in Durham, N.C., in 1957. 

But the Greensboro episode, by most estimations, had the widest impact, inviting national publicity and inspiring a heightened level of activism among college students and other youths. Later that year, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the most effective civil rights groups, was born in Southern black colleges.

Here's a picture from the beginning of the sit in (Franklin McCain is wearing glasses):

And here's a picture from day 6 of the protest:

 As the obit reports, "By the 5th day, more than a thousand had arrived." The sit-in began on February 1, 1960. They were finally served on July 25.

On this Martin Luther King holiday, I was thinking about what lessons I could draw from this particular story. One is that you need your friends. Another is that a small action can have much larger ramifications. Another is to be very specific about what you're going to do and what result you hope to achieve. Another is to expect it to take time. So much to learn.

Can I say also that I love the fact that McCain stayed in North Carolina after he graduated, worked for 35 years as a chemist, raised a family, and retired there. On the website for February 1, a documentary made about the sit-in, the bio for McCain notes, "As a resident of Charlotte, he has served on many boards and worked towards changes in local educational, civic, spiritual and political life." I bet he has.

Here's a picture of the Greensboro Four, taken at the Woolworth's counter in 1990. Franklin McCain is the one lifting the cup of coffee.

Well done, sirs.

Holiday SMART goals

I was leading a meeting the other day where we were practicing developing SMART goals. You've heard of those, probably. SMART goals are

S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Achievable
R: Relevant
T: Time-bound

And so as an exercise, we created SMART goals related to the holiday season, and I thought, "Why haven't I done this before?"

Here are a couple of examples I came up with:

Not-so-smart goal: I will make everyone happy

SMART goal: I will select and wrap gifts for the 8 members of my immediate family and ensure they arrive by Christmas day.

Not-so-smart goal: I won't get mad when Uncle Ernie talks about politics

SMART goal: I will develop, write down, and rehearse 5 strategies for responding in a healthy way when Uncle Ernie talks about politics at least 1 day before we have our family dinner gathering.

So, for what it's worth, I offer this exercise to you. How can you approach the holidays in a way that doesn't set yourself up for failure with unrealistic goals?

From the SOCAP conference

In the sermon above, I mention being at the SOCAP conference. I'm happy to be able to share this, which was my favorite presentation at the conference.

On Mauna Kea

One of the highlights of our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii was going to the top of Mauna Kea. That was no small task. First we had to meet a van at a crossroads outside Waimea. Then we had to drive about an hour through mist and clouds to the Mauna Kea visitors center, where we got our parkas because it's cold up there, you know. Then we had to take the van up bone-rattling unpaved roads for another hour to 13,000 feet. But it was worth it.

We got to the summit just before sundown. Our guides gave us some information on each of the internationally-run observatories. And how they got all that stuff up there I do not know -- especially the all-important lenses and mirrors that make it possible to see objects in space. But there they are.

We also got to see the Gemini observatory open!
Doesn't this look Cloud City from Star Wars?

This is the shadow of the mountain on the clouds, I think.

And then, coming down the mountain in the dark (which was scary), we stopped again near the visitors' center where our guides set up a couple of much smaller, but still impressive, telescopes. With laser pointers, they showed us some of the constellations, and with the telescope, we got to see the rings of Saturn, the Lagoon Nebula (I think it was the Lagoon Nebula), the Butterfly Cluster (a cluster of young stars), and the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2.5 million light years away.

Can you say perspective? I mean, really, who needs the Total Perspective Vortex? Mauna Kea will do.

The thing is, though, what I got from that is not just how insignificant I am in the grand scheme of things, but how unnecessary it is to curry favor with supposedly important and powerful people because of how insignificant they are in the grand scheme of things. And how important it is to spend time with those you love because, really, time is fleeting and life is very, very short.

Is there a doctor in the house?

I saw my Ob-Gyn this morning. TMI, you say? Well, I'm only telling you this because she told me a great story. Well, great in an aggravating way.

Here's the deal. Her husband, she explained, is the stay-at-home dad while every day she heads off to her practice at the hospital.

One evening at home, she told her daughter the old riddle: a father and his son are in a car accident and are taken to the hospital where they are rushed into surgery. The father, tragically, dies, but the boy can be saved with an emergency procedure. The surgeon comes in to where the boy is on the operating and says, "I can't perform the surgery. This is my son." How is this possible?

My doctor's daughter thought about this a while and decided that the answer must be...the son had two fathers.

My doctor tried again with a different scenario: this time a mother and a son in an accident, mother dies, nurse enters, says, "I need someone else to help; this is my son." How can this be?

My doctor's daughter thinks and decides this must be a lesbian couple.

*facepalm*

On the one hand, nice to have the acceptance of gay and lesbian couples and families. On the other...geez, the persistence of gender roles and stereotypes! How do you fight that?

World in Prayer

It was my week to write the World In Prayer prayers. I hope I wasn't too preachy, here.


Holy Trinity, we understand so little
  about you
  about the world around us
  about our neighbors
  about ourselves.

We struggle to make sense of our experiences.
We do our best to make everything fit in the scheme of things,
to make you fit our understanding,
to make events follow some logic or plan.

Perhaps today we can offer to you our confusion as a gift,
the limits of our knowledge as our offering and our prayer.

All-knowing God, we lay before you the inexplicable sufferings of our world
in the hope that your love will give us comfort and the strength to comfort others.

We pray for Syria in its continued turmoil and conflict.

We pray for the victims of the tornado in Oklahoma, USA.

We pray for all refugees throughout the world, and for those who lose their homes through displacement, disaster, or loss.

We pray for Iran where the Guardian Council disqualified the presidential candidacy of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ahead of Iran’s June elections.

We pray for those participating in the hunger strike on the base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for those seeking a resolution to the issues that surround the prison there.

We pray for those who are sick, and for those suffering from diseases for which we have no cure or answer.

We pray for those working to contain the novel coronavirus, and for those affected by it in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and elsewhere.

We pray for the victims of random and unexpected violence.

We pray for Iraq where 70 people have been killed in bombings in recent days, and where 7 women and 5 men were shot dead in a brothel.

We pray for Mark Carson, shot in New York City, USA, by a man who shouted gay slurs at him.

We pray for a man killed in London, England, after being attacked by two men with machetes.

We pray for all those damaged by hatred. We pray for those who hate themselves or others.

We pray also that we may be aware of those moments of joy and grace that defy our understanding.

We pray that we may be alive to the wonder of your creation, and to the inspiration that it brings.

We thank you for the discovery of prehistoric cave paintings in Mexico.

We thank you for all those things that make us aware of the world and people around us.

In our struggle to understand, may we join with one another in love, remembering that you call us to faith, not certainty, and to compassion, not answers.

Holy Trinity, be our guide now and always. It is by you we pray.
Amen

The Dust on your Feet

Here's the post I wrote for today's edition of 50 Days of Fabulous. You get the special bonus content of "before" and "after" pictures of the shoes I wore in Uganda.

Read:
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”

Luke 10:8-11

Reflect:

Before

Do you know how hard it is to get dust off your shoes? I learned this during the brief time I spent in Uganda, walking on dirt roads every day. And every day, Alex, the houseboy (and let’s talk about how uncomfortable that was), would take my shoes and try to scrub them clean, but the dirt never really came off. My shoes still have some of the red dirt from those roads.

In this passage from Luke, Jesus gives his disciples instructions before sending them out and is brutally realistic about the fact that some of these visits are going to be a total failure.

I’m trying to think of anyone who told me that sometimes my ministry is going to be a bust. I’m not coming up with anyone (though it’s possible I simply ignored them and believed it would never happen to me). But I’m here to tell you: sometimes what you work on is going to be a total bust.

Here are two mistakes I’ve made when it comes to failure. The first was to keep banging my head against a wall when something wasn’t working. I believed that any failure must be my fault; that if I spent a little more time, put in a little more effort, explained myself a little bit better, then everything would work. But Jesus is very clear: if something isn’t working, don’t pretend that it is. It’s not that you’re doing something wrong; it’s that you are not welcomed. Move on to someplace that’s going to welcome you and your work.

As of now--and I got back in 2008.

My other mistake was to believe it’s easy to brush it off when something fails. “Shake the dust off your feet,” I’ve heard many times, and thought it was supposed to be a simple thing. I didn’t realize that dust clings. I didn’t know that it would take effort and time to wipe it all off.

But here’s the third thing I see when I look at this reading today: Jesus calls us, not to succeed, but to bring the kingdom of God near. Success or failure was not the point. Actually, I now believe that success and failure don’t look like what we think they look like. If we have brought the kingdom of God near, we have succeeded by the only important measure.

Respond:
Are you spending your time on a project you should leave behind? Take the first few steps on to the next town.

Are you still worried about the dust of failure clinging to you? If something you tried to do didn’t work, be sure to say “That failed,” not “I failed.”

Who am I doing this for?

Cross-posted on the 50 Days of Fabulous site.


Read

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes,
And I shall keep it to the end.
                                                -Psalm 119:33

Reflect:
I was just starting my first job out of seminary, setting up a college chaplaincy at Kenyon College, and I needed help and advice on what to do. So I went to Chicago and met (among others) the great Sam Portaro who was then chaplain at Brent House at the University of Chicago.

He had all sorts of fantastic advice on setting up mailing lists and creating calendars and the nitty-gritty of getting things done. I took notes furiously, overwhelmed at everything I would have to set up in the month I had before classes started. And at the end of our meeting, as I looked over everything on this huge list, I probably radiated anxiety. I certainly felt it anyway. And Sam looked at me and gave me this advice: “Just love those kids.” I didn’t write it down, but I’ve never forgotten it.

The section of Psalm 119 that’s in today’s lectionary has always struck me because of one word — and the word is “it.” At first I thought, shouldn’t it be “them”? After all, it’s about following God’s statutes, all 613 of them. But although “statutes” is plural, it’s not the statutes that the Psalmist is hoping to keep; it is the way of the statutes, the basic underlying premise. The Psalmist asks God to teach me that one way, the singular thing that keeps all of those statutes together in one place, and that is of course the way of love.

This way of love isn’t simply a mushy-gooey excuse for not planning. When I returned to Ohio, I got to work and dug into the nitty-gritty details. But knowing that the underlying premise of all my tasks was to “Just love those kids” gave me the assurance that even if I didn’t do things perfectly, I was still headed the right way.

Respond:
Before you start work today, instead of focusing entirely on what you need to do, take a minute to think about who you are doing it for and say a prayer for them.

Being with people in the valley

This is a bloggified version of the sermon I gave on Good Shepherd Sunday.

There's a reason Psalm 23 is so popular, but I hadn't really realized it until I read it in the midst of the  rotten week we had last week.

Here's the verse that leapt out at me:

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

As I thought about it, one of the things that's hard about helping people who are in the valley is that it feels like you aren't doing anything. We want so much to do something that will make it better. But  in the Psalm, it doesn't say, "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and you take care of everything and make it go away." Accompanying someone through the valley isn't about zapping everything into perfection, but being with a person for the long haul to the other side. The Psalm captures that perfectly.

I thought it might be helpful to share what we can do to be with people when they are walking through the valley of the shadow of death -- and what we can hope for when we're going through it ourselves. And so here are three suggestions of what not to do, and three suggestions of what we can do to help those when they are walking through that valley.

What not to do:

1) Do not compare or rank suffering. When someone is having a hard time, it is not helpful to be told that other people have it much worse than they do. I saw that a lot with the bombings in Boston, with people saying, "Oh yeah? Well, think about Syria." There is no denying that other people are suffering, but if your object is to provide comfort, that will not help. It will, in fact, simply put up walls between you and the other person.

Another way we do this that seems encouraging but is simply another form of the same tactic is when we say to people "Cheer up! It could always be so much worse!" Again, this is not helpful. Comparing one person's suffering to another, or to an imaginary worse situation, denies or minimizes a person's situation. It sends the message that they should not feel the way they do. The fact is, they do feel the way they do. How anyone else feels or what anyone else is going through at that moment is irrelevant.

2) Do not give advice. The desire to give advice may come from the best of motives and the honest impulse to want to fix things. But the effect of giving advice often merely exacerbates the pain a person is going through.

I recently read a reflection from someone who talked about how giving advice to someone with chronic illness is, in fact, an isolating experience. For someone who has already tried everything and still feels stuck in the valley, advice is not only meaningless, it becomes a source of pain. It says to the person, "I'm healthy and you're not and if only you had X, Y, and Z, it wouldn't have happened to you. And if you only do 1, 2, and 3, you would get yourself out of it." Advice implies "I don't want to be here with you; I want you to come here with me." For someone in the valley, this is not helpful. The valley is not traversed by advice.

3) Do not make assumptions. Do not assume you know what's really going on. Do not assume you know what a person is feeling. Do not assume you know how things are going to turn out. Because the truth is, you do not know what people are experiencing. You cannot tell by looking. And even with what they tell you, dollars to donuts you are not getting the whole story.

Again, thinking of the bombing in Boston: You do not know who you know who might have been affected by this personally, so please be kind in your comments. I've never even been to Boston and yet I received an email this week from a friend who had worked with one of the people who was killed. What are the chances of that? Much higher than you might think.

What you can do:

1) Do reach out. You may worry that people won't want to be reminded if they're having a bad time. Believe me, they haven't forgotten. In fact, one thing that's hard for people who are in the middle of the valley is feeling like they are always the ones who have to reach out. Even if you don't have anything to say, just calling someone up and saying, "Hey, I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you" can mean a whole lot. The valley can be a long hard slog and the very people who seem to be handling it best because they "don't want to bug you" are the very ones for whom a simple word will mean the most.

2) Do ask what would help. Simply saying, "What can I do for you?" even if the answer is "nothing" is helpful. You can also ask some more specific questions, like "I'm going to the store/library/downtown; is there anything you need?"

3) Do listen. You don't need to have answers. Simply ask, "What's the latest? How are you? What's going on right now? How has your day been?" and let people tell you. Even when it's not what you want to hear. Even when it's discouraging. Even when you want to jump in with something to cheer them up. Just let them tell you. Just be there.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is simply be in the valley with people. As I said earlier, it feels like we're not doing anything. But that's not true. We're being with people, where they are, when things are hardest, even when we can't do anything about it. That's not easy. In fact, that's really hard work.

I hope you've been able to find people to be with you in the valley, and I wish you strength and good courage to accompany others.

***
Here's another article that offered helpful suggestions on how to be with people who are suffering: For a Sick Friend: First Do No Harm

And this one (which I've referenced before) sums it up in the terrifically helpful mantra Comfort IN, Dump OUT. Always good to remember.

Various & Sundry: Because I couldn't avoid the news

It's been a hell of a week, hasn't it? And to think, just a week ago I pointed out that reading the news is bad for you and I was going to try to stop reading it so much. Yeah. I think the Onion said it best:

According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, when reached for comment on this week, 93 percent of Americans responded “Okay, enough’s enough here, you have seriously got to be kidding me with this week,” with 84 percent saying “Is it Sunday yet? What? How in the hell are we only at Thursday? What the hell is going on?” and 100 percent of Americans responding “No, no, go ahead, just pile some more horrific shit on this hellish shitshow of a week. Have at it.”

Actually, I'd be just as happy not piling anything more on. But I've got to say, Tony Gwynn Jr.'s excellent response to a heckler is something that I can see being applicable to the nasty voices in the world -- and in one's head as well.


And this notecard captures the week perfectly, and in the most ladylike way:

I also drew some strength from this lovely reflection on breaking isolation.

And from this report from someone who was at the scene of the Boston bombing and saw many beautiful gestures of love and kindness.

And 20 Gentle Quotations from Mister Rogers.

And Patton Oswalt's perfect summation:

I hope you are well, wherever you are, and finding strength and courage within and love and support from the people around you. As Ellen DeGeneres says every day, be kind to one another.

Vulnerability, priesthood, and Holy Week

Cross-posted at the Confirm not Conform blog.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear Brené Brown present at a conference to a group of Episcopal church leaders. This was especially fun for me because I’ve been a big Brené Brown fan ever since I saw her first TED talk on the power of vulnerability, but this was the first time I’d gotten to hear her speak from the point of view of faith.

Dr. Brown (may I call her Brené?) is a member of an Episcopal church in (I believe) Houston, Texas, and talked about her own experience returning to church after a long absence. She shared that during the new members class, she and the teaching priest did not have the same understanding of Christ, but that the priest had made it clear that though they didn’t agree, Brené and her family belonged.

Brené asked the group if they knew the number one barrier to belonging was. We all had guesses. We all guessed wrong. “The number one barrier to belonging,” she told us, “is fitting in.”

I was floored. Why was it bad to fit in? How does that keep us from belonging? She explained: fitting in is about assessing the situation and adapting to it. It is not about being yourself. Belonging is about showing up and being seen for who you are, even if it is different from the other people around you. You cannot belong if you have to fit in.

Isn’t that fascinating?

I suspect you think I might go on to talk about how we want people in our churches to fit in to our models of belief and behavior. But that’s not what I want to talk about right now. I want to talk to my fellow-clergy for a moment, so lean in a little closer. Because here’s what else Brené talked about: she talked about us clergy types. And she has got our number.

She pointed out that clergy, like the academics she works with, have a similar weakness: we tend to think that being more accessible means being less intelligent or sophisticated. The more Jesus-y we are, the more holy we think we appear to others. But this kind of holiness has separated us from people. She notes that often we are trained to take care of the church, not of people. “You have to start where people are, so people see their stories reflected in what you’re saying.”

“People are starving,” she said to this group. And what people need is to know that “you care more about what I need than what your peers think of you.” Actually, I would say it’s that we care more about what the people we work with and for need than we care even about what they think of us.

“You cannot have a conversation more vulnerable than you already are,” she told us. And that is a scary thought. It would be great for our congregations to be full of people who are open and honest and vulnerable and courageous. But what if they can’t do that unless we are open and honest and vulnerable and courageous? What would happen then?

Maybe they won’t think we’re smart. Maybe they won’t think we’re holy. Maybe they won’t think we look like a priest or sound like a priest or act like a priest.

But here’s the thing: our priesthood does not depend upon whether we fit in. Our priesthood does not require us to be perfect. We are called “In all that you do…to nourish Christ’s people from the riches of [wait for it…] his grace.” Not our profundity. Not our appearance of Priestliness. We’re sharing Christ, who hung out with the wrong people and said the wrong things and told little stories about farming and families and acted strangely and did not fit in. That guy. Not the "Jesus-y" behavior we think makes us holy.

So maybe we can draw from that. Maybe there will be a cost, as Jesus well knew. But Brené also told us “There is no faith without vulnerability.” What if she’s right? If she’s right, then how do we share faith if we are never vulnerable?

“Who is Jesus for you?” someone asked Brené at the end of her talk. She said (roughly), “I’m not a priest. I’m not bound to take on a certain theology or belief. But to me, Jesus is someone who could be on a cross and still look out at the people and world around him in love. And that’s what I hope to be able to do too.” Well, I am a priest, and I think if I were able to do that, I’d be a much better one.

A blessed and vulnerable Holy Week to you.

Various & Sundry: Hitler, the Vicar of Dibley, Kurt Vonnegut, Schopenhauer, and three amazing women

I learned the other day that Google Reader, from which I get all my blog feeds, will be eliminated in July. I feel a bit like Hitler about that.




On the plus side, though, there's a new Vicar of Dibley sketch coming out! I can't wait to see it.

Are you preaching this Sunday? Are you wondering why Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you"? Kurt Vonnegut, in his one and only sermon, has a persuasive take on that.

I've been thinking a lot about health and medical issues recently, and this article about the history of cardiac care was eye-opening. It did not say anything that I expected it to say regarding clinical trials on many common cardiac procedures, like bypasses and angioplasty.

The results raise a philosophical question of the goal of medical treatment: alleviating symptoms or lengthening lives? “How much is it worth investing in a surgical procedure, with all its risks,” he asks, “if all you’re doing is relieving symptoms?”

In philosophical news, I highly recommend this imagined conversation drawn from the writings of Megachurch Positivity Pastor Joel Osteen and Megadepressing Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Unless you are inclined to despair. In which case you might want to skip the next pull-out quote.

OSTEEN: Well, guess what, Arthur! Our life is a gift from God, and the appropriate response to His gift is joy.

SCHOPENHAUER: Human existence, far from bearing the character of a gift, has entirely the character of a debt that has been contracted. The calling in of this debt appears in the form of the pressing wants, tormenting desires, and endless misery established through this existence.

Thank you for coming this morning, Arthur. Continue to be a sunbeam for Jesus.

I have to say, though, speaking of cheery things, this week had a bumper crop of obituaries of fascinating women who lived long and amazing lives.

There's Princess Lilian of Sweden, born Lillian May Davies in Swansea. "She originally spelt her name with two “l”s, but changed to Lilian when she adopted a career variously described as fashion model, ballerina and singer." Doesn't she look fabulous?

Then there's Lady Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton (103), the New York Socialite who started Bundles for Britain at the outbreak of World War II and is the only non-British woman to receive an honorary Commander of the British Empire. The 13th Duke of Hamilton, Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton, was her fourth husband. (The obit notes she was a devout Christian and a member of St. Thomas' on 5th Avenue. "The fashionable St. Thomas' church," it says.)

And finally, there's Dorothy DeBolt who had six children of her own, and then adopted 14 more, most of them with special needs. She also started the organization Adopt a Special Kid (AASK), which is in nearby Oakland, CA, and was part of an Academy-award winning documentary about the family.

I especially loved the final paragraph of the obit:

Two children, J.R. and Twe, died as adults. Along with her husband, Dorothy DeBolt's survivors include her children, Mike, Mimi, Stephanie, Noel, Kim, Marty, Melanie, Doni, Ly, Dat, Trang, Phong, Tich, Anh, Reynaldo, Sunee, Karen and Wendy, 27 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and her brother, Art Nortier.

What Mr. Rogers taught me about the Transfiguration

Transfiguration by Raphael

The son of friends of mine got a concussion right before Christmas. And then another one. After he got the all clear and came home from the hospital, he suddenly started getting seizures. His eyesight blurred and his speech slurred. He got excruciating headaches.

Tests showed nothing wrong. Doctors said that there was a miscommunication between brain and body: that the pain had no cause, but the brain was getting the message that it was there. Because there was no actual cause for the pain, they could do nothing to stop it. The pain was so horrible that his father prayed that he could die just to end it.

So you can imagine that I was drawn to the second half of the Transfiguration story in the gospel, in which Jesus comes down from the mountain and is met with a distraught father whose son is having seizures.

It seems to me there is very little to separate the transfiguration into glory and the transfiguration into agony. Both involve the removing of a veil. Both involve truly seeing the person that stands in front of you.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a video of Mr. Rogers being interviewed by, of all people, Joan Rivers. Towards the end of the interview (at the 6:00 mark), Rivers invited Mr. Rogers to sing "It's You I Like." He says, "I'll sing it to you," and she says, "Oh, no, I'll die." He proceeds to sing directly to Rivers,

It's you I like.
It's not the things you wear.
It's not the way you do your hair,
but it's you I like.

And Rivers, who has faced every kind of insult and heckling, building an impervious shell of self-mockery over a long career, proceeds to pull a sweater over her head to hide from the directness of being seen. And in being seen, I at least get a glimpse of a transfigured Joan Rivers I had never seen before.



Mr. Rogers, it seems to me, has an amazing gift for seeing the person who is standing in front of him. All the time. Every time. And I think the transfiguration is in the seeing of a person's true personhood.

Jesus' words in response to the father's plea are shocking, and at first I did not find much comfort there: "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?" I found myself praying to Jesus what he was saying that for? And I don't know if this is the answer or not, I have nothing to back me up, but here's what I'm wondering:

I noticed that the father shouted "from the crowd." And one of the things he shouted was that he had "begged your disciples" to heal his son, but they couldn't.

So then I wondered, why was the father simply sent back to the crowd? How would it have been if the disciples had said, "We are sorry that we don't have the power to heal your son. Wait here until Jesus comes down and we'll talk with him about what to do."

I wonder now if the reason Jesus is angry is that He recognizes a group of people that do not see one another. When Jesus came down, did he truly see this man in his agony? Is he saying to the disciples and the crowd, "Why on God' green earth do you not see what I am seeing?" And to the man, "Bring me your son. Because I see you."

When I talk about being seen, I'm not suggesting oversharing. What I mean is, how can we look at one another and recognize there is a whole history there, of suffering and of glory, beyond that momentary encounter. How can we do a better job of truly seeing one another?

This is a very abridged (and somewhat changed) version of a sermon I preached yesterday. Your continued prayers for Robert are greatly appreciated. He is recovering, but there is a long way to go.

The Rev. Judy Upham: Love and the long haul

As you may know, I'm one of the so-called Celebrity Bloggers for Lent Madness, the yearly competition where saints fight it out to see who wins the Golden Halo. I'm writing up the bios for my first round picks and this morning was doing some research on Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian shot and killed in 1965 while participating in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama.

Photo taken by Jonathan Daniels

But as I did so, I noticed that he had not been the only seminarian there, and I wondered what happened to his fellow seminarian, Judith Upham.

God bless Google, which led me to this interview with the Rev. Judith Upham, now 70, who still serves as an assisting priest at St. Alban's, Arlington, TX. And I found myself moved to tears as I realized that, after leaving Alabama, Upham had far more to fight.

Upham spent time as a director of religious education, then earned a degree in social work. When General Convention approved ordaining women as deacons in 1970, she said, “for me it was like bells ringing.” 

She began working for women’s ordination to the priesthood, becoming a founding member of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus and serving as an alternate deputy at the 1973 General Convention. She was ordained a deacon in 1975, a priest on Epiphany 1977.

Note, too, that Arlington, where Rev. Upham now works, is in the Diocese of Fort Worth which Episcopal Church watchers will know was a diocese that refused to ordain women and whose bishop decamped, claiming the diocese was under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Not surprisingly, her work there is reconciliation.

On Sunday, when we heard the reading from 1 Corinthians 13, I was struck by how many descriptors of love include the long haul. It's not "love is kind, love is patient," but "love is patient, love is kind," and it struck me that this was key to understanding the work of love. That the work of love requires endurance and a grasp of the big picture, rather than instant gratification. The arc of the moral universe is long, as Martin Luther King said, but it bends toward justice. Because, I would say, the arc of the moral universe depends upon love which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I am not about to take anything away from Jonathan Daniels and his witness and sacrifice, but I want especially today to celebrate the long work of love exhibited by the Rev. Upham and wish her every blessing in her continued ministry. Thank you for your endurance.

Review: Looper

I watched Looper last weekend and couldn't sleep after I saw it. Not because it was violent, though it was (more on that shortly), but because I had to keep mulling it over and over. I was still mulling it over the next day, and I'm still turning it over in my mind, asking myself, "Is that really about what I think it was about?" Because if it is, it's a completely different movie from the one I was expecting going in.

I had seen and loved Rian Johnson's first film Brick, which set film noir conventions against a high school angst film to great success. Not a movie for kids, to be sure. But a really interesting film. So I had been looking forward to seeing Looper since it first came out last fall.

I sure am glad I watched it at home, however, as it was so tense I would stop it from time to time, walk around the house a little bit, and tweet about how tense it was (while seeing some calming news about who was tap dancing and/or baton twirling at the Miss America Pageant) before I could continue.

It's very hard to write about this movie without spoilers, but I will try.

The premise is this: Our protagonist, Joe, lives in 2044 Kansas City. He announces as the movie begins that "time travel hasn't been invented yet." But by the 2070's it will be. It's illegal, but crime bosses use it to get rid of people without a trace.

Joe is a Looper, someone who's job is to shoot these people when they are sent back in time and dispose of the body. He's paid in silver bars that are strapped to the back of the person being killed. Since the victim wears a bag over his head (always a he, as far as I saw), he's depersonalized, not someone Joe knows, or even sees for more than a second before shooting him in the chest. Soul-deadening, but lucrative.

There's a catch to this set-up. One time, you will shoot someone, turn him over to get your payment and discover gold bars. This means you have shot your future self and "closed the loop." You cash out with your golden pay day and retire from the business, knowing you have 30 more good years ahead of you to do whatever you want. As our narrator says, "This job does not attract the most forward-thinking people."

Then one day, a man shows up to be shot without the bag on his head, and Joe realizes he's looking at the 30-years-older version of himself. Who escapes. Which means young Joe is in terrible trouble with the local-time representative of the crime syndicate that pays the Loopers. And that's not good.

And that's where I'm stopping with the recap because the rest of the movie confounded my expectations and I want it to confound yours too.

A couple of things: first of all, Jeff Daniels plays the local time crime boss and freaked me out so completely that when I saw him the next day all spiffed up for the Golden Globes for his role as straight-arrow Will McAvoy, I honest to goodness felt scared. That's how good he was. And the reason he was so scary is that he seemed almost kind--so persuasive and reasonable. Such a subtle portrayal of evil, one that looks so nice.

The whole time travel thing is dealt with very adroitly. It raises all the usual questions: can you change the past? If you go back and change the past, how does it change the future? Which of course raises the existential question, how does what we do here and now change what the future will be?

Finally: let's talk violence. Rian Johnson does a very clever thing, here. You see the depersonalized violence of Joe's job and since you don't know these people either, it doesn't matter much. But there is one character you get to know, if only slightly, and terrible things happen to him. But you don't see them directly. And it is horrifying. With an amazing absence of gore, you still get the chills at the horror of what is happening to this character.

But here's the even more important thing: the core thesis of this movie, I would argue, is that violence will not solve your problems. In fact, this movie is a parable for Martin Luther King's argument: "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." I didn't expect that. At all. This is not a movie that supports the myth of redemptive violence. This is a movie that ultimately stands on the side of self-sacrificing love. I never would have guessed.

Reading Auden for Christmas

I tend to look at blog stats too much, but I'm glad I did so recently when I noticed someone had clicked on Christmas Oratorio. What's that? I wondered, and found a post I'd done a year ago that was a poem by W.H. Auden that is fantastic. (It's reposted below.)

I did a little more digging and found it was one small snippet of a very long piece called For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. The plan was for Benjamin Britten to set it to music, which would have been fantastic except it probably would have taken days to perform. It's 37 pages of text in the edition of Collected Poems I checked out of the library, and covers from Advent to the Flight Into Egypt.

And it ends there, with the flight into Egypt. I hadn't thought about that, about how Christmas ends with a cliffhanger. The order of events gets so mixed up in the calendar, with the magi arriving tomorrow on Epiphany (in the church year), but the Slaughter of the Innocents, which happens after they leave, occurred a week ago on December 28.

And so, with Joseph and Mary and Jesus on the lam, and with the recitative immediately before beginning, "Fly, Holy Family, from our immediate rage," the next-to-last section begins with "Well, so that is that." So shocking, and so wonderful.

There are so many wonderful, shocking moments in this work. I haven't made my way through it all yet. I loved part II in the Temptation of Joseph section. Here's a little bit:

  For those delicious memories
Cigars and sips of brandy can restore
To old dried boys, for gallantry that scrawls
  In idolatrous detail and size
A symbol of aggression on toilet walls,
For having reasoned -- "Woman is naturally pure
since she has no moustache," for having said,
  "No woman has a business head,"
You must learn now that masculinity,
To nature, is a non-essential luxury.

And Herod's essay/proclamation on The Massacre of the Innocents is incredible.

But the whole thing is. It's worth savoring. It gave me so much to think about in a deep Christmas mode, far past the manger. I can see this is a work I will have to revisit when Advent rolls around.

The oratorio ends with this text, which is in the Episcopal hymnal and have never heard sung. It makes much more sense in its original context.

He is the Way.
Follow him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

October 1941-July 1942

From "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio" by W.H. Auden

The Flight Into Egypt
III
Narrator

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --
Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

Review: The Hunger Games trilogy

Book 1: The Hunger Games

I've been meaning to read The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins for forever, but only just got to them last month. They were a very satisfying and interesting read.

Satisfying because they were well-written and plot driven and I love a good, dense, and well-constructed plot.

Interesting because the books allowed things to be complicated. "Good" and "bad" were not as clear-cut as they first appear. Finding the right person for you and falling in love is not a straightforward proposition. And heroic deeds are not all done by heroes, or even by nice people.

Book 2: Catching Fire

Nor is the result of heroic behavior restful sleep and pleasant dreams. Those called upon to kill one another, whether for justice or for entertainment, are severely damaged by the experience. And you don't often see that in hero's quest books of this nature.

For that reason, I liked the third book, Mockingjay, best of the three (though I though all were terrific). I appreciated how Collins both resolved the action in a truly satisfying way while writing the experience in a way that seemed emotionally believable.

Book 3: Mockingjay

One of the thought-provoking things about it was how it explored the notion that, one way or another, violence would be done and people would be hurt. So given that you have no perfect option, what is the best option you have? What if you know that no matter what you choose, other people will get hurt? What will you do? It reminded me, of all things, of the movie Lincoln, in which the awful choice is to allow the bloody Civil War to continue so that the violent system of slavery can be abolished. Either way, people suffer and die. So what do you choose? Whose lives do you spare? No matter which way you go, your hands are going to have blood on them. So how do you play the game?

Be warned: these books are very violent. Brutal, even. There's no way you'll get me to see the movie versions. But I doubt I'd want to anyway. The books are told in first person, and part of the pleasure and complexity of these books is thinking along with our protagonist Katniss Everdeen about what is happening and how to deal with it. I'm not sure I'd simply want to see what happens without also knowing the mental struggle that's going on inside.