Happy Easter!

And may the Force be with you.

Source: neatorama.com via Anne Lane on Pinterest

Various & Sundry: only slightly holy

I hope you're having a wonderful Holy Week. So far for me it's been terrific, very meaningful. Pinterest has played a surprisingly large role in that -- particularly the work of Pastor Joelle Colville-Hanson who does a wonderful job curating religious images and art, sorting them by books of the Bible or particular narratives. Her board for The Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemene is stunning.

The Last Supper of Jesus -- Andre Derain

Source: wikipaintings.org via Pastorjoelle on Pinterest

Here endeth the Holy Week references for today. From here on out, it's odds and ends.

In case you have ever wondered, "Who are these people who buy semi-automatic weapons anyway?" you might be interested in this excerpt from the book Gun Guys: A Road Trip which came out earlier this month. The Author Dan Baum "is both a lifelong gun guy and a Jewish Democrat who grew up in suburban New Jersey feeling like a 'child of a bitter divorce with allegiance to both parents.' In Gun Guys he grabs his licensed concealed handgun and hits the road to meet some of the 40 percent of Americans who own guns." Given the excerpt, I think this would be a good and informative read. This interview with Baum was...a bit shocking, actually. Meaning, he does not support my point of view 100 percent. The outrage!

I appreciated this post about The Art of Puttering that correctly marks the difference between puttering and multitasking. "Puttering, unlike multitasking, is not marked by a sense of urgency. Puttering allows for breaks in the work, for a cup of coffee or even a burst of play." I love puttering.

Here are some pandas, showing how it's done:



Perhaps these are Luke's sympathy pandas for being thumped in the finals of Lent Madness.

Someone from the Lent Madness Stable o' Snark sent me this tweet:

oh @heytoepfer, here's an obit for our obit fan CB. It involves Jesus and a NASCAR driver. sbnation.com/2013/3/26/4149…
— Lent Madness (@LentMadness) March 26, 2013

How right this mystery person was, Laurie. The obit has the classic lede:

"Timothy Wayne 'Tim' Hopkins, 54, went to be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and Dale Earnhardt to contribute his building and painting expertise to the constructing of many heavenly mansions on Saturday, March 23, 2013, in Memphis." 

Fantastic!

Finally, here's a great obituary for you March Madness fans: Bud Palmer, credited with creating the jump shot, died a little over a week ago at the age of 91.

Palmer could remember no eureka moment, although at age 6 he was so small and weak that he had to launch his shots with a leap. He knew he had shot them regularly as a student at Phillips-Exeter Academy in the late 1930s. He realized, he said, that “if I dribble, and stop, and jump, I will have an advantage.”

When he tried out for the Knicks in 1946, it was still so odd that Coach Neal Cohalen thundered, “What the hell kind of shot is that?”

 I can just imagine the Times obit writer thinking, "Jackpot!" when he got this quote to end the article:

As a Knick, Palmer roomed on the road with Sweetwater Clifton, one of the first black players in the N.B.A. He once confronted a hotel manager in Baltimore to demand, successfully, that Clifton be allowed to stay. 

Later, after a few beers in their room, Clifton told his friend, “Damn, for a white boy, you sure can jump.”

Congratulations, Frances Perkins!

My hearty congratulations to Frances Perkins, winner of the Lent Madness 2013 Golden Halo!

C'mon, Fran! Give us a smile!
You've just won the Golden Halo!

Although my main man Luke made it to the finals, I can't be upset that he lost. After all, pretty much everyone has heard of Luke. All to the better that the Halo goes to someone relatively unknown.

Luke is almost finished writing
his concession speech. In two volumes.

And to those commenting "How can this be! A bureaucrat beating an evangelist! I call shenanigans!" I point you to the following:

Do you enjoy the weekend? Thank #FrancesPerkins for 40-hr. work week by voting for her TODAY in #LentMadness! bit.ly/xDYA4D
— MountHolyoke College (@mtholyoke) March 27, 2013

Pls RT! Can #FrancesPerkins win #GoldenHalo in today's final round of #LentMadness? Vote!bit.ly/xDYA4Dtwitpic.com/cerwn3
— MountHolyoke College (@mtholyoke) March 27, 2013

#FrancesPerkins is trailing in #LentMadness & needs your help, MoHos! Please vote now -- & retweet thisl!! bit.ly/xDYA4D
— MountHolyoke College (@mtholyoke) March 27, 2013

et cetera. I think evangelists can learn a thing or two from the Mt Holyoke alumnae association.

Besides, isn't there something wonderful about an Episcopal Church program reaching out waaaay beyond our walls? Who knows what seeds have been planted? I say, quit worrying about whether the right person "won" and rejoice in the fact that so many people have been part of the fun. I know I learned a lot in the process. I hope you did too.

Where I'll be for the rest of Holy Week

For the second year in a row, I've had the opportunity to lead Holy Week services, which as a peripatetic clergy person is a real treat.

This year I will be at St. Michael and All Angels in Fort Bragg, CA, a community I know well, having served with them for most of a summer in 2009 and off and on since then.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood, please join me!

Maundy Thursday: 6:00 pm

Good Friday: 

  Stations of the Cross: noon

  Solemn Collects: 7:00 pm

Saturday Easter Vigil: 6:30 pm

Easter Sunday: 10:00 am

St. Michael's is at 201 E. Fir Street at the corner of Fir and Franklin.

View Larger Map

A blessed Holy Week to you, wherever you are!

My favorite profile pic for equality

I'm posting it now for posterity before he changes it back.

Changed my profile pic for marriage equality.Also, for bacon.
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) March 26, 2013

Let's hear it for equality! And bacon!

Review: Two Lentishly Titled Mysteries

This Lent, I deliberately read these two mysteries based entirely upon their Lent-like titles. Both had likable protagonists who can go through a maelstrom without getting ruffled, but that's where the similarities ended.

Ashes to Ashes by Emma Lathen

I'd actually read this one before but had no memory of who had done the murder -- or of the details around the case, which takes place in St. Bernadette's Parish, Flensburg, Brooklyn. The Parents League want to save their school from being torn down to make way for a new apartment, going so far as to sue the Archbishop. And someone gets killed because of it.

Since the book was written in the early '70's, there are some excellent period details. Mrs. Kirk from Scarsdale picketing for the Pill was a particularly compelling character. Not that the St. Bernadette's Parents League is interested in Mrs. Kirk's campaign.

The mystery revolves around John Putnam Thatcher, Vice President of the Sloan Guaranty and Trust. Unlike many other murder-prone laypeople, Thatcher seems in every mystery to be encountering murder for the first time. It's like there's a reset button for all the characters at the Sloan with each new book. I like it that way.

Lathen's mysteries are witty and very dry (in the best sense of that word). And the books capture the foibles of the time with great compassion. The recurring cast of bankers and Wall Street types is always entertaining, and there's something soothing about the Sloan in the days before the Too Big To Fail banks leveraged us into oblivion. It's a little cozy Wall Street murder in a simpler time.

Dust to Dust by Beverly Connor

This was a new author for me, and I enjoyed the book, which moved right along through two different cases: a woman bludgeoned in her home in an apparent robbery of art and native pottery sherds, and a girl possibly murdered while trying to prove her brother's innocence.

The protagonist is a forensic archaeologist in Georgia named Diane Fallon who is the most phlegmatic person I've ever found in a mystery. She makes nice with the police department because there's no point in antagonizing them. She sighs heavily but takes her properly loaded gun with her when walking into a dangerous situation. She never seems panicked or flustered even when an armed gunman is breaking into her house. And it's not that she's super-human. She just seems...calm.

It goes with her line of work, I suppose. When the author (herself an archaeologist) describes her character doing forensic archaeology, it sounds (I have to admit) tedious. Fallon is methodical, and thankfully the author doesn't go into deep detail or I would have been bored.

But I liked the mystery and I liked Dr. Fallon. She patiently collects evidence, doesn't jump to conclusions, doesn't get herself into unnecessary jams. It's very reassuring. I don't know if Diane Fallon is like this in all her books, but I'll be happy to find out.

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.