Blunder Gracefully

You know you're tired when you take the dog medication with your own.  Note to self:  do not multi-task when you're tired, especially when rationing out medications. It wouldn't be so bad if this wasn't the second time in 6 months I've had to call poison control to advise me on an accidental ingestion.  The first time was during the summer when I took a double dose of Malaria prevention medication before returning to Brazil all because I mis-read the directions on the package.  Like then, the cheerful person at the poison control call desk assured me that my dog's anti-inflammatory medication would have no ill effect.

Speaking of accidential poisioning... My husband was up late last night paying some bills on-line when he came across our well water test results from last March.  Who knows what possessed him to read over them at 11pm, and not say, sometime closer to March 23, when we received them.  Well, the poor man came to bed completely shaken and guilt-ridden when he discovered that we apparently had a significantly high amount of arsenic in our well water. I too was horrified to learn we'd been all been ingesting poison for five years! But before turning in he'd spent a couple of hours researching water filters that remove arsenic.  Finding a suitable unit, he ordered it.  In the morning it occurred to me to take a look over the test results for myself.  I read the results as "not detectable."  But what do I know?  So I called the lab and had this result confirmed.  Sure enough, turns out we have really great drinking water - not a bit of arsenic to be found.  Perplexed I went through the paperwork once more and found a SAMPLE results form; arsenic was illustrated as very high.  Uuummm.... cancelled the filter order in the nick of time.  An arsenic  water filter was not on my Christmas wish list.  Another wild blunder at the Gibbon's house by two people clearly a bit distracted.

My mother always used to say, never try to sew or knit or work on any project actually at bedtime or you'll just end up doing it over or totally ruining it.  I got the sewing and knitting part (not by actually listening to her sage advice but the old fashioned way - by ignoring her advice.) Second note to self: add bill paying to the list of things that should not be left to the end of the day.  Funny how as the years pass, that list seems to grow and grow.  How many times have I thought how nifty it would be to get the bread machine filled and the timer set before bed so that the family could have fresh-baked bread in the morning only to discover that I'd forgotten to add the yeast.  A brown brick smelling deceptively like yummy hot, fresh bread is quite a disappointment.  Late-night laundry has been recently included on this list.  Waking up to a load of pinks in the morning that used to be whites the night before has its drawbacks.  (If only I had remembered that I put that red rug in the washer earlier in the day and planned to do a dark load next....)  Ah, the mind is a terrible thing to lose.

Laughing at oneself (and with one's spouse) is the only salve that will cool this irritant.  It would be easy to land an internal wincing blow with that critical eye under which no error goes undetected.  But there really is no end to the episodes of mischief I unwittingly unleash on a daily basis. It seems wiser to share my blunders and laugh a little, or sigh a lot, as the case may be. After all, it is impossible to age gracefully if there's no grace involved.

There will be a healing

While at lunch with my colleagues the other day I heard a story that made me really think about the work of healing.  This pastor told the group about a visit he'd had with someone who was unwell. He explained that he had begun his prayer by saying:  "I'm going to anoint you with oil and there will be a healing.  I don't know if it will be physical, or emotional or spiritual, but there will be a healing."  He prayed for her and anointed her, invoking the holy spirit to heal her. He said that when the prayer ended, he heard her exhale a deep sigh - as if some unseen burden had dislodged itself and departed.  What intrigues me about this story is not the ending but how it begins.  It begins with the confidently spoken expectation of God's will to heal.  

Very early in my ordained life I was asked to pray the last rites for a woman I'd never met who was dying of cancer; she was in the worst pain I had ever seen.  I remember sitting alone with her in that stark hospital room feeling so completely inadequate.  As I opened the book that contained the prayers for anointing the dying, I wondered to myself, "Holy God, what good are these words? They are only words.  What good can come of my simply speaking words? Who am I that my words should carry such weight?"  Nonetheless, I proceeded.  When I came to the words of the rite: "Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world . . ."  she did.  She died a peaceful death, quiet, still, calm, restful, and free, wholly free.  People of faith expect prayers to be answered.  How bold, how beautiful a thing to say it up front. Today, right now, there will be a healing.

Naturally, we have specific things in mind when we pray, said or unsaid.  But sometimes our desires and expectations don't match the greater need.  What I wanted for this particular person at the end of her life was that she longer be in pain, and that her death, whenever it came, would be peaceful. But the goodness and mercy of God provided both.  

I recently read in an article in Christian Century magazine that many a good Christian spend their days searching for God's will for their lives.  It was pointed out that, in fact, no searching is necessary.  God's will has already been made quite clear:  that we love God with our whole heart, and love our neighbors as ourselves.  To conform our lives to these two ends can easily fill every waking moment of a lifetime.  Truly, we know what is required of us, but it is often easier to keep searching for that one right thing that will make all the rest of our lives make sense.  This perspective can really make a difference in the things we pray for as well.  Imagine if we framed our every prayer as an act of love for God with the sole intention of blessing the life of another in as much as we would wish to be as blessed?  Perhaps we would begin each prayer by saying, "By your hand, O God, there will be a healing."

The Perfection of Love

There are things that still rattle around in my mind years after hearing them. The most random things can take up residence and have an ongoing influence on the way I perceive life. Several years ago I heard a sermon by The Rev. Cn. Gregory Hinton, of St. Paul's Episcopal, Wellsboro on the occasion of a mid-week Lenten worship service. I can no longer remember the exact text, other than it was a psalm. But I do recall hearing one thing that has stuck with me. The core of his homily was that the opposite of faith is not disbelief, it is despair; to be without hope.

Recent national headlines announced the suicides of two college students, two in a single week. They were completely different situations, but equally tragic. What lies at the root of both is despair. Suicide is the raw product of despair; it is the fruit of hopelessness. However, there is another form of despair that is much more subtle and just as destructive.

One of the above situations included a young man who videotaped his unknowing dorm mate while he had a friend visiting. Shortly after a video of an intimate moment between two young men in the "privacy" of the dorm room was then distributed over the internet. The suicide of the victimized room mate followed shortly. The despair of the victim could not be more clear or understandable. The despair of the indiscreet voyeur not so.

What motivates a person to intentionally inflict pain and suffering on another? Fun? A degenerate sense of humor? Notoriety? Popularity? Insecurity? Meanness? Some of these things may apply, but it is despair that lies at the root of them all; a vacuum in which there is the absence of faithfulness in anything beyond one's self. Only despair openly entertains such aggressive acts against another. Despair suggests a world view without hope. A world view that begins at one's feet and ends at the far end of one's own shadow; self-satisfaction, self-centered, self-obsession, self-degradation, self-loathing, self-hating, self-destruction. Despair disallows empathy for another. It openly contradicts rational responses and actions. It leaves behind a trail of disaffected perpetrators and an avalanche of perplexed victims.

There is an antidote, a plunge into the antithesis of despair; its rival and archenemy: Faith. Faith in something bigger and authentically better then anything that we can capture, position or manipulate for our own short-sighted motives. There is no perfect definition for this bigger and better object of reverence and awe, other than, perhaps Love (with a capital L). The love (lower case l) we know in this earthly realm is filled with promise and joy, but is also hapless and unjust, often unqualified, and falls quite short of the bigger and authentically better Love. This Love does not get caught up in the slippery slopes of our lives; it remains constant and sure, presumes nothing, but expects much. Much care and concern for those who share our world, many acts of kindness for nothing more than the ongoing perpetuation of itself. It is not negated by acts of despair, but absorbs them like a dry sponge and expunges them. It is the only perfect thing we'll ever know in this life. Call Love what you wish; the God of believers; an undefined object of reverence for the Spiritually inclined; Hope for the disenchanted and disillusioned. But fall in love with Love and dispense with despair.

Running with Foxes and Mountains Lions

There is no shortage of nice dirt roads to run in the rural area where I live in Central PA.  But there is a particular route I enjoy the most.  It's familiar and I know what I should be able to expect from my body as I bound over the terrain.  It's a mile and a half of gentle downhill or flat running with only one mildly demanding hill followed by a mile and a half of steady uphill and two challenging hills.  (And there's no shame in walking I say to myself frequently!)  It's a good workout that I can knock out in about 35 minutes.  From this basic route there are ample possible additions to increase the run by any number of miles.  I trained for a half marathon using this basic route and its variations earlier this year.  

Many runners I know don't enjoy running over the same ground day after day, week in week out.  They complain that always running in the same place is boring.  Perhaps.  But over months of repetition it is more like being in the company of an old friend than performing a tired routine.  The most surprising thing about this road is that it is always changing - every day it looks different.  With four distinct seasons there are of course the obvious shifts - weather being the most noteable.  Though the real changes are those that are not among the obvious.  Once a year the township grates the road, oohh, aahh.  At another time, they cover it with gravel (ugh!) at which time it become an obstacle course.  In the spring the fields are worked with liquid manure (perfume, we call it out here) and later turned under.  Another run and they've been planted with either corn or hay or clover.  Week by week the crops grow.  By later summer I can't even see over the tall corn stalks that line the road.  I think of all the scary movies I've seen where people are trapped or lost in corn fields.  Then one day, the fields will have been harvested leaving only brown stalks stick up a foot in the dark, rich soil.  The fall colors across the hills are stunning.  Another palate has been painted.  In the early morning fog layers the valleys between the hills.  Everything seems so crisp and clean.  Running mid-morning in the summer requires the companionship of my best friend, DEET.  I giggle to myself when I think how it must look to see this middle aged woman zig-zagging all over the road while beating off deer flies with a baseball cap.

And then there are the other, more tame animals with whom I share the road.  The birds vary from very small to the very noisy.  The larger hawks that sit on big round hay bales and watch for scurrying mice on newly hayed fields and the huge blue heron that sits unmoving in the creek at the end of the road are particular favorites.  Ground hogs are considered a nuisance by the farmers but to me they are just fellow inhabitants of this lovely stretch of country road.  This spring as the ground began to thaw and the buds grew to bursting on the trees there appeared a litter of young red foxes. My husband and I reckoned that the nest was near a shallow gully with a stream that runs under the road.  Undisturbed they played in the lightly traveled road, always staying near to home base.  Mama fox was always well hidden though doubtlessly close by.  Any sign of another life form or engine noise would cause them to scatter into the safe cover of roadside brush.  But the days grew warmer and longer and there have been no more sightings.

This week as the leaves began to fall from the trees en masse, a most unusual sighting occurred: a small litter of mountain lion cubs.  Playfully romping together and bounding over one another, twice they were seen in the early morning hours.  While I've seen these interesting animals only by car and so far not on foot, I am keenly aware of exactly where I saw them.  Seeing them from the safety on an enclosed car is probably a good thing; I'm not sure how momma mountain lion would feel about an up close encounter with (dinner) a lone runner and her cubs.  Actually, I'm far more afraid of the animals behind the wheels of their vehicles that don't seem to notice that runner they almost hit as they zoomed by!  Nonetheless, as  I run I train my eyes round particular bends in the roads and strain to see as far ahead as I can in hopes of a National Geographic moment!  In truth, I'm happy to settle for curiously peering down the newly created wear paths marked by the broken stems and tall grasses from these young, wild residents with whom I share this road.  This ever-changing, never dull, never boring three miles of God's perfection.

Agin' and Changin'

I have developed a whole new respect for my elders - who are, by the way, also now my contemporaries. I never thought I'd be middle aged. A decade was spent living in a kind of bizarre denial: a timeless place of suspended animation. In this surreal existence I was busy raising children and figuring out my life's calling, returning to academia and starting over, again. In the last few years life has stabilized into a predictable routine of daily duties and I've had time to assess not just what I'm doing but the person behind all the doing.

Over time the rude tide of reality slowly crept up and washed away all those years of kind denial. In effect, I woke up one day and realized I was no longer young. Not old. But definitely not young. The nail in the coffin came about a year ago when a friend innocently mentioned that, of course, at my age, I would no longer be having any more children. Now let's be clear, that is a true statement. But the implication is that I have surpassed the child-bearing age-range norm. Wow, I never thought I'd be looking back on my childrearing days in the past tense. My mother recently reflected on her view from age 86. She told me she never thought she'd have a daughter who was 47.

But this tide of age-awareness has churned up more insulting plumes then BP oil in the Gulf waters. I'm aghast that my memory, once nearly photogenic, is a quite a bit less reliable these days. The simplest words elude me without warning. Hunger, thirst and lack of sleep acerbate the problem like never before. Misplacing items is a daily occurrence. The only condolence is that I am not alone. Every woman I know in my demographic is in the same boat. I've been promised that in a few years my memory will return again; I'm hardly reassured. I used to ignore the advice about picking up exercise, doing crosswords or learning a foreign language to improve memory. Those certainly are good ideas for people a lot older than me, I glibly thought. But in recent months, and not so glibly, I've picked up two of the three aforementioned items. And yes, I'm relieved to report that they do help a bit. If I'm wrong, well then I'll be the most in-shape, bilingual cotton brain you'd ever have the pleasure to know.

I'm also coming to terms with the reality that the body I once simply wanted to relieve of a few pounds, will not, ever, return to pre-pregnancy-double-c-section bikini worthiness. And yet, that's been THE GOAL all these years. Though I never realized it as much as I do now. What are women who are continually bombarded with lots of beautiful younger women in magazines and on TV expected to do now, at the age we have now so gracefully acquired? I look at pictures of myself taken 20, or even 10 years ago, and I wonder why I was so critical of myself. Heck, from this side of the time-line that looks pretty good.

The other day I opened a fortune cookie and read that I would soon "come into perfection." Given the issues of agin' and the ensuing changin' that has so rudely invaded my reality: I doubt it. But it was certainly an amusing fortune to crack open for the author of this particular blog! If there is perfection to be found, it is in those ever-so rare moments in which we find ourselves blissfully, surprisingly content to be exactly who we are in that solitary, fractional frame of time and space.

Seeing in parts

I have a very old horse that doesn't winter over well. When I asked the vet to guestimate his age, she looked in his mouth (which is the best clue) and said, "Ancient." For the last five years at the onset of warmer, spring weather, I work at putting weight back on him and easing out his winter coat to encourage the shorter summer coat to come in. This process that takes months. And just when he's in top condition winter comes. This year was worse than ever. After some blood tests and assurance that his severe thinness was a nutritional matter and not an indication of organ failure, I reviewed his diet, again, and began on yet another aggressive new track. He's coming back nicely, but he's no show horse to be sure.

Last week, while I was grooming him after a day of being turned out in the pasture, I had a little revelation. Horses, unlike dogs and cats, are large animals. When they are being groomed, the groomer can only see one area at a time. When brushing his chest area one might think him a golden retriever by the length, color and softness of the hair. His mane and tail are lovely. His legs are handsome and tone. But there are other parts that are hard to see; bald patches where the long hair has fallen out all at once and the short coat is slow in coming in. The area around his eyes is dark and mostly hairless and his temples are deeply sunken, totally bald and scaley. Yet, his feet are good, he's very sound. When his weight is good, he's a wonderful horse to ride.

I decided to stop looking at the whole of him, instead celebrating the health and wholeness of each part of him where that was real and true. It seemed unfair to discount his strides of recovery by the parts that are not fully well yet. He is, in fact, more that the sum of his parts. Each part requires consideration - further care or a simple thanksgiving. To step back and view only the whole is sometimes too much to bear. It is too overwhelming. After all, when we began the build up three months ago, the only part to celebrate was the wellness of his feet - that he was sound and able to walk. How many more parts have now joined in this celebration of rebounding life!

This seems a better way to look at a lot of things in life. Sometimes learning to see accurately is not to strain to grasp the view of the whole, but to learn to see in parts. Those of us bent on seeking perfection know that it can never be found on a grand scale. But it just might occur in the small places; where the gaze is fixed on a frame of reference so narrow that one cannot tell a horse's coat from that of a dog. But what a soft and thick and wonderful patch of hair it is - regardless of who it belongs too!

This is especially useful in relationships. I find it difficult to look at my parent's life, or health, or happiness in terms of the whole. It threatens to tear my heart from its mooring. But when I am with them I celebrate the parts of them that are content, or healthy, or patient, or secure, or proud, or grounded, or otherwise well. There are enough dark eyes and bald patches that need care and attention; and they are not the whole story, only a part. So I chose to see in parts and celebrate that which speaks in terms of the quiet joy and wonder life, even while embedded in the least desireable circumstances and silent ponderings of 'Why?' Perhaps this is what God extends to us as grace, or perhaps just mercy.

Parenting and Perfection

There are some words that should not be in the same sentence; like Parenting and Perfection. There is an art to parenting and parenting teenagers pushes all the boundaries of imagination and creativity. Every parental decision has consequences that are often immediately apparent. Every day there are new challenges, calls to make, boundaries to set, rules to enforce or rethink - each one to be tested and stretched to the breaking point.  The trap is thinking that there is some magic perfect answer; that there is one right path, one right thing to do and say in every situation and that it should come naturally.  I read some where, very recently, though my mind is a sieve these days so I have no recall of where that might have been, that decisions are easy if your ethics are clear.  So I ask myself, "Does that mean that I don't have clear ethics because I wrestle over my apparent inability to see what the "right" response to each situation is supposed to be?"  The truth is, that being 16 in 2010 is not the same as being 16 in 1978; but I have not yet received the updated parenting handbook.  

A year ago, the parish I serve updated their by laws.  They had last been updated in 1983.  All the references to "vestrymen" were changed to reflect the fact that women now serve on vestries.  And the he, who would have been the "vicar," was replaced by he/she, the "rector." This is to say that in 1978 or even in 1983... I, as a teen, was not afforded the opportunity to even serve as an acolyte much less full membership with equal opportunity in the church.  I could, however, serve on the altar guild - somebody's got to wash the linens and polish the brass! For both good and for ill, the world is not the same place. So every day, I struggle with how to be a product of my age co-existing with those born in this new world; in particular, those I am trying to prepare for life on their own.

In 1983, women, much less girls, did not call boys, and there was some civility in youthful discourse with adults.  Cursing in public was considered offensive.  One cannot claim teen sex did not happen, that would be naive, but it was not quite so obvious.  Given such a radical departure from cultural norms, and the speed at which this has occurred, is it no wonder we old guys, who just don't get it, are second guessing every line we draw in the sand.  What's worse, I no more than draw the line then the tide comes in or the wind blows and the line has to be redrawn in a different place.  

Comparing my parenting style with others is of utterly no use either.  There is no one set of definitive rules to fit every kid in every situation; beyond the obvious: "Thou shalt not drink and drive." For instance, to one parent, letting a kid sleep away a school day whose exhausted from the daily demands of existing in the world of high school, work, and sports as a daughter, student, singer, athlete, employee and girl friend, is outrageous and completely unacceptable. (I tend to react to this place first, because the 1978 handbook, on which I was raised, did not allow for such possibilities.) Other parents, the ones who got the advanced copy of the recently updated handbook, are cool with the reality that teen bodies need more sleep than the rest of us and have the unreal ability to simply chill and trust their kid.  I'm still waiting for my advanced copy to arrive (my mail, of course), and then I'll have all the answers. I'll know exactly what the right thing to do and say; when its appropriate to be enraged and when its really no big deal in the great scheme of things.

But for today, my kid's at home sleeping because she is so exhausted from simply being 16 with all the expectations and the internal and external struggles that come with it, she's physically ill. So I'm trying to chill about it while I write my own sub-chapters, notes to self, and addendum because by the time that new handbook gets here, it will already be out of date - and I've got about four more years before I'll be sitting here again with the next kid.

Holy Week and other contemplations of the universe

This week physicists succeeded in the high-speed collision of two atoms. It's been years in the making; it will be years before we know exactly what this means. But one goal of the experiment, which is could more aptly be described as an expedition of sorts, is to discover the "God particle." That is, the exact cause of the creation of the universe; the Genesis moment. We religious types are inclined simply to accept the statement, "God created," but others have a driving curiosity that speaks more to God's first act: There was darkness. Then there was light. The word 'create' is absent from this statement; this first act of creation. God creates much over the next few days, but the text suggests something profound and unexplainable occurred first. What was this force that was so great that it produced light out of eons of utter darkness; a light into which all else could be created and have its place in the order of earthly life?

That was one of the headlines news stories last night; here's another. A 15 yr. old girl moved to the US from Ireland sometime last summer. From the time of her arrival to her new school in Mass. she experienced continuous and unrelenting bullying from her new classmates. No amount of raising the alarm seemed to move the establishment to intervention. On January 14 of this year she came home from school and hung herself. Now we're paying attention. Does it not seem odd that the whole world is watching scientist smash together two atoms to find out how creation came to be while kids torment one another to the point that death seems a viable option? One twitter reaction to the story was to ask, "Why do we always have to blame someone, maybe she had mental issues?" I wonder, had she had a diagnosed mental condition, should her tormentors feel less guilty about their deeds? Should the school feel less responsible for not intervening? Should we all feel better, somehow, because maybe, she was just too weak, too fragile to adjust to such hostility? Dr. Phil said he supported the criminal charges against the nine students suspected of involvement. He noted that it was not his intent to ruin their lives, but there had to be some accountability. Truth be told, their lives were forever altered the moment they discovered the unimaginable consequence of their unbearable, cruel intentions. To be convicted would be a relief, I imagine.

In the midst of Holy Week; these were last nights headline stories. For Christians, this is a time set apart in which we are intended to contemplate the epitome of human cruelty and the inability or unwillingness of institutions to do justice. This dark contemplation is set amidst the triumpal stories of Lenten remembrance: stories from Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy. Stories that are intended to remind us that what God creates is good, is intended for good use, and is gifted with good intentions. This week's headlines are not unrelated. They tell a parallel story that illistrates what happens when two random atoms collide: whole universes are created or destroyed in a single nanosecond.

The negotiation of will

As I continue my 1/2 marathon training I've noticed a clear distinction between two voices in my head. Sort of the angel on one shoulder and devil on the other. One is the voice of boundless possibilities. The other is the voice of restraint. Depending on the moment, however, the voice of boundless possibilities can be the voice of recklessness and temptation; the voice of cautious restraint can inhibit necessary discomfort that promotes strengthening. Increasingly, I'm finding that when I'm running, or even working myself up for a run, the battle of wills ensues. One urges me to go further, harder, faster, the other, assures me that unbridled training will result in preventable injury. Both are right, of course. It's always a matter of deciding which one is more right at any particular moment. Decisions, decisions.

These are not new voices. I sometimes wonder if they haunt perfectionists more than other people. It seems that each day, each activity, is negotiated between these two poles of completely rational thought. It's exhausting actually. No, I don't wonder if I'm schizoid. However, I do worry about those who don't argue with themselves; those who have no inner conflict about how much is too much, and what is not enough, when its time to go, time to stay, time to talk, time to be quiet, time to get up, time to go to sleep, what is helpful and what is hurtful.

On a larger scale, this bouncing back and forth, speaks to the ease of my life. I mean, I have choices. I have the luxury of deciding how far I'll run on any given day, at any given moment once on the road - after all, I'm not in Darfur running for my life. I can decide when I go to bed, how much sleep will be enough, when and what I eat. And the necessary decision is when to stop eating. The stand off is between that old tape of my mother's voice reminding me of the starving children in the world as I dutifully clean my plate, and the instructional voice of discipline which weighs more heavily on leaving a portion on the plate to keep from eating to discomfort.  By far, most of the world does not harbor such debate.  In light of this alternative reality, it seems shamefully trivial to speak of it. 

I do not know why I was born into a life marked far more by abundance then scarcity. I only know that I this is where I find myself.  The boundaries of my entire world are determined by inner conflicts of no worldly consequence.  The management of abundance is choice.  This is not to say that choice in the context of abundance is irrelevant.  Its just that, in contrast, when you live with few choices, each decision bears substantial more weight; to chose not to eat this day may be a lifesaving decision in a week's time.  To pretend to understand such choices would be a profound act of disrespect.  

So I will stick to pondering my own trivial negotiations of will; how many hours to work in a given day or week, what to cook for dinner, the daily management of those things for which I am responsible, what time to turn in at night and when to rise in the morning, and the ongoing discernment of wise acts from certain foolishness.  And I'm holding out in hope that these seemingly immaterial decisions, even in their minuteness, do, at the end of the day, contribute to a better whole. That a life truly well-lived does not, because it cannot, take abundance for granted. That choice might be a powerful and constructive presence in a world deconstructed by avarice and apathy.  That I might live faithfully under the assumption that each choice matters.   

Darning Socks

I brought socks to darn to knitting group the other day.  I've never darned socks before, why would I?  My socks are from Wal-Mart.  They generally last two years before they are holey or stretched out and are retired to the circular file.  Socks are cheap, and their repair is not on my top ten list of important things to do this week.  

But a few years ago my mother gave me a pair of wool socks she made many, many years ago. She had worn them, washed them by hand and darned them with care as the years passed.  I've now worn them for four years.  This fall when I unpacked the winter clothes from their bins I noticed that holes had developed in the toes.  What to do?  These are not the kind of socks you just throw away; they are meant to be fixed. They are meant to out-live me.  

So I took them to the group where I was sure there was enough talent and experience to pass on this nearly lost tradition.  Learning to darn was not to be a problem.  Finding the yarn to match was a different story.  These knee-high socks with a cable running up the sides are light gray. The meeting was held, on this particular week, at a yarn shop.  Light gray, fingerling weight yarn; how hard could this be? After half an hour scouring the yarn bins, it was clear that no such color was to be found, nor any other shade of gray.  I was totally deflated.  

As I prepared to put the socks away and begin an Internet search for just the right shade of gray I was lovingly reminded that I was the author of a particular blog, a blog for perfectionists in recovery.  Hint. Hint.  The irony was so absurd I burst out laughing as my face reddened.  The group reminded me that I was repairing the toes, no one would see the repair, except me.  Of course, that was the problem.  I would know.  Using any other color had not entered my mind as a possibility.  To use another color would be to alter her work, mar these hand-made artful creations.  It felt disrespectful.  But practicality won the moment.  In a second trip to the shop scanning the yarn bins with new eyes, searching for creative possibilities, I found a medium blue with gray woven in. A compromise I could live with.  The darning lesson was successful, but the result far from perfect, and I'm not referring to the contrasting blue yarn.  Still, mission accomplished.

As I worked on the socks, turning them inside and out and back again I noticed the areas darned in year's past.  The yarn was dark gray.  Funny, I never noticed that before.  Seems practicality had won out for the sock maker as well.  In a perfect world, enough yarn would have been set aside, in a place that would not be forgotten, so that each darning could incorporate the original yarn.  But these socks were not created, nor ever mended, in the perfect conditions I had imagined for them.  

What ever is, really? 

Syllables of Surrender

Sam Portaro, author of "Daysprings:  Meditations for the weekdays of Advent, Lent and Easter," wrote the following in a Lenten entry: "Only by placing our selves in service to God and neighbor do we restore authority to our religion. Only by placing ourselves in service to truth do we restore authority to our prophetic judgment and the authority of our teaching.  Only by placing ourselves in service to one another do we restore the authority of the Christ we proclaim." (Cowley Publications, 2001)  

The most significant change in culture has been the systematic undermining of all of the former pillars of authoritative certitude: government, the educational institution, the medical profession, and the Church, over the last 50 years.  My mother, who is in her 80's, still relies, with complete and unquestioning trust, in her doctor's word.  She would not consider even taking a daily vitamin without his or her permission to do so. Those of us, of a later generation, are not nearly so trusting; not least of all due to the insurance companies who now have the power to overrule a doctor's order for treatment, severely shorten a hospital stay, and determine which medication you will be prescribed based on what they are willing to pay.  Confidence in a voice of authority that once went unquestioned has been undermined severely as the sick are forced to become far more self-reliant on a variety of alternative healing options which are rapidly growing to meet a tsunami of demand.

A different set of circumstances has corrupted the foundations of the Church's voice of authority, but the result is the same.  We lost our right to claim authority the moment we put our own survival as the priority.  Fear is what motivates us now; fear that the Church is irrelevant (and in many cases it is), fear that the Church is indifferent (guilty, as charged - more times than it or we would wish to admit), we fear that the world has passed us by (it has). The Church's attempts to be relevant and meaningful with loud and arrogant boasts of ultimate truth result only in greater and greater reductions of credibility.  Alternative sources of spiritual nourishment are readily available and are being lapped up by hungry and hurting people who, in another time, crowded into church pews.  The Church wrings its hands and desperately puts its energy into saving itself, secretly worrying that perhaps God has abandoned his bride.

But as is the nature of grace, the Church's derailed sense of purpose, has not obstructed God's ability to function in faith communities truly willing to die in order to live.  The fruits of their labors are wholesome examples of what Christianity is meant to do and be.  This way forward is hardly perfect; it is the untrod, unmarked road; difficult to navigate and filled with uncertainty, soul searching discernment that determine painful decisions of change.  

Even the most cursory reading of Exodus reminds us of the perils of the journey as well as the temptation to give up, or worse, turn back. The theme of trust in God's faithfulness and not our own is central.  God has not abandoned the Church. God is alive and well in vibrant faith communities all over the world who have given away their authority in order to reclaim it. In them can be seen the purity of God's purpose in the purity of the motivations of God's people. But this is not yet the norm for the larger Church who remains primarily focused on self-survival, spawning internal division, scarcity-motivated actions and attitudes, and competition for resources. Under such conditions what do we expect God to do?

Ironically, the authority the Church claims is and has never been ours to possess.  It is the Word spoken when we follow God out into the world, a world that is now a stranger to the Church. The true voice of authority speaks in syllables of surrender:  surrender to the possibility that the structures that once served us well no longer work and must be dismantled, surrender to visions of doing and being the body of Christ in ways we do not imagine to be viable vehicles for doing Godly work, surrender to the possibility of abject failure, surrendering our will to a God we can't control or manage while devoting our energy first and foremost to the care and well-being of complete strangers, surrender to the risk of losing all we presently know as 'the Church' and allowing God to reign over it, at last.     

Learning to run

Recently, I began training with a local group for a half marathon.  Most of us are beginning runners and the leaders are kind and supportive.  As each of us begins to accept the authentic offering of encouragement and sincere absence of judgment between us, we are poised to bond as a team.  Race day is May 1.

At our weekly team meeting a week ago the long-time runners described their experiences in a variety of races.  The common thread between each of their stories was the encouragement they received from complete strangers; the supporting fans who line the streets and urge the runners on and pass out drinks at the mile markers.  They spoke of the strangers we would encounter who will call out our names (seeing it printed above the race number) to give us encouragement to keep going.  This is at once embarrassing and welcoming.  I find it somewhat painful to be seen at all, much less to have my name called out, and yet, a part of me finds this unabashedly wonderful. 

Running is a new thing for me.  God only knows what has possessed me.  I ran a few times on a whim last summer.  But then I went to Brazil for a couple of weeks (I couldn't run in an unfamiliar place, too scary), then came the rainy season, then the winter cold (below zero, in that neighborhood cold) followed by the occasional ice storm and inconvenient snow showers.  Who could run in that?  So I stopped running but planned to get back to it in the Spring.  

But a few weeks ago I noticed an ad to train locally for a 1/2 marathon in early May.  Since walking/running is also acceptable, I signed up.  So far, so good.  This week I have run a total of 12 miles, up from six last week.  One night I ran 2.5 miles from dusk into darkness (note to self, get reflective gear) in the rain, at about 30 degrees.   Why?  Don't know, just couldn't not run. And it wasn't to try out the nifty running duds I bought. Strangely, my legs have begun to speak to me.  In 47 years they've never said a word, now they can't shut up. They say:  run, run, run like the wind, run to feel like your moving, run to get somewhere faster, just run to see how far you can go, run to stop getting old, run to hear yourself breath, run to think clearly, run to find out what it would be like to be a runner.  

Slow and steady wins the race, is my running mantra, keeping me from exhausted despair when the leg cramps start and I notice that I'm exhaling more spit than air.  Still, I'm amazed at how much stronger I've become.  To be clear, I'm still bringing up the rear of the pack on the weekend team runs.  Indeed it is wonderful thing to be greeted by the better, faster runners who made it in first after I've completed the goal for that run/walk which is always a mile longer than the week before.   Slow and steady wins the race.

This is not a bad thing to say to oneself in this hurried world full of expectations of what is needed and when (yesterday, generally).  At a clergy wellness conference I attended a couple of years ago there was an intimidating (unintentionally, no doubt) long-time pastor in the small group I was assigned. (FYI, for those who don't know this critical piece of information: perfectionist don't do well in small groups where they are confronted with their inexperience and subsequent ignorance.) After quite some time, to avoid the continued appearance that I was both dumb and mute, I cautiously expressed an onset of anxiety due to a bout of sudden growth in the small congregation I was serving.  I said that I was worried about making new people feel welcomed and a part of the community as soon as possible.  This experienced, very together, very Californian, very cool rector with surfer blond, wavy hair with a thin braid down the back, advised, "Slow down. You've got time."  

He is one of those people who is perfectly happy with who they are.  My mother used to say this is being comfortable in your own skin.  He was a runner too.  I'd see him out running (5 miles, he mentioned once) in the warm, late afternoon before we all gathered for dinner.  Is it possible to totally admire someone while burning with envy of them? At that time I had never run, nor entertained the possibility.  Run? Are you kidding, who has that kind of time?  Turns out he ran a few miles at a time, a few days a week, (his parish had grown from 25 to over 500 in the last several years, he mentioned in passing). OMG, what am I doing here?

I later realized I was there for a variety of reasons.  Foremost, I was there for some necessary emotional cleansing and to receive permission to hit the reset button.  To that end, I was there to hear those profound words, "Slow down. You have time." And while unknown to me at the time, I was there to learn to run.

These days I run as far as I can, slow and steady, because I have found the time.  There has been no loss or sacrifice incurred; most days, more gets done, with more creativity and deeper breaths.  All the while I have been discovering both a sense of adventure and a deep reserve of untapped courage. I never thought I'd run farther and farther distances from the safety of my cozy home, alone, in the dark, in the rain, in the cold, in the snow, skipping over patches of ice, on roads I don't know well.  I never thought I'd run with people I would otherwise engage with envy (from whom I would secretly recoil in self-defeat). I never thought I'd learn to run to learn to live.   

An Apologetic for Blogging

The movie, Julie and Julia, was a big hit this year.  Its the story of a woman who is not particularly happy with her life; in a job she doesn't enjoy and in the midst of an unsettling move. For distraction, if not for self-help, she decides she will cook her way through Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking, one recipe a day.  Her husband suggests that she start a blog and write about her experience.  So she decides to try it.  At first she is convinced that no one is reading her blog so it seems a pointless exercise.  Shortly, however, she begins to receive a few comments and before long people are sending her hard-to-find items for upcoming recipes.  She begins to realize that she is in a very large conversation with people she doesn't know and is encouraged day by day by their enthusiasm. Later in the movie, during an argument, her husband expresses his regret for suggesting the blog.  He says that it is nothing but self-gratification for what has become a narcissistic obsession.  She points out that that is exactly what blogs are: people writing about THEIR experiences or opinions, with the assumption that other people will find them interesting or helpful.  

Haunting me ever since, I began to consider my own motivations for blogging.  After several months of mulling this over, I have resolved that I write these little slices of life as a way of acknowledging grace where it exists, and sometimes thrives, in the imperfect struggles of daily life. I imagine that some of the pictures I attempt to paint may not resonate, but perhaps the struggles that exists within them might. I believe that what binds us together is our obsession with self, and of getting self right, in every aspect.  But we can't get it right, we never will.  And it makes us unhappy as individuals, and as a nation.

In the individualistic sea that we swim in, national unhappiness might not seem important. "What does my neighbor's unhappiness have to do with me?  Deal with it," would be a predictable response.  However, a recent sociological study has revealed that an average of six people are affected by a single individual who is unhappy. Other, older studies report a high level of unhappiness in the general US population, primarily expressing itself as deep loneliness, addiction, varying degrees of depression, self-destructive behaviors and suicide.  It is a well-known fact that despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world we are among the most unhappy and most unsatisfied with our lives on the whole.  

Several years ago I facilitated a Christian mother's support group in a very wealthy parish in a very wealthy community.  I was genuinely surprised, and very saddened, by the level of loneliness and despair revealed in this group of predominately young moms.  All the amenities money can buy often comes with the unforeseen byproducts of alienation and isolation.  This phenomenon of sadness, in other words, can not be defined by socio-economic status. Though I am hardly an expert, I have done enough pastoral work and have been paying attention to this topic long enough to make the educated guess that we are in an epidemic of loneliness.  If this is the case, then I think that social networking is and will continue to play a significant role in our collective recovery.  

To this end, I think blogging might just have a useful, if not, perhaps, therapeutic role on two levels.  First, like Julie, who blogged her way out of loneliness, despair and depression by daily posting her cooking adventures with Julia Child (despite Julia's total rejection of her efforts to connect existentially with her, ouch) those of us who blog find it a surprisingly helpful way to connect with people, many of whom we've never met but with whom we find some common ground on which to walk together for even a short while. Secondly, reading blogs is totally fascinating.  It's like reading mini-articles on any topic your heart desires, written by someone from your neighborhood or someone across the planet.  Totally cool.  

Clearly this is not an equal substitute for being with another person, face to face.  But what the Internet world, and in particular, the young adults who are so adept as social networking are teaching us, is that in the realm of complicated human relationships this is an additional and valid way to connect us in ways never before possible in all of human existence.  It is not without inherent risks, but so is driving a car.  Few of us, are willing to give up driving because the benefits outweigh the risks.

My pre-teen son plays an on-line game in which he meets and interacts with people from all over the world.  How cool is that?  (Monitoring required, I would hope this goes without saying.)  But he enjoys telling me about his new friends (who might also be enemies, given the gaming strategy at that particular moment), their ages and what they comment to each other about.  If crudity or instances of TMI appears (ie., "Hey dude, I'm soooo hungover, got smashed last night," de-friending is necessary, but this, happily, is rare.  By far, most of the participants think it is as rad to play a game and get to know other people from all over the world as he does. 

So kudios to Julie, whose movie I did not particularly enjoy, I must admit, but who gave me permission to move beyond the limits of my understanding of what passes for human interaction and into a world of self/shared healing. It's not perfect; that would be the point.    

Filming Life

I have always enjoyed movies, but since becoming a Netflix addict I've become a bit more discriminating.  For instance, I've decided that there are films and then there are movies.  But they are not the same.  I looked up these words in the dictionary, and both terms are defined as "motion picture."  Yes, yes, but there really is a difference.  How to express it is the challenge.

Movies are entertainment.  And very often are well done and effectively. Films, however, don't set out to entertain but rather to capture life. Which is not at all simple to do.  One movie that does this exquisitely is June Bug.  Herein lies the beauty of Netflix.  I would never have seen this movie because I had never heard of it until I was surfing around on their site and by happen chance landed on this one.  The film's description does not serve it well and I fear it has been passed over time and time again as a result.  It is likely that I only hit "Move to que" because of the viewer reviews that are generally helpful in making or breaking a selection.    Of the three I had to chose from on the night I watched it, it was the one I was least enthusiastic about.  So I chose to watch it first in order to quickly send it back and move on to the ones I was looking forwarding to seeing.  

What a work of art June Bug turned out to be.  After viewing this film I decided I needed to be clear that there is indeed a very real difference in motion picture genres; that of movies and films.  Die Hard is a movie.  June Bug is a film.  Now there are some pictures that appear to be films but really aren't - Woody Allen movies fall into this category; film want-a-bes.  Perhaps his earlier work, but definitely nothing recent.  Some films have within them, movie moments, like Elizabethtown.  Some movies have film moments, like Henry Poole Was Here.  

How does one tell the difference?  Its very simple actually.  Movies are always one layer (or several) removed from real life.  They aim to tell a story well, or dramatically to a particular demographic of the general population; they aim to move people to laugher or to tears, to see a particular point of view, or to pursue justice.  Films, on the other hand, don't consider the audience.  The aim is not to affect the viewer, intentionally.  Films simply reflect life; from the mundane to the tumultuous, complicated to the ironic, trivial to the tragic.  However the viewer responds is completely random and based solely on that individual's life experiences and the emotions tied to buried memories.  This isn't perfection, its metaphor.

In June Bug, there is a scene of a suburban yard in the South in the summertime.  The camera remains focused on a patch of lawn; the only movements are the honey bees circling over the clover blossoms.  I was there.  I was back there, in the South as a child in my back yard, as college student walking across campus, as a young wife in a first and failed marriage at my in-laws house.  That simple scene evoked in me every memory of clover in suburban lawns I have ever known but had no reason to ever again recall.  The movie is over, the simple, delicate, cruel, tender, tragic story has been told from the place it began until the place it ended, but I'm still walking in lawns with clover and reliving the simple, delicate, cruel, tender, tragic stories of my own life.  This is a film.  

I love movies. (Avatar in 3D rocks.) They require much less emotional work than films.  Films tap into all our unguarded vulnerabilities. They find us out without really trying because the primitive act of reflecting even the most fragmentary images of life is powerful enough.  It's no wonder films are not summer blockbusters.  I'll be working on the bees in the lawn for weeks, maybe for years.  Not many of us want to expend that much energy on such introspection; on recalling things that are so seemingly insignificant and yet are wide open windows into our inner lives; revisiting the imperfections one's past with such vivid intensity is not for those not prepared or willing to take such a journey.

I've been thinking about the genre of film (as I have defined it for my own use) as a way of looking at Holy Scripture.  Why? Because I think that approaching the Bible as a genre unto itself renders it largely inaccessible.  So consider a new metaphor for approaching holy text.  If one thinks about it, there are many similarities between the two. Scripture does not set out to entertain us.  It does have a story to tell, but it is told without bias for who will hear it or in what place and time that might happen.  Perhaps originally, but that time is long gone, the context and immediacy of storyteller and intended audience no longer exists.  Broadly speaking, time and history have altered the stories' ability to affect us in the originally intended ways and so that part of them has become moot, if not altogether silent.  This said, there are within the biblical texts stories worth telling and retelling; each has within it reflections on human life that transcend time and place.  Viewed this way, as film, instead of quill and ink on papyrus, we can see the narratives as the camera would record them; with idle, unhurried pauses lingering in sparse rooms, the dramatic Mars-scape of the desert wilderness, or brown, grassy hillsides littered with limestone rocks, in the pregnant pauses between what is said and what goes unsaid. The heaviness of decades of building anger against oppression and exploitation rests in a the foretold future of a single cornerstone.   Simple lines drawn in the dirt unearth a multitude of wrongs and release a word of mercy to disperse them as they rise threateningly into the air between the accused and the accusers.  A small boat heaves and rolls at the mercy of a stormy sea; the wind and waves are silenced by an effortless word from one abruptly woken, moreover disturbed by eternal, conditional nature of human faithfulness.  

The whole of the biblical story, God's relentless pursuit of us, and our repeated, predictable apathetic responses are recorded as reflections of raw life. The narratives are moving, unable to be captured adequately by the portraits or still shots we attempt to hold them in.  They are stronger than us, bigger than any single life; bound together they form the very foundation of the earth beneath our feet.  Our attempts to contain render them elusive and emotionally irrelevant.  But to read them as film is to open ourselves to the possibility of going in a direction we did not intend, to submit our selves to the randomness of what comes up and trusting that it is safe. 

There is a time and place to watch a good movie.  But for each of us, there comes a time when there is no substitute for a well-made film.  Sometimes we don't need to watch how other's live, we need to review and reflect on our own lives; on the art of learning to live, to survive, to thrive, at times alone and at times in good company. And for some, there is a time to make our own films, just so we can figure out what it means to be alive, what it means to be a part of a story bigger than our own.

Daily Chores

If there is one part of my life that consistently reminds me of how totally not perfect I am, it is the unrelenting, ever pressing duties of daily life.  I recognize that this is not the way a lot of people feel about their housekeeping.  Some people actually enjoy the rhythm of doing these tasks day in and day out.  People have written entire books on the spirituality of cleaning the bathroom and dusting the TV.  Imagine!  I am so not there.  

These people report experiencing a profound sense of accomplishment from doing the hard work and having a clean, neat house.  Perhaps this could happen. . .  in an alternate reality. Cleaning the Gibbons' house is a bit like playing Whack 'a Mole; get one room somewhat under control and the room you worked on for two hours earlier in the day looks just like it did yesterday, a description not fit for a blog entry.

I prefer to reap the benefits of having children who like money in their pockets now and again. And I am not at all against the occasional strike when all else fails.  Motherhood has its privileges.  Anyway, what kind of mother would not properly teach her son to do his own laundry - even at the tender age of 11? If he can navigate Face Book with such ease, surely he can turn the dial to "start" on the washer and dryer.  Someday, some young woman might actually thank me for passing on the art of folding clothes and Swiftering the kitchen floor.   He's not half bad.

And then there's my daughter (an older child by far), oh my.  I wish I had a dollar for every glass she's broken while unpacking the dishwasher ("I just touched it!"), every garment ruined in the wash ("You can't put a beaded dress in the washer?" which translates on the parental end as: "What are all those little black things the cats are playing with?"), the hand-knit merino wool (did I mentioned, cabled?) sweater I made for myself that was passed on to a four year old child, before I ever wore it, after it emerged from the dryer, so sad.), the dryer door that's no longer attached to the dryer (darn hard to open at this point), the scratches on the kitchen counter (cutting board, huh?), the burn on the tub (you need a plate under incense?), the lazy Suzie under the kitchen cabinet that does not double as a step ladder after all ("What was that crashing noise?"), the laptop that was smashed after being stepped on while cleaning her bedroom floor littered with a month's of dirty clothes ("Oh, that's where that is!"), the TV that fell on its face during an impulsive moment of redecorating (hum, guess that little table wasn't strong enough to hold it), and then there's the decorative gash on the side of my car which occurred on the short drive to the mail box (brake, not gas dear). It's uncanny, really. 

Still, if there were some element of appreciation by those who benefit from the hard work of housekeeping, it might be just worth it.  But in all honesty, the greatest expressions of appreciation of doing the chores are the resident animals. Chickens are very grateful to have their laying boxes cleaned.  I find they actually produce more eggs when there's fresh, clean hay to roost in. And they are calmer and happier after having their digs spruced up a bit.  You can't imagine how thrilled the horses are to have a fresh, fluffy layer of sweet pine shavings in their run-in.  I can hardly get them to stay out while I'm mucking it out - a few threatening gestures are required; its very hard to shovel when they're in the stall with me. The only ones who actually notice I've changed the bedsheets are the dogs:  There's nothing like rubbing all over a fresh comforter, or putting one's head on a freshly plumped pillow.  Vacuuming is totally fun according to the retriever who bears his teeth while lunging at the cleaner's head as it moves back and forth, tail wagging furiously the whole while.  The cats are not above showing their gratitude as well; a newly swept rug is the perfect spot for curling up for a nap after properly exercising one's claws (on said rug) and coughing up a hairball or two (also on said rug).  Ah, its so nice to be appreciated!

A wise, retired colleague once said to me, "House keeping will always be there.  It doesn't rate big in the scheme of things at the end of the day. Put your energy into things that matter, and get to rest when you can."  He passed on this nugget of wisdom shortly before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  John has since gone on the better things in a place without housework, I'm sure.  But I remember his words with regularity as I go through my life stressing out about all the housework that is always there.

This is not to say that duties of necessity do not have their place, especially those that accomplish far more than a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction. The trick is to be open to unexpected, those times when suddenly God shows up and the conversation between the worker and the work is made all the broader, all the richer.  For many, many people, house keeping is in this category - so while it is not my cup of tea, I do not suggest it is of no value or consequence.  The deeper truth is that chores, the one's we like and the ones we dislike, the ones who are genuinely appreciated, and even those that seem to have no bearing on any one's immediate life, offer random opportunities to connect us to a world of purpose and meaning by which there is no other route.

One day as I was mucking stalls during a particularly trying time in my life, I found myself saying aloud, "If you want clean stalls, you have to shovel some s***" Where this came from I could not say.  With my face dripping with sweat and tears, I repeated this bizarre mantra, shovel full after shovel full, until outrage was spent and a soothing calm took up its place. There are moments in our lives when clarity and resolve in the midst of turmoil or indecision can only be realized through seemingly unconnected, random duties of necessity, sometime portals of transcendence, our daily chores.

The Open Window

In the hotel where I stayed in Brazil last August was an open window. US hotels have windows that are securely locked, if not installed as an immovable glass plate. I suppose this is for interior climate control but its usually unpleasant; the air is totally stagnant and often stale. Smoking may not have been permitted for five years but from the moment you enter the room its past history is of no doubt. Even in the nicest rooms, with the most pleasant amenities, the air quality is generally lacking.  The strange thing about this open window was that it had no glass at all. The large, street-facing open space had a very solid, metal louvered covering on the outside, and a kind of light-blocking screen that rolled down on the inside, but there was no way to close the window. It was open permanently, by design.  How charming, I thought.  

In Brazil, sitting home watching TV is not the norm. I was struck by the fact that socializing wasn't a occasional activity, it was a way of life. People come out in the evenings to gather together and talk in the streets. The younger people drive around in their cars, going around and around the block with their windows down talking to people they know on the sidewalks. This goes on for hours every night. At 1:00 am people were still in the streets laughing and smoking and honking their horns. As I lay awake, the conversations being held on the street below my window reminded me of a crowded restaurant where one notices lots of voices in varying volumes all around but can't really hear any of them. Okay, this was not so charming after all.

My host was more than willing to request an interior room were this to be intolerable - but I loved the fresh air and the smells of Brazil and there was something enchanting about that open window. It was, all in itself, an adventure. I made up my mind to adjust, and I did.  It wasn't a perfect night's sleep, but after awhile the street noise became a familiar presence.

As I look back on this open window, it seems a good metaphor for God's relationship with us. We tend to be in a closed posture toward God; we chose whether or not to invite God into our private joyful moments or vulnerable places as easily as opening or closing a window; its our life, our room, our window.  But a solid reading of holy texts supports the opposite truth: Its God's life, God's room, God's street, God's open window, and by design, it never closes. From this perspective a couple of things become abundantly clear.  

The first is that the voice of God is never quiet. God is speaking to us from every corner of creation at every moment. There is no where we can go that God does not pursue us, speak to us, with us, through us. But is it any wonder we can't hear God speak when we believe we've closed the window? We deceive ourselves. The heart of the psalmist who knows the larger truth writes, "God, you examine me and know me, you know if I am standing or sitting, you read my thoughts from afar, whether I walk or lie down, you are watching, you know every detail of my conduct.... Where could I go to escape your spirit? Where could I flee from your presence?  If I climb the heavens you are there, there too, if I lie in Sheol." (139:1-3, 7-8) How radically different might our world view be if we were attuned to God's tireless presence and the constant rambling of the voice of the One who created us.

The second is that God is always active. The breath of God carries with it moist heat and thunderous storms in the summer and stinging cold winds in winter and we cannot prevent it. Through God's open window each passing day holds and releases the full measure of promises and losses that make up the created order. Each night the streets are filled with the sounds of people gathering.  The activity rises then fades as the dark of night approaches the light of day. In the early morning hours it is strangely quiet save the sound of the shopkeeper sweeping the walk, and the heavy steps of the occasional passerby on their way to work. After a while, the storefront grills begin to open, one after another: first the clanging of the chain and lock, then the noisy clatter of the receding metal security gate skimming up its track. The motor bikes hazardously zip between the cars, honking, honking as they move through the slowly building congestion in the narrow traffic lanes. And then it is fully day; noise amidst motion, emotions amidst expressions, walking amidst sitting, driving amidst skating, whispering amidst yelling, shuffling steps amidst sharp, deliberate steps, the chiming of church bells and the stillness of prayer amidst echoes of a fiery street preacher and the clapping swooning of the crowd, things sell amidst things that are bought. The ebb of evening comes; dusk. As the street lights brighten, the security gates clang shut and the chains rattle as the locks are set. It is night again and the people take to the streets.  

Adjust so that nothing is lost.

We're not in Eden anymore Todo

It is sometimes challenging to preach after a catastrophic event, especially one that is as tragic at the one the world is witnessing in Haiti since the devastating earthquake last week. What does one say? The underlying questions are: For the faithful, "How can we defend the God we claim to be loving and merciful in the face of such a scale of suffering?" For both the faithful and those who claim otherwise, "If God is so mighty and good, why did God allow this happen?" God is on trial, again.

Well, instead of defending God and our faith (which is what is really on the line), we might be better served by reviewing, even very briefly, the biblical story and God's role in it, as well as the historical record of the interaction of humans with the created world. Let's start with the created world.

"God created... and it was good;" good, not perfect. However, it seems that there was at least the assumption of perfection early on; life that was very sweet indeed and apparently not under threat of the natural order - life in the Garden. As we all know that gig was pretty short-lived. So out into the wider creation we went, to work the land, hunt for food, build our own lodging and generally (if not specifically, as those of us who have experienced childbirth can attest) endure the pain of living in the created world. A world that is good, that is sufficient, that is life-giving and life-sustaining; that is filled with potential, but is not perfect - nor ever promised to be.

For millions of years this planet has been creaking and moaning, splitting open, shifting and erupting; the winds are doing today what they have pretty much always done; and the seas and rainfall do what is natural for them to do as part of the created order. We ask, Why? when should just ask, When? We're not in Eden anymore Todo. We go through life under the self-created illusion that the created world is only for our benefit, our use, our disposal, our control, as if it were our possession. And when it seems to go wrong, suddenly God is to blame. But the natural order that God created is wild and uncontrollable and serves to remind us of God's unfathomable, awesome nature. The created order does not seek to destroy but simply does what is its nature to do. When the earth shifts violently and the landscape changes it is clear that creation itself is continuing to evolve. The ground we stand upon was once under water, and parts of it will be submerged again, given time. It is not that we do not know of this potentially destructive power, we do, we simply chose to ignore it. Even so, we build houses on shorelines that, in the natural course of time, will erode - and there aren't enough sandbags on earth to prevent it. We have the technology to build stronger structures to withstand the earth's violent shaking and destructive winds, but that is not where we chose to invest our resources. God's created order needs no defense, it is doing what it has always done; the issue is how we chose to live in concert with that order. It is far easier to ask, "Why did God do this to these people in this place at this time?" then to admit, "We could have done a better job to protect them and us against these powerful elements."

Humankind has always been at the mercy of the elements. The most obvious example is that of famine, a common threat to the people of the ancient world. God's response, again and again was merciful and saving. Certainly the people who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years knew of hunger and thirst and were provided with water and manna. Even so, many died. And many more mourned their losses. Yet all the while they were continually reminded and thus sustained by God's promise of new life: Shalom for the dead and hope for the living.

We have not been promised safety and protection from the powerful forces of the created world, any more so than we are immune to debilitating disease or accidental injury; it is the hardest part of living. On some level we all worry about the harm that might come to those we love. As a mother and wife, daughter and sister, and as a pastor, I am acutely aware of the tension that exists between the temporal joys and pleasures of life and the 'when' of the uncontainable events of the created world to which we are all subject. The thread the runs through both is the assurance of God's consistent faithfulness, presence, and comfort; so should we wake today only to die there is hope in tomorrow for us and for all who remain.

Perfection as Gift

It still amazes me, after four years, that I actually own horses. Though I had wanted a horse since I was a small child (and my mother thought I would outgrow it . . .), I could not have foreseen how much I would admire their simplicity and splendor until I had lived with them, cared for them, fed them, ridden them, provided for their every need. I could not have come to know the perfection they possess as gift.

For quite a lot of us perfection is an ideal to which we continually aspire knowing all the while that it is truly, finally unattainable. Yes, yes, we fully and easily acknowledge that we will never be perfect in our humanity, but gosh it would be great to be perfect in at least a few things, now and again? Lately, I have found it soothing when frustrated or disappointed, either in myself or with the imperfection of others, to simply say, "Self, I know how you wanted this to be, but it isn't going to be that way - it will be less than you had hoped, but it will be enough because it is enough. So let the dream go and be happy with what has been sufficiently given."

In my former life as a social worker I did a lot of driving and I spent a lot of time in not-so-nice neighborhoods. Over four years of doing this stressful work I developed (quite unintentionally at first) a habit of observing natural objects of beauty in the ugliness of the world I was so deeply submerged. Amidst the most profound expressions of poverty and human misery I would notice perfectly stunning specimens of flowering bushes, dramatically shaped trees, and other small pieces of the natural world. Over years this became an intentional, constant, almost compulsive seeking of perfection in God's creation which kept me grounded in the reality that whatever situation of abuse or addiction or violence I encountered, God was rooted in that place too. It seemed a soothing spiritual salve to ease the feeling of helplessness that crept into every day. There's always a limit, a cruel and terrible limit, to what one can do to relief suffering.

I had forgotten all about that time, that life, until recently, when I began to wonder exactly what it was about the horses that has been so comforting to my soul these last few years. I realized that the only other time I felt so soothed by just looking at something was during those years I spend doing social work. Now I have other animals but I don't see them in the same way - not that they are less mysterious in their beings, they just don't strike me as objects of perfection, or at least not in the same way. So clearly some personal preference and bias is in the mix. To me, horses completely capture the majesty and power of the divine. They do nothing to try to be beautiful and graceful and yet they are. These images of perfection are gifts from God. The perfection they represent is not the same as the perfection to which we aspire. It is the purest form of perfection - not polluted by the corrupted notions of what perfection is supposed to be. God simply puts perfection in front of us as if to say, "This is what it I do: I traffic in images of perfection so that you might have comfort."

Coming Home: A Reality Check

I am so spoiled.  Every time I visit my family in the research triangle area of NC I am reminded of why I love living where I do.  Remote.  Population lite.  Beautiful (my husband refers to it as eye candy everywhere you look).  Still wild in most places and everywhere in spirit.  

Now not everyone is cut out to live in rural, upstate Pennsylvania, on the final ridges of the Appalachian mountain chain.  Actually enjoying the cold weather and tolerating the sometimes impassible roads  in winter is a prerequisite. Beautiful fires in the fireplace or wood stove are not for pictures to be reproduced in House Beautiful but for generating some serious heat.  It only took us four years to figure out exactly how many cords of wood we needed to order, BEFORE it got cold. Learning to live under the haze of SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, is an acquired taste to be sure, but with the right interior lighting and a very good support group its tolerable.  Its amazing how little one cares about how one looks in any particular hat as long as it covers the ears (snugly, very snugly) because when you venture outside in the single digits, which is the high temperature for that day, and the wind is blowing in directly from the Arctic at 50 mph all you're really thinking about is how to keep your nose attached to your face - or at the very least - being able to find it in the snow in order to reattach it once it freezes, cracks and falls off - which you never felt because it was numb within the first 10 seconds you stepped outside.

Ah yes, home sweet home. Visiting populated areas now, after several years of life in the rugged north, reminds me of everything I both miss and loathe.  Having lots of places to shop is a plus, having to pack your lunch to travel across town to get to THE shopping place you wish to go is a minus.  My little town has two lights (a plus) and only one choice in shopping (Wal-Mart) a minus in theory but actually a mixed blessing if one is honest.  It's one thing to proclaim that the store is Satan's spawn and actually be able to boycott it for longer than a week at a time.  Only three people I know are able to achieve this level of discipline and two are married to one another and have no children; the other is a man whose wife does all the family's shopping (she shops Wal-Mart). The rest of us curse it for all the publicized, obvious reasons and shop there anyway - and are darn glad we didn't have to drive into the next state for groceries, a ream of paper and light bulbs (I'm not exaggerating).  But all this frenzy of capitalistic activity makes me as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  How can there be enough people to feed all of these businesses?  The car lots here look like small cities in themselves - I'm blown away by all the choices every where you go.  I have lived in big cities before, though many years ago.  And everything I remember about them with not so fond memories I have relived in one way or another on my visits south twice a year.  

This year we had a chance to revisit an old friend who I have not missed in the least these last years; the auto rip-off artist.  We were buying my parent's car now that they are unable to drive. Unfortunately, their decision to relinquish the car was preceded by my father's wrecking it.  The damage was minor but some body work was required before we could take it home.  We could have moved it but it wasn't quite done when we went to get it and we had to return north.  No sweat we were reassured, not a problem, "we've got plenty of space."  Six months later we went to have it moved to the mechanic to have the engine checked out before taking it to its final destination.  A $2000 bill awaited us - storage fee.  Didn't sign for this, didn't agree to this, weren't told of this.  The only words I can use to describe my feeling about this are not permitable on this site - but I assume you are familiar with these deep emotions.  My husband actually spent the next day throwing up and was unable to get out of bed - a coincidence perhaps - but he was actually able to do what I was feeling. Did I mention the car is only worth a thousand at best? 

I can't wait to get home.  After some negotiating we've paid $1000 to settled a bum bill, but not before time ran out, again. It will be another six months before we'll be back to try to take it north, again.  Another plus of rural, small town life is that people like this don't make it in business very long. In order to survive one simply must act according the ways of the Golden Rule.  The consequences of not doing so are that however much you cheated your neighbor will be done to you, in spades.  Small town people are not well-known for how well they get along, but honest business dealings are not optional.  In urban life, the tactics of survival include learning to never trust anyone, take no one at their word and always remember that the sucker born every day includes you and that sooner or later you too will feel the sting of the rip-off artist.  Its not that there aren't honest business people, its that finding them is so rare, a pearl in the oyster - who has the time and money to burn looking?  Definitely a minus.

Well I've moaned and groaned, chopped the guy apart in effigy while cutting up chicken wings for dinner this evening, made confession; fantasized about how to get even; made confession again; complained, yelled, spit, and called friends to cry over spilled milk.  

I have small town friends too; wonderful friends who have listened to me confess my darkest violent wishes on this scam artist and then joked about why the pastor  (that would be me) would be unable to be reached for the next couple of years as she was doing time for these various fanciful acts.  Good friends who advise:  Pay the money, give  your husband a hug, because he too is feeling really badly, (have I mentioned I have not helped that situation?), and come home.  Come home to the several inches of snow that has fallen since we've been away; to the stunning still beauty of the miles of endless mountains riddled with bare trees; the tops of all their branches painted white.  Come home to what is rugged, untamed and undomesticated; where there are no malls or grocery stores but only a single Super Wal-Mart.  Come home to where the preservation of what it means to be truly human is a tangible and worthwhile objective; where the measure of a person is not by what they have managed to acquire or even how well they manage those acquisitions, but by their hospitality, generosity and acts of love for their neighbor (though, admittedly, this is sometimes limited to one's actual neighbor - no one ever said this place was perfect).  Come home to lick your wounds, to regroup, to strengthen and rebound.  Come home to what is safe and familiar and known.  Come home to where you belong.