Barefoot and laughing

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about Kirstin who was going into hospice. Yesterday, we were informed that she has died.

Her blog was called Barefoot and Laughing which seems like a perfect epitaph for Kirstin. Ann Fontaine at the Episcopal Cafe sums things up well, saying, "In the end she lost the battle with cancer but she never lost herself."

Rest in peace, friend. Laugh in glory.

Various and Sundry, July 1

Well, the obituary highlight of my week--and yours, too, I'm sure--was the life of Norma Lyon, the 'Butter Cow' lady. The obit in the NY Times is the only time I've seen "you betcha" in an obituary. The Grim Reader pointed me to her obituary in the Wall Street Journal, which proclaims her "the most eminent butter sculptor in America" and reveals:

Ms. Lyon used low-moisture, salt-free butter—never margarine—for the bovines, which she built by dabbing softened butter on a wire-mesh armature. She worked inside a glass walk-in refrigerator, kept at 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and took a couple of days to produce a 600-pound cow.

Awesome! But Peeps are still my medium.

In the "whatever happened to..." category, there was also obituaries this week for Randall Adams. Who is Randall Adams, you ask? He was the man whose death sentence was overturned because of the incredible film The Thin Blue Line.

He actually died last October in such obscurity that the word only trickled out to the news media this week. The filmmaker Errol Morris, whom I follow on Twitter, reports, "How did the media find out about the death of Randall Adams? (Michael Rosenthal first told me; Ann Petrone confirmed it; and I tweeted it.)"

His was not a happy life. And the injustice he endured was staggering. The Times obit ends:

At the time his conviction was thrown out, wrongly convicted prisoners could get a lump sum payment of $25,000 if pardoned by the governor. But Mr. Adams was ineligible for the money. He had not been pardoned; his case had been dismissed.

He also did not receive the $200 given to prisoners when they are released on parole or on the completion of their sentences, Mr. Schaffer said. Again, Mr. Adams did not qualify.

A few church-ish articles to close. The first is a spot-on critique of a church culture that revolves around being relevant. "The desire for church to beat pop culture at its own game is a futile one," the author writes.

"If there is one thing our culture does not have in short supply, it’s entertainment. People do not need to get up on a cold Sunday morning, get dressed, get the kids ready and drive to another building to hear a bit of comedy or see a well-produced skit. Diversions devised by the best professional entertainers in the world are easier to procure than that. Amateur hour from some local wannabes who have forgotten their real mission will not win this competition."

Oh yes.

This made an interesting companion piece to the blog entry at the Internet Monastery contrasting Lutheran theology with that of a megachurch. And with this college student's shock and horror upon attending a megachurch.

And finally, Andrew Sullivan's thoughtful reflection upon first visiting a gay bar led to other people's equally thoughtful responses. The common thread: it was like church. And that has something to do with the articles I linked above. I'm just not sure what it is yet.

Perhaps it is that we keep trying to force God to be in the church and force people to be there because we believe we have contained God in there. And then God goes and shows up in the gay bar.

No, there's more to it than that. I shall ponder.

Have a great weekend!

Social Media Day

So apparently today, June 30, is Social Media Day. At least according to Mashable, the social networking blog--THE social networking blog, more like.

Why June 30? I can't find a reason, but I guess there doesn't need to be one. There are meet-ups planned all over. The one in San Francisco involves going to The House of Air which is (wait for it!) an indoor trampoline park. I don't think they were focused on the middle-aged lady crowd.

But I do like the fact that Social Media Day is all about...actually socializing. You know, like, in person. Which I think gets it right. Social media is meant to be in service of human interaction. I'm glad that to celebrate all these new-fangled forms of technology, the impulse is to get together and have a party with friends.

Women in full

It's time for my yearly campaign to get people to use the full names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman in the collect for their feast day, four weeks from today. Here's what I wrote about it last year.

The Facebook group I started to promote this now has 52 members, and you're welcome to join.

I also started a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #womeninfull.

I know it's not world peace, but it's about equality and respect, and it continues to rankle me that these women who were all for equality are referred to by a diminutive.

Here's a snippet from Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office (great book!) that explains better than I can why this is important to me.

Whenever I hear a woman answer the phone with only her first name, or leave a voice-mail message that says, "This is Sarah. Please leave your message...," it makes me wonder why she dropped her last name. It's comon among administrative staff--and entirely unnecessary. You will rarely hear a man answer the phone using only his first name*. It's a small but significant difference. Using only your first name relegates you, once again, to a childlike status. Ask a child his or her name and most often you get only the first name. The combination of your first and last name moves you to adulthood.

*The priestly equivalent of that is how often I hear male priests leave a voicemail as "Father X," while female priests often do not claim any title.

Equality occurs in the little things as well as the big ones. How can I believe that the church is interested in men and women being equal in the big things if it can't be equal in the small ones?

Please share the word.

Homeward Bound

You may recall after lovely Georgia died, we took up with a winsome old Golden Retriever named Jed who had been left with Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue after his owner went into the hospital.

Well, this morning we got a call from Homeward Bound saying the owner was out of the hospital and baying for his friend.

So Jed's gone back home to be with the companion of the first 12 years of his life.

It's a happy ending, but I'll miss the old guy. He is grand.

The Curse of Christian Niceness

excerpts from a sermon preached June 26

This sermon may not apply to you. But I suspect it will apply to many of us who are afflicted with the Curse of Christian Niceness.

I think you know what I'm talking about, but in case you don't, here is an illustration:

I was recently in a parish where one of the staff members had left and been replaced. When I had worked with that staff person, I found she had been unable to perform the tasks assigned to her, so I thought it was a good thing there was a new person in place. Before the service, I asked one of the servers what had happened. He praised the former staff member saying, "She was good. She was slow...but she was good." I blurted out, "She was terrible!" The server laughed and said, "I was just trying to show I had learned something," and proceeded to tell me about how this staff person had also leaned on him to do her job.

He had indeed learned something: he had learned the Curse of Christian Niceness, in which saying anything critical is perceived as UnChristian.

The gospel for today is the ending to a long chapter full of instructions Jesus gives to the disciples before sending them out. It includes such tidbits as

• If people don't welcome you, shake the dust off your feet as you leave that house or town (Matt. 10:14)
• Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matt.10:16)
• What you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops (Matt. 10:27)
• and the classic, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matt. 10:34)

And yet somehow we've gotten the message that as Christians, we must be nice.

Reading the gospel for today, I had to laugh when I got to the part about how "Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward," since Jesus is very clear that prophets don't get much in the way of tangible remuneration. The righteous don't do much better. Which explains, in part, the Curse of Christian Niceness.

The great reward of niceness is no one chops your head off. No one gets mad at you for saying nice things. The problem is that niceness is one of the more insidious ways we are tempted to gain the approval of the world at the cost of our own souls.

We lie to ourselves and others because to tell the truth isn't nice.
We accept things we find unacceptable because criticism isn't nice.
We stay in places we'd rather leave because to walk out isn't nice.
We are silent because speaking out isn't nice.
We hand over the reins to whoever is willing to run the show because taking charge isn't nice.

Let me be clear: the solution to the Curse of Christian Niceness isn't hostility. I'm reminded of the time a vestry was taught about using "I" statements in order to foster more open and honest communication. One man, not totally clear on the concept, told someone in a vestry meeting, "Well, I think...you're stupid!"

Simply saying whatever is on your mind is not what I'm talking about. It's something much more difficult and subtle than that. It's about being as wise as a serpent and as innocent as a dove. It's about acknowledging the truth about a situation without blame or judgment.

I'm not saying that's easy. But Jesus is not sending us out into the world to be nice, but to do the work of love.

Monday Morning Preacher: Itinerant Preaching

I've preached almost every Sunday this month, a different place each week, and it is finally sinking in how very freeing that is.

One of the things that's great about being an itinerant preacher is that I can tell stories of what happened at one parish to the other (leaving out names, of course). The person referred to isn't in the pews; the parish will only see itself reflected without feeling hectored. Suddenly, the stories are not, "You did this." Instead, they become this universal, "We do this," and it's much safer to say and to hear.

I also find myself willing and able to say things I could not say as a settled parochial priest. Because I am not dependent upon the church for my living, the scope of what I feel I can say has widened. I am more critical of the church; I am less worried about being perceived as doctrinally pure. I am, in short, more honest. And I cannot help but think that that's a good thing.