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.