Probably you have noticed that, like it or not, people are getting ready for Christmas. However, unless you are a certain kind of Church nerd, as I am, you might not know that Advent only really started today. There's no reason why you should know that just by looking around. I mean, Walmart put out their Christmas trees in October. Even my Advent calendar started on December 1. But real, true Advent technically begins four Sundays before Christmas, and as we all know, technically correct is the best kind.
Advent kicks off a new liturgical year in some parts of the Church. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's related to the preparations for the birth of Jesus. Maybe it's somehow tied to the more pagan roots of Christmas traditions. If I were making the Church calendar, I would have put the new year on Easter, but nobody asked me. Whatever the reason, we are here at the beginning of something, and so it seemed like a good time to blog again.
I think part of why it feels so strange to begin the liturgical year with Advent is that Advent is about waiting. Imagine if, on December 31, we got together with our friends and counted down along with (sigh) Ryan Seacrest, but then at midnight, we didn't cheer or toast or kiss anyone, but we just--waited? Maybe Ron Swanson would like that party, but I think most of us would prefer a celebration that's got a little more celebrating in it.
Then again, though it may seem counterintuitive to start with waiting, that's how life begins. I've got a lot of pregnant and newly-babied friends right now, and so I've been doing a lot of waiting alongside them for the past several months. This kind of waiting is (usually) fun. Painting the baby's room, buying all the onesies in Target, counting down until the due date. This is Advent waiting, in joyful expectation.
But sometimes the waiting is painful. Sometimes you lose a pregnancy, or two, or three. Sometimes you realize you're another year older with no partner in your life and a rapidly fading chance of having the kind of family you want. You wonder if your whole life will be spent waiting for something that is never going to happen. This, too, is Advent waiting, walking in darkness, hoping against hope to see the great light.
Maybe the point of beginning with waiting is so that I don't try to shortcut it or skip over it. I am not a super patient person. I've fooled myself in my later years into thinking I'm good at waiting because I have a smartphone now that I can whip out at the first moment of non-activity. That's not real waiting, though; that's just distraction. I have yet to learn how to truly wait, to be still and know that God is God and to be filled by nothing else. Maybe by putting my impatience in the spotlight, on the first day of the year, I can learn to stop fighting it. I can learn how to wait as someone who has been given a promise that has already been fulfilled, as yet unseen but not unknown. Christ is coming soon. Wait for it.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Indeed
"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope." -- Maya Angelou
Friday, April 6, 2012
What wondrous love
Friday, March 30, 2012
Through the window on the other side
We're coming up on Palm Sunday, the most conflicted observance in the church calendar. At least, it is for me. Every year, our worship service opens with a grand parade of the kids of our congregation around the sanctuary, waving their palm fronds and singing "Hosaaaaanna, Hosaaaaanna, Hosanna in the hiiiighest." And we have more than a few hundred kids in our congregation, so it's quite a spectacle. The adults get palm fronds, too, although none of them seem as enthusiastic about waving them around. (What is it about the palm fronds that makes kids go crazy for them? I remember feeling the same way when I was young. Is it just that you only get them once a year? Is it because you can swordfight your little brother with them?) After the kids open the service, our band sings all the songs we know with the word "Hosanna" in them, including one that the music director requested several years ago.
Him: You should do that one that goes "All I wanna do when I something something something is dah dah daaah, Hosanna, Hosanna"
Us: ...You mean "Rosanna"?
Instant classic.
So that's all fine and fun. The church is full, we're welcoming our King with open arms, and the kids are cute. But I can never fully enjoy it. Doesn't anybody see what we're doing here? Does anybody remember what happened the last time a bunch of people waved palms and sang hosannas for Jesus? They, which is to say we, which is to say I, FUCKING STRAIGHT UP MURDERED him a few days later. How can we celebrate the day Jesus showed up to get not just killed but REALLY FUCKING KILLED, without any sense of irony or even recognition of the blood that has never left our hands?
The cynical part of me thinks that this is just typical American church triumphalism, mixed with a little cheap grace theology. It goes like this: Jesus has already won the victory over sin and death. It was so many generations ago that it hardly seems necessary to dwell on it more than once, and we'll do that on Friday. So why bother with it today? After all, we are post-baptism people living in a post-resurrection world. Our sins and their eternal consequences were swept away before we even considered them. Our happy ending is assured. All that seemed wrong is now right, and everyone who deserves to is sure to live a long and happy life. Ever after.
It's tempting to cycle quickly through the "downer" parts of Christianity and just focus on the fun stuff. We breeze through confession or eliminate it entirely from our worship, couching it in the language of "mistakes that we made" rather than "innocent guys in whose deaths we are totally fucking complicit." And when was the last time you saw a Christmas pageant where Herod's army was skewering a bunch of babies and toddlers? We are terrible people, and being forgiven doesn't mean we get to ignore our terribleness.
It feels icky to me that we celebrate Palm Sunday by marching confidently toward the altar instead of crawling in shame. Palm Sunday is a shameful day, or it ought to be. But maybe we need to do it this way. Maybe the violence we are about to commemorate is made even more awful by its contrast with the misplaced joy of Palm Sunday. I began this season and this blog believing that in order for Easter to be meaningful, I really had to live with the melancholy of Lent and the misery of Holy Week. Maybe in order for the horror of the coming days to be full, I need to remember that I am at best, little more than a hypocrite. Maybe the only way to get down in the depths is to fall off the highest cliff.
Him: You should do that one that goes "All I wanna do when I something something something is dah dah daaah, Hosanna, Hosanna"
Us: ...You mean "Rosanna"?
Instant classic.
So that's all fine and fun. The church is full, we're welcoming our King with open arms, and the kids are cute. But I can never fully enjoy it. Doesn't anybody see what we're doing here? Does anybody remember what happened the last time a bunch of people waved palms and sang hosannas for Jesus? They, which is to say we, which is to say I, FUCKING STRAIGHT UP MURDERED him a few days later. How can we celebrate the day Jesus showed up to get not just killed but REALLY FUCKING KILLED, without any sense of irony or even recognition of the blood that has never left our hands?
The cynical part of me thinks that this is just typical American church triumphalism, mixed with a little cheap grace theology. It goes like this: Jesus has already won the victory over sin and death. It was so many generations ago that it hardly seems necessary to dwell on it more than once, and we'll do that on Friday. So why bother with it today? After all, we are post-baptism people living in a post-resurrection world. Our sins and their eternal consequences were swept away before we even considered them. Our happy ending is assured. All that seemed wrong is now right, and everyone who deserves to is sure to live a long and happy life. Ever after.
It's tempting to cycle quickly through the "downer" parts of Christianity and just focus on the fun stuff. We breeze through confession or eliminate it entirely from our worship, couching it in the language of "mistakes that we made" rather than "innocent guys in whose deaths we are totally fucking complicit." And when was the last time you saw a Christmas pageant where Herod's army was skewering a bunch of babies and toddlers? We are terrible people, and being forgiven doesn't mean we get to ignore our terribleness.
It feels icky to me that we celebrate Palm Sunday by marching confidently toward the altar instead of crawling in shame. Palm Sunday is a shameful day, or it ought to be. But maybe we need to do it this way. Maybe the violence we are about to commemorate is made even more awful by its contrast with the misplaced joy of Palm Sunday. I began this season and this blog believing that in order for Easter to be meaningful, I really had to live with the melancholy of Lent and the misery of Holy Week. Maybe in order for the horror of the coming days to be full, I need to remember that I am at best, little more than a hypocrite. Maybe the only way to get down in the depths is to fall off the highest cliff.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Do as I say
Christians don’t tell lies; they go to church and they sing them. – A. W. Tozer
A friend retweeted this Tozer quote a while ago, and I’ve been turning it over in my mind ever since. It’s a provocative quote, and I haven’t looked for its context yet because I wanted to think for a while about what I think it means before I found out what Tozer thinks it means. My first reaction was, “YES.” I’m a member of a contemporary worship team, and much of the music that our team does is fairly ecstatic. On the whole, contemporary worship music (if that can be said to be a single genre) is meant to help a worshiper express an intimate, personal and profound connection with God. Here are some lyrical excerpts from this coming Sunday:
My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean
Your breath fills up my lungs, now I’m free, now I’m free
Sin has lost its power, death has lost its sting
From the grave you’ve risen victoriously
Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
And I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way that he loves us
Oh, how he loves us!
Every day, it’s you I live for
Every day, I’ll follow after you
Every day, I’ll walk with you, my Lord
When you’re in agreement with these kinds of sentiments, these songs can be incredibly fun and fulfilling to sing. Even if the composition isn’t of the highest artistic caliber, there’s just something about singing words you agree with that makes you feel powerful, like you’re changing the fabric of the universe by proclaiming your truth into the air.
That’s if you’re in the mood for it. What about when you’re not? I can’t begin to count the number of Sundays when I have dragged myself to the front of the congregation, grumbling inside about how the half-hour drive to church cuts into my weekend sleeping, or the annoying habits of the other people on the worship team, or how fat I am, or how stupid this music is, or how terrible I am at playing the bass, or how angry I am that people in our community keep dying even as we’re praying for their healing, or how confused I get by contradictions in the Bible, or how I look out at the congregation and see people who look like they’d rather be at the dentist than in church, or any old thing that happens to cross my mind in the wrong way. In those times, having to sing something like, “Every day, I’ll walk with you, my Lord” is downright galling. I don’t want to walk with God. What has he done to deserve my devotion? What have I done to deserve his attention? Sometimes I can’t even tell if it’s me or God I’m frustrated with, but I’m pretty sure one of us sucks. Either way, singing about how we’re madly in love with each other feels like the most hypocritical thing in the world.
But the songs aren't lies because they aren't true; the songs are lies because *I* am not true. The lie is the chasm between my experience and my hope, between how I feel and how I want to feel, between my fickle nature and a faithful God. I sing lies because I hope that somehow, the truth within them is strong enough to overpower my circumstance and conform me to itself. That's part of what it means to die to yourself, I guess. I live this Christian life, and I sing these songs, because I believe there's something there that is bigger and more worthy than what I can see in my world or in myself, and the closer I get to it, the more it will change me, whether I can tell the difference or not.
Like Hwin the mare said when she met Aslan, "Please, you are so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than be fed by anyone else."
A friend retweeted this Tozer quote a while ago, and I’ve been turning it over in my mind ever since. It’s a provocative quote, and I haven’t looked for its context yet because I wanted to think for a while about what I think it means before I found out what Tozer thinks it means. My first reaction was, “YES.” I’m a member of a contemporary worship team, and much of the music that our team does is fairly ecstatic. On the whole, contemporary worship music (if that can be said to be a single genre) is meant to help a worshiper express an intimate, personal and profound connection with God. Here are some lyrical excerpts from this coming Sunday:
My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean
Your breath fills up my lungs, now I’m free, now I’m free
Sin has lost its power, death has lost its sting
From the grave you’ve risen victoriously
Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
And I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way that he loves us
Oh, how he loves us!
Every day, it’s you I live for
Every day, I’ll follow after you
Every day, I’ll walk with you, my Lord
When you’re in agreement with these kinds of sentiments, these songs can be incredibly fun and fulfilling to sing. Even if the composition isn’t of the highest artistic caliber, there’s just something about singing words you agree with that makes you feel powerful, like you’re changing the fabric of the universe by proclaiming your truth into the air.
That’s if you’re in the mood for it. What about when you’re not? I can’t begin to count the number of Sundays when I have dragged myself to the front of the congregation, grumbling inside about how the half-hour drive to church cuts into my weekend sleeping, or the annoying habits of the other people on the worship team, or how fat I am, or how stupid this music is, or how terrible I am at playing the bass, or how angry I am that people in our community keep dying even as we’re praying for their healing, or how confused I get by contradictions in the Bible, or how I look out at the congregation and see people who look like they’d rather be at the dentist than in church, or any old thing that happens to cross my mind in the wrong way. In those times, having to sing something like, “Every day, I’ll walk with you, my Lord” is downright galling. I don’t want to walk with God. What has he done to deserve my devotion? What have I done to deserve his attention? Sometimes I can’t even tell if it’s me or God I’m frustrated with, but I’m pretty sure one of us sucks. Either way, singing about how we’re madly in love with each other feels like the most hypocritical thing in the world.
But the songs aren't lies because they aren't true; the songs are lies because *I* am not true. The lie is the chasm between my experience and my hope, between how I feel and how I want to feel, between my fickle nature and a faithful God. I sing lies because I hope that somehow, the truth within them is strong enough to overpower my circumstance and conform me to itself. That's part of what it means to die to yourself, I guess. I live this Christian life, and I sing these songs, because I believe there's something there that is bigger and more worthy than what I can see in my world or in myself, and the closer I get to it, the more it will change me, whether I can tell the difference or not.
Like Hwin the mare said when she met Aslan, "Please, you are so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than be fed by anyone else."
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Follow the leader
Today during the children's message (i.e., the sermon that actually gets heard), our pastor had a brief game of Follow the Leader with the assembled kids. Everybody waved their hands, hopped on one foot, and followed the pastor on a brief walk up and down the aisles of the church. When they were done, the pastor gathered the group and asked, "What do you need to play Follow the Leader?" One girl piped up, "A line!" A detail-oriented young lady after my own heart. The next boy's answer was, "You need a bunch of people to play so you can follow them."
This wasn't the answer the pastor was quite looking for, but I found it interesting. In the game of Follow the Leader, especially if you are in a line, you are probably following the person in front of you, not the actual leader. Person A, immediately behind the leader, has a responsibility to do exactly as the leader does in order for Person B to be able to follow. The further down the line you are, the more people you are relying on to have paid attention and performed faithfully what's been handed down to them.
This got me thinking about a conversation I've been observing on Facebook about gay marriage and whether an interpretation of Scripture that accepts and blesses gay couples is appropriate or not. One of the issues at the heart of this particular conversation is the question of how much of ourselves to bring when we interpret the Bible. Those who believe that God speaks to people through the Bible want to hold back any part of our reason that may be faulty and get in the way. I personally feel this way, because I know that my own mind is imperfect, beset by temptations, and not to be unilaterally trusted. On the other hand, we are commanded to love the Lord with all of our minds. That means we MUST wrestle intellectually with the content of Scripture if we are to discover its truths. And we must decide whether to trust, sift or outright shun the collected (and sometimes conflicting) insight of centuries of study done by those around us and before us.
Many people choose the last option, I think because it feels safer. Like in Follow the Leader, if I'm way back in the line, I'm wondering how many of the people ahead of me have possibly screwed up, and how I might be about to trip over something. It seems like a better idea to jump the line and just go right to the source. I can Follow the Leader just fine by myself.
However, that's not how the game works, and that's not how we work. There's just no way that I can come to the Bible, or to prayer or to worship, as a tabula rasa and expect to get the unfiltered goods without any historical or cultural bias influencing me on any level. That's not possible, nor is it more righteous. By attempting to isolate myself and my understanding in order to "hear more directly" from God, I am effectively saying that I believe I am more capable of receiving truth from God than anyone else is or has been. I am dangerously close to making an idol of my own insight. Yes, I must apply discernment, but that includes acknowledging that my relationship with God does not, and was not intended to, exist in a vacuum. Humans are made to be in community, in time as well as in space. For better or worse, we are followers, not only of God, but of each other. It requires an enormous amount of trust. I have to trust in the Leader to keep an eye out for the whole line and to lead us in a good path, but I also have to trust in the fallible, imperfect, untrustworthy person in front of me. The person behind me is doing no less.
This wasn't the answer the pastor was quite looking for, but I found it interesting. In the game of Follow the Leader, especially if you are in a line, you are probably following the person in front of you, not the actual leader. Person A, immediately behind the leader, has a responsibility to do exactly as the leader does in order for Person B to be able to follow. The further down the line you are, the more people you are relying on to have paid attention and performed faithfully what's been handed down to them.
This got me thinking about a conversation I've been observing on Facebook about gay marriage and whether an interpretation of Scripture that accepts and blesses gay couples is appropriate or not. One of the issues at the heart of this particular conversation is the question of how much of ourselves to bring when we interpret the Bible. Those who believe that God speaks to people through the Bible want to hold back any part of our reason that may be faulty and get in the way. I personally feel this way, because I know that my own mind is imperfect, beset by temptations, and not to be unilaterally trusted. On the other hand, we are commanded to love the Lord with all of our minds. That means we MUST wrestle intellectually with the content of Scripture if we are to discover its truths. And we must decide whether to trust, sift or outright shun the collected (and sometimes conflicting) insight of centuries of study done by those around us and before us.
Many people choose the last option, I think because it feels safer. Like in Follow the Leader, if I'm way back in the line, I'm wondering how many of the people ahead of me have possibly screwed up, and how I might be about to trip over something. It seems like a better idea to jump the line and just go right to the source. I can Follow the Leader just fine by myself.
However, that's not how the game works, and that's not how we work. There's just no way that I can come to the Bible, or to prayer or to worship, as a tabula rasa and expect to get the unfiltered goods without any historical or cultural bias influencing me on any level. That's not possible, nor is it more righteous. By attempting to isolate myself and my understanding in order to "hear more directly" from God, I am effectively saying that I believe I am more capable of receiving truth from God than anyone else is or has been. I am dangerously close to making an idol of my own insight. Yes, I must apply discernment, but that includes acknowledging that my relationship with God does not, and was not intended to, exist in a vacuum. Humans are made to be in community, in time as well as in space. For better or worse, we are followers, not only of God, but of each other. It requires an enormous amount of trust. I have to trust in the Leader to keep an eye out for the whole line and to lead us in a good path, but I also have to trust in the fallible, imperfect, untrustworthy person in front of me. The person behind me is doing no less.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Ye shall have a song
"Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the Lord." (Isaiah 30:29) (Also this)
About two weeks ago, I caught some sort of virus that has decimated my ability to speak without a coughing fit. So, on the advice of my section leader and other smart people, I am on vocal rest for the time being. Living alone and being an introvert, I'm used to going for hours or even a whole day without speaking out loud to anyone. It's easy when I'm by myself. It's a lot different at work. I get frustrated that people don't ask the right questions. I don't have enough time to write my response on the little white board I carry around (like Buffy!). I have to let opportunities go by to make a comment when I normally would have spoken up. I wish I could just text everybody.
The reason why I am not speaking now is because I am completely terrified of something happening to my voice. Like getting nodules and having to have surgery, which could seriously screw with my instrument, even if it goes well. I can't have that. I need my voice. There is nothing that I know how to do as well as I know how to be a choral singer. It is a deep intimacy, the sense of not quite knowing where the sound of my voice ends and the sounds of Katherine and Sara on either side of me begin. Have you ever stood in a room with 65 people and, without a visual cue or direction, you all took a breath at the same time and began singing as one? As if you were all reading each other's minds? It's kind of amazing. Or how about the sweet moment in worship band practice when the instruments cut out for a moment and all you hear is me and Dain and Heather belting out a tightly tuned triad with all our hearts? IT IS SO GREAT. Singing is a stress reliever and a source of joy. I can't imagine who I would be, how I would get through a year, without the ability to sing. I know there is much greater suffering in the world than that, but would God really be THAT cruel to allow my voice to be taken away by a stupid cold? (Obviously. He's allowed much worse.)
So, if it means muddling through a few days of work with hand signals, smiles, and clarifying follow-up emails, in order to save something so important to me, so be it. Maybe I'll set up an overhead projector in my office for the really complex conversations.
About two weeks ago, I caught some sort of virus that has decimated my ability to speak without a coughing fit. So, on the advice of my section leader and other smart people, I am on vocal rest for the time being. Living alone and being an introvert, I'm used to going for hours or even a whole day without speaking out loud to anyone. It's easy when I'm by myself. It's a lot different at work. I get frustrated that people don't ask the right questions. I don't have enough time to write my response on the little white board I carry around (like Buffy!). I have to let opportunities go by to make a comment when I normally would have spoken up. I wish I could just text everybody.
The reason why I am not speaking now is because I am completely terrified of something happening to my voice. Like getting nodules and having to have surgery, which could seriously screw with my instrument, even if it goes well. I can't have that. I need my voice. There is nothing that I know how to do as well as I know how to be a choral singer. It is a deep intimacy, the sense of not quite knowing where the sound of my voice ends and the sounds of Katherine and Sara on either side of me begin. Have you ever stood in a room with 65 people and, without a visual cue or direction, you all took a breath at the same time and began singing as one? As if you were all reading each other's minds? It's kind of amazing. Or how about the sweet moment in worship band practice when the instruments cut out for a moment and all you hear is me and Dain and Heather belting out a tightly tuned triad with all our hearts? IT IS SO GREAT. Singing is a stress reliever and a source of joy. I can't imagine who I would be, how I would get through a year, without the ability to sing. I know there is much greater suffering in the world than that, but would God really be THAT cruel to allow my voice to be taken away by a stupid cold? (Obviously. He's allowed much worse.)
So, if it means muddling through a few days of work with hand signals, smiles, and clarifying follow-up emails, in order to save something so important to me, so be it. Maybe I'll set up an overhead projector in my office for the really complex conversations.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Like a thief in the...something...
Take a moment and relive the little bit of joy known as the Serenity blooper reel.
SO GREAT, right? The cast is funny, and they obviously enjoy each other's company and their work. But there's something else here that tugs at my heart and my imagination. To me, this is our future. This is a picture of heaven. (And not just because Nathan Fillion is there, although, duh.)
Our lives are full of intensity and anguish. We yell and scream, we run about frantically, we fight our enemies. We fight our friends. We are tortured. We are killed. And then, suddenly, without warning or fanfare...we are laughing. Our pain vanishes as if it were never quite real to begin with, and our faces change. The people we were just locked in fierce combat with grin at us. We shake our heads and marvel for a brief moment at how foolish, how inconsequential, how pretend all our striving against each other was just now.
We are revealed.
(And then what? Have I just metaphored myself into scoring a point for reincarnation? Hm.)
SO GREAT, right? The cast is funny, and they obviously enjoy each other's company and their work. But there's something else here that tugs at my heart and my imagination. To me, this is our future. This is a picture of heaven. (And not just because Nathan Fillion is there, although, duh.)
Our lives are full of intensity and anguish. We yell and scream, we run about frantically, we fight our enemies. We fight our friends. We are tortured. We are killed. And then, suddenly, without warning or fanfare...we are laughing. Our pain vanishes as if it were never quite real to begin with, and our faces change. The people we were just locked in fierce combat with grin at us. We shake our heads and marvel for a brief moment at how foolish, how inconsequential, how pretend all our striving against each other was just now.
We are revealed.
(And then what? Have I just metaphored myself into scoring a point for reincarnation? Hm.)
Sunday, February 26, 2012
I don't want to be right
"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." -- 1 Corinthians 8:1
This week I'm going to try something new. I'm going to see if I can make it through a whole week without telling anybody that they are wrong.
This will be an extraordinary challenge for me. I am a naturally analytical thinker. When I am presented with an idea or a situation or a request, my first instinct is to start testing it to see how sound it is. Are there holes in this theory? What obstacles might stand in our way? Are any of the details inaccurate or contradictory? My mind immediately tries to find what might be wrong, so that it can be fixed, and we can all move forward together in the best possible way.
At least, I think that's why I do it. It is probably mostly why I do it, but if I examine my own mind in those moments, I realize there is another force at work within me. I NEED TO BE RIGHT. I need to be more right than you. I need to be the most rightest person in the room. I need you, my dear friend or colleague, to understand that I have the power in this conversation because of how very right I am. I'm so right that I immediately noticed several problems with what you were just saying to me. No big, though--I'll just casually drop my corrections into our conversation in this light, casual tone, and walk away knowing that we both know that I win because I'm right.
I know that I do this. I hate that I do this. I especially hate it when it is being done to me. I'm proud of what my mind is capable of, but I'm not proud of how often my insecurity overrides my intellect to use as a weapon in imaginary power struggles with the people closest to me. So this week, the cycle of one-upsmanship stops with me. I'm cutting myself off. Except in cases of extreme need or professional obligation, I will tell nobody that they are wrong. I will not edit them or correct them. I will not smirk behind anyone's back about innocent errors or missteps. I will try to be a person that people feel safe approaching and feel safe walking away from. I'll let you know how it goes.
This week I'm going to try something new. I'm going to see if I can make it through a whole week without telling anybody that they are wrong.
This will be an extraordinary challenge for me. I am a naturally analytical thinker. When I am presented with an idea or a situation or a request, my first instinct is to start testing it to see how sound it is. Are there holes in this theory? What obstacles might stand in our way? Are any of the details inaccurate or contradictory? My mind immediately tries to find what might be wrong, so that it can be fixed, and we can all move forward together in the best possible way.
At least, I think that's why I do it. It is probably mostly why I do it, but if I examine my own mind in those moments, I realize there is another force at work within me. I NEED TO BE RIGHT. I need to be more right than you. I need to be the most rightest person in the room. I need you, my dear friend or colleague, to understand that I have the power in this conversation because of how very right I am. I'm so right that I immediately noticed several problems with what you were just saying to me. No big, though--I'll just casually drop my corrections into our conversation in this light, casual tone, and walk away knowing that we both know that I win because I'm right.
I know that I do this. I hate that I do this. I especially hate it when it is being done to me. I'm proud of what my mind is capable of, but I'm not proud of how often my insecurity overrides my intellect to use as a weapon in imaginary power struggles with the people closest to me. So this week, the cycle of one-upsmanship stops with me. I'm cutting myself off. Except in cases of extreme need or professional obligation, I will tell nobody that they are wrong. I will not edit them or correct them. I will not smirk behind anyone's back about innocent errors or missteps. I will try to be a person that people feel safe approaching and feel safe walking away from. I'll let you know how it goes.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Pour some sugar on me
Yesterday as I was waiting for Fringe to come on, I saw, with the sound off, the tail end of Kitchen Nightmares. This is pretty much all I've ever seen of Kitchen Nightmares, so I don't really know what the show is about, but I think it's more about the personality of Gordon Ramsay than actual cooking. Yes? Anyway, it got me thinking about the huge amounts of food-related programming that is on now. I used to enjoy watching The Frugal Gourmet on PBS as a kid because Jeff Smith was so darn avuncular and his kitchen looked prettier than ours. But I never dreamed there would one day be so many celebrity chefs, cooking competitions, whole channels dedicated to food.
I never dreamed it, but C. S. Lewis did.
"Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? ... One critic said that if he found a country in which such striptease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving.... Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations." -- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
He uses this imaginary fixation on food as an extreme example to make a point about the state of sexuality, as if to say, "If we were as obsessed with food as we are with sex, look at the kind of nonsense we'd be getting up to!" And now it seems that we kind of are as obsessed with food as we are with sex, and we have complicated relationships with both. Pleasure and shame and biological drive and societal pressures get all mixed up with each other, and we hide certain choices and flaunt others, and all the while, we're not getting any healthier. I hesitate to say that if we all just obeyed the commands of God that our lives would be automatically better--because that's getting into some tricky prosperity gospel territory, about which I will no doubt blog at a later date--but I do think that there might be something askew in a society that has a dozen television shows about cake.
On the other hand, I've never known anybody who gave up sex for Lent, so I guess food still has a ways to go before we consider it REALLY important.
I never dreamed it, but C. S. Lewis did.
"Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? ... One critic said that if he found a country in which such striptease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving.... Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations." -- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
He uses this imaginary fixation on food as an extreme example to make a point about the state of sexuality, as if to say, "If we were as obsessed with food as we are with sex, look at the kind of nonsense we'd be getting up to!" And now it seems that we kind of are as obsessed with food as we are with sex, and we have complicated relationships with both. Pleasure and shame and biological drive and societal pressures get all mixed up with each other, and we hide certain choices and flaunt others, and all the while, we're not getting any healthier. I hesitate to say that if we all just obeyed the commands of God that our lives would be automatically better--because that's getting into some tricky prosperity gospel territory, about which I will no doubt blog at a later date--but I do think that there might be something askew in a society that has a dozen television shows about cake.
On the other hand, I've never known anybody who gave up sex for Lent, so I guess food still has a ways to go before we consider it REALLY important.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Because of their many words
Today I reflected on the Scripture reading from last night's service, an excerpt of Matthew 6 where Jesus appears to admonish his listeners to keep their religion to themselves. It's just one of the many, many things in the Bible that makes me do a double-take whenever I hear it. In a way, I get what he's saying. You shouldn't be looking for extra credit for acts of charity, kindness and repentance. As Pastor Don Draper would say, "THAT'S WHAT THE SALVATION IS FOR." Plus, I'm sure any one of us could come up with a painfully long list of vituperative asshats who claim the saving grace of Christ in one breath and then insult entire communities of fellow travelers in the next. Better that they keep their mouths shut and appear stupid than open them and make the world think that I'm an asshat, too, simply because we share a creed.
But how can I tell the difference between living in a spotlight for the sake of the spotlight and living there for the sake of the Gospel? Take this blog, for instance. It's partly for me, as a way to sort through some Lent-related thoughts and brush up my writing, which is always way harder than I think it will be. (I am constantly dismayed that being good at tweeting does not translate into more useful skills.) But it's also, if I'm being honest, something of an evangelism tool. I say evangelism, although I don't actually expect anybody to convert because of my scribblings here. It's more like me feeling that I have a responsibility to put some positive stuff out into the world with regard to Christianity. Hopefully stuff that is loving and thoughtful and genuine, since so many of Christ's most notable banner-carriers today are coming across as anything but. And I think that all people have the same responsibility, to be ambassadors for the things they believe in, so that even if we can't always agree, we can at least respect each other.
So, if it's okay with Jesus, I'll keep writing this blog. But maybe I won't tell many people about it.
But how can I tell the difference between living in a spotlight for the sake of the spotlight and living there for the sake of the Gospel? Take this blog, for instance. It's partly for me, as a way to sort through some Lent-related thoughts and brush up my writing, which is always way harder than I think it will be. (I am constantly dismayed that being good at tweeting does not translate into more useful skills.) But it's also, if I'm being honest, something of an evangelism tool. I say evangelism, although I don't actually expect anybody to convert because of my scribblings here. It's more like me feeling that I have a responsibility to put some positive stuff out into the world with regard to Christianity. Hopefully stuff that is loving and thoughtful and genuine, since so many of Christ's most notable banner-carriers today are coming across as anything but. And I think that all people have the same responsibility, to be ambassadors for the things they believe in, so that even if we can't always agree, we can at least respect each other.
So, if it's okay with Jesus, I'll keep writing this blog. But maybe I won't tell many people about it.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Accompany me on a journey with me
I got ashed tonight for the first time in several years. I've never been very faithful about observing Ash Wednesday and Lent. For one thing, it's hard for me to get excited about it. I feel like I already spend a pretty significant portion of my inner life obsessing over my mortality, my weakness and my guilt. Do I personally need to spend 40 days really honing my religious neuroses? For another, I have a tendency to overthink the discipline part of Lent. I worry about what I should give up, and whether I'm giving up enough or too much, and am I giving up things that really take the place of God in my life or am I just aiming for some self-improvement, and what if I set too high a goal and fail at it, but wouldn't God be more pleased if I really sacrificed one of my emotional crutches even if I end up falling back on it later, but Christianity isn't about success or failure, and should I also be adding in things like daily Scripture reading and prayer, but shouldn't I be doing those anyway, and oh look, I seem to have hurled myself out a window.
Oh, I hate Lent. And by Lent, I mean my brain.
But I'm doing Lent this year. In the years when I have opted not to pick up the burdens of Lenten observance and live in the freedom I'm told I have in Christ, I have found that Holy Week and Easter are much less meaningful. I've tried to cram 40 days of mindful preparation into a few, and the journey to the cross and the grave has felt, maybe unsurprisingly, rushed and shallow and weightless. And I don't like that. I want more. I want to feel the creeping dread as Jesus approaches Jerusalem. I want to hang my head in shame in front of a church full of waving palm branches because I know that in a few days, we will be demanding to see blood and punishment. I want to cringe when Jesus touches the hand of his beloved Judas. I want to weep when the flesh is being ripped from Jesus' body by whips and nails. I want to fall silent when the veil covering the Holy of Holies in the temple is torn. I want to cry and sing and flail my hands in joy and wonder when Mary gets to hold her son again, once dead and now more alive than anything that has ever lived. And I'm pretty sure that it is Lent, that difficult season of self-denial and self-examination, that will bring all of this into focus. I've tried and failed to shortcut it before. I'm not doing that again this year.
Of course, I also have to wonder that if I'm just doing this to have a more meaningful Easter experience, isn't that pretty self-centered and might God prefer if I--O HAI OPEN WINDOW.
Oh, I hate Lent. And by Lent, I mean my brain.
But I'm doing Lent this year. In the years when I have opted not to pick up the burdens of Lenten observance and live in the freedom I'm told I have in Christ, I have found that Holy Week and Easter are much less meaningful. I've tried to cram 40 days of mindful preparation into a few, and the journey to the cross and the grave has felt, maybe unsurprisingly, rushed and shallow and weightless. And I don't like that. I want more. I want to feel the creeping dread as Jesus approaches Jerusalem. I want to hang my head in shame in front of a church full of waving palm branches because I know that in a few days, we will be demanding to see blood and punishment. I want to cringe when Jesus touches the hand of his beloved Judas. I want to weep when the flesh is being ripped from Jesus' body by whips and nails. I want to fall silent when the veil covering the Holy of Holies in the temple is torn. I want to cry and sing and flail my hands in joy and wonder when Mary gets to hold her son again, once dead and now more alive than anything that has ever lived. And I'm pretty sure that it is Lent, that difficult season of self-denial and self-examination, that will bring all of this into focus. I've tried and failed to shortcut it before. I'm not doing that again this year.
Of course, I also have to wonder that if I'm just doing this to have a more meaningful Easter experience, isn't that pretty self-centered and might God prefer if I--O HAI OPEN WINDOW.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Come, let us reason together
My name is not Martha, but Martha is who I am.
Pretty soon I'm going to speak.
I hope someone is listening.
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