Shaken

I've been letting Rich Mullins songs run through my head this past week, especially some of his older stuff. The very first album that I couldn't stop listening to of his was "The World as Best as I Remember It, Volume I", which contained a song called "Calling Out Your Name".

Sometimes, a lyric or two will start running through my head, and that's usually a sign that there's something deeper there to dig into. Today it was "shakes us forward and shakes us free," which, as it turned out, came from "Calling Out Your Name." The lyric surrounding this line is this:

From the place where morning gathers
you can look sometimes forever till you see
what time may never know...what time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this whole world
and shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope...to run wild with the hope...

The hope that this thirst will not last long
that it will soon drown in this song not sung in vain
I feel the thunder in the sky
I feel the sky about to rain
And with the prairies I am calling out your name.

I had a shaky weekend, what with my own worries about our family finances and what was a bit of a downer Sunday (for various reasons). I feel like there are so many significant concerns popping up all over the church that I can't quite deal with them all at the same time.

But then I wondered if this is being shaken forward. And maybe even shaken free. There are so many things I long to be shaken free from. And so, today, I am calling out to God and praying that I might be able to be shaken forward...and take a few people along with me.

Entering a new church paradigm

Not "new church" as in a new church start...but a new paradigm for me, at least.  St. Mark, where I currently serve, is by far the largest congregation I've ever had any kind of leadership role in, and I'm discovering that some of my assumptions about what I expect of myself as a pastor are never going to be true here.

Take, for example, knowing every single person in the congregation by name when I see them.  I had the sudden realization that even after we have a new directory, there's still going to be a huge chance that I won't be able to hold 300 names and faces together, especially if we begin to add more and more people.  

That's a complete shift for me, and it reminds me of what I knew when I first came to this church:  that I could not be central to everything that was happening there--that I had to train and lift up leadership among the laity because they had to be intimately involved.  

The whole thing is a shift simply because it involves me letting go of control, and I've got to figure out how to do that without also giving up pastoral authority and leadership.  To me it's one of the most difficult tasks as a pastor, and I think learning to do it will be my challenge in the next few months.

Being Back

I spent the last part of this week at Duke Divinity School, back for training as an alumni recruitment rep. My basic job is to be in contact with those who have inquired about, applied to or been accepted at Duke Divinity, and once a year, they bring us back to give us an update on what's up at the school.

This year more than ever, I miss being here. I'm about 8 years out, and the changes and additions are incredible. I was trying to identify why I feel so different here than I do in other places, and I think it was because I was most myself here. I think at heart, I'm probably a student (will someone please hand me a reading list?). But I think it might also be that I can identify more times of discernment here than anywhere else--the kinds of discernment that were foundational for me.

It's completely different in many ways--much of the faculty has changed; the library, chapel and even classrooms are remodeled or newly built. I love much of the new construction--the art installations and the opportunities to be in the light and airy hallways.

It's like the place of my standing stones. Joshua told the people to set up stones to remind themselves of the story and God's work after they crossed the Jordan. I sense that this is the place I will return in order to remember my story, even though my ministry is not likely to return here.

Where are the places you return? I have a few more, but none that I have spent so much time in--not even my undergrad institution. Where do you know yourself best? Where do you know God best?

Economics and Panic

When the people saw that their stock portfolios delayed to come up from out of the Recessional Valley, the people gathered around and told their favorite candidate, "Come, quell our anxiety and fear with a quick fix solution that will allow us to keep spending above our means."  And the candidates said to the people, "Bring us all your gold."  And the candidates took the gold and cast an image of solvency; and the people voted, saying "This is the right person for the job!"

Truly, our job in the midst of this economic crisis is not to panic.  To pray without ceasing.  To love one another.  To know that the Lord is near.  And to TRUST--that God is still in our midst. We are called to be faithful, not just fiscally successful.  

I had my moment of panic today.  I'm still paying off student loans based on my stock portfolio, and my ability to do that is severely compromised now.  

But I'm preaching on Sunday, and this is the text:  Exodus 32:1-14 and Philippians 4.  Aaron panicked and gave people what they wanted.  Paul reminds us that our primary job in the midst of crisis is not to panic, but to pray.

I'm praying now.

Anniversary Cake

A whole month! This is not the way I wanted to do this, but I will try to catch up.

The intent behind this blog is to record short bursts of thoughtful activity instead of leaving the thoughts in my brain and trying to think of them later--call it my own Pensieve (and read the Harry Potter books if you want to know more about that!).

In any case...anniversary cake!

Clayton Karrer and I got married last September, and I will admit that I became rather insistent about saving the cake topper. I loved both our cakes (he had dulce de leche buttercream frosting on top of chocolate cake, and I had white chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting and raspberry filling), and I wanted to have some later. We didn't even get to have a full slice of the bride's cake at the primary reception, though we got a little bit later on at the close friends and family gathering (they saved a couple of our sheet cakes).

In any case, Clayton (who had been married once before) warned me when our anniversary was coming up that I needed to prepare myself for stale cake--that it was never as good after having been in the freezer for a year, getting dry and freezer-burned.

Clayton still has a lot to learn about me.

That cake topper had been wrapped in three layers of plastic and then with tinfoil on top of that.

We got it out, bit into it, and it was every bit as moist (if not more so!) and delicious as the day of our wedding.

He said, "This is better than I thought!"

Yes...it is. It just requires some care.

May all our marriages be so.

Saturday

It's the first day I've been in the Valley without rain in awhile. The grass is tall (Clayton may cut it this afternoon). It's the first day of college football season, and we've still not made our final decision on who is going to provide our television services (cable? dish? directv?), so we're into our third solid month of only watching movies.

Somehow it feels right. We're unpacking today. I've had a phone call. We're arranging things on shelves, and we haven't gone anywhere in the car. Could this be sabbath? Could it really feel this renewing every week?

I've got a good friend who challenges me a lot about whether or not I'm being faithful to taking a sabbath. I confess that I'm not great at it. But when I actually do it, it frees me from a lot of stress and anxiety. And I wonder--are the things that I do that keep me from sabbath worth more to me than being faithful and getting the renewal God knows I need? They are obviously important to the people who ask me to do them...and sometimes that's me.

What would our culture do if it slowed down or stopped for a whole day and just looked outside...or went outside? What would happen if for one day, the stress and anxiety got a chance to leak out of us? Maybe the economy would suffer, but perhaps (just perhaps) we wouldn't need to care as much because we would be in a better place.

Of course, this implies that we might need to shift a lot of things (including the need for people to work 7 days a week in order to make enough to survive). But I am aware that this thing that I view as a luxury (and it would be a luxury for many people) is an integral part of who I am as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Settled?

Moses had it pretty good at the moment. He had run away from all his troubles back in Egypt. He had found a woman to marry and had been accepted into his father-in-law's household, contributing to the family business by tending the sheep. All in all, pretty stable as stable went in those times.

Stable in my life and in the life of the church, however, sometimes looks like a rut. We're bound and determined to keep things stable because otherwise...well...you know, otherwise...!

And then fire comes into Moses' life. When we see fire, especially fire that's not being controlled by anyone, we begin calling 911 and sounding the alarm. Hurry! Let's get it put out! It's not where it's supposed to be!

But it could just be that fire that calls us out of our rut (which is an open-ended grave) and gets us moving, takes us back to the place of our pain and makes sure we deal with all that God has for us to do.

I love the prayers of Ted Loder, and this one is appropriate for me and in many ways for the church right now (I adapted it for use with my church council last night):

O persistent God,
deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.
Pressure me that I may grown more human,
not through the lessening of my struggles,
but through an expansion of them
that will unbury my gifts.
Deepen my hurt
until I learn to share it
and myself
openly,
and my needs honestly..
Sharpen my fears
until I name them
and release the power I have locked in them
and they in me.
Accentuate my confusion
until I shed those grandiose expectations
that divert me from the small, glad gifts
of the now and the here and the me.
Expose my shame where it shivers,
crouched behind the curtains of propriety,
until I can laugh at last
through my common frailties and failures,
laugh my way toward becoming whole.
Deliver me
from just going through the motions
and wasting everything I have
which is today,
a chance,
a choice,
my creativity,
your call.
O persistent God,
let how much it all matters
pry me off dead center
so if I am moved inside
to tears
or sighs
or screams
or smiles
or dreams,
they will be real
and I will be in touch with who I am
and who you are
and who my sisters and brothers are.

Amen.

Hard Conversations

Life has been a series of hard conversations lately.  Fun inbetween, and it's been nice to be able to play some too, but I more and more I feel disproportionately dealing with situations that test whether or not I can be non-anxious in the midst of pain and anger.

Yet in the midst of that, I feel like actual work is being done.  Not just patting people on the shoulder and making them feel better, but uncovering scars and wounds and actually dealing with them--moving toward a path of recovery and hope.  And it makes me wonder what hard conversations I need to have with myself.  Something for my spiritual director and I to talk about, I guess.  Where is the work that God is trying to do in me (and on me!)?

Today I'm praying for Lizzie and Jessica as they begin Duke Divinity School.  I can't imagine 3 years that were more work...or more rewarding when the work was done, hard conversations and all.  

Eating Together

Yesterday, in the sermon, I mentioned my experience with a "Roman feast" in college.  The basic premise is that you show up for a big banquet, all dressed in a sheet...and then you find out that the only rules are that you can't bend your elbows in order to eat!  It's quite a feat to drop things into your mouth (especially beverages) until you figure out that the best way to handle it is to feed each other.  I used the Feast as an illustration of working together in community in order to help one another be nourished, especially centering around what that community looks like to Paul in Romans 12:1-21

I could have taken it farther.  And yesterday, as we were toasting (and roasting!) Bishop Mike Lowry in preparation for his leaving, Rev. Virgilio Vasquez-Garza did.  He was talking about Mike as a "companero", which we can translate roughly as a "companion" but literally means "one who eats bread with you."  He described how much this term meant for him--to identify people that he could trust at a time in her life when his life really did depend on who he could trust or not.  

And he said this:  "It is an intimate thing to put food in someone else's mouth."  

Especially having told a story just that morning about this subject, it caught my attention that I had left that part out of the sermon.  I had assumed that kind of trust, and perhaps that was premature on my part.  First you learn to trust...then you learn to taste.  

And I realized that's why some people are a little bit reluctant to come to potlucks in the church.  Figuratively, you really are letting someone else put food in your mouth.  And that is an intimate thing.  I want this for people, but I can't force it.  

Thank you, Virgilio.

A Spot of Rain

I'm sitting in my office, and it just got done raining really hard here--lots of rumbling beforehand from the thunder and then just a downpour. Now the sun is out and everything's "back to normal."

It's an altogether too familiar pattern, though. Think about all the things we've planned for in the church. A lot of effort goes into it and it goes like gangbusters. But then afterwards, we think, "Ah, now that's done. I can just let things get back to normal." Or even in our personal lives, we'll sign up for a short term Bible study or start into Sunday School or regular church going and we'll do it with great gusto for awhile, but then we let our lives go back to what they were before--"back to normal."

I think one of the things that letting God transform our lives means, though, is that there's a new normal.

It was just a spot of rain. I've lived in Texas long enough to know that there are verrrrrry few circumstances in which we don't give thanks for rain--any amount at any time. Today's rain will help things not to get dried out so quickly and give all the plants just a quick drink, which, of course, usually always helps.

But our lives don't have to be inconsistent. They don't have to succumb to the "old normal"...but instead be "transformed by the renewing of our minds" to a new normal.