You Are My Sunshine

Yesterday, after church (baptism at the second service, and visit with the woman who fractured her skull), my husband and I went to visit my dad at the nursing home where he lives. 

When we got there, he was sitting in his wheelchair in the main room, napping.  We woke him up and I grabbed a chair from another table, which upset one of the women who was sitting there.  She started talking very loudly.  I decided to avoid further upset by taking the piano bench instead of borrowing a second chair.

My dad is not the sparkling conversationalist he once was, for a lot of reasons.  Besides his Parkinsons, he hasn't had his hearing aids for a long time, and yesterday it appears he (or someone) had mislaid his glasses.  After a few minutes I got out the riddle book and the scrapbook with all of the pictures of his days with the Swedish Male Chorus.

I started by asking him some riddles.  "Why did the fireman wear red suspenders?"  (He didn't know that one.)  "Oh, to keep his pants up!"  I answered.  However, he still knew the answer to "What's black, and white, and red (read) all over?"  'The newspaper', he answered.  One of the first jokes he ever told me.  He also remembered a few knock knock jokes.

We took out the big scrapbook and started looking at the pictures.  He picked out the pictures of my mom, as she went along on a couple of their tours.  I noticed that in one of the pictures, all the members of the Chorus were wearing red suspenders.  "Hey!"  I said.  "Why did the Members of the Swedish Male Chorus wear red suspenders?"

"To keep their pants up," said a man at the next table.

I noticed that in the Male Chorus Scrapbook, there was a singalong book.  So I took it out, and tried to find a few songs we could sing together.  One thing my dad could always do --  he could always sing.

Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Home, Home on the Range
Don't Fence me In
You are my Sunshine

A woman came up to me and asked me if I could help her with her zipper.

"Why do you want help?"
"So I can take this shirt off."
"Oh, I don't think you want to do that here," I said.  As she turned around, I noticed that her shirt did not have a zipper.

So my dad and I went back to our singing:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.

What's black and white and red all over?
--The newspaper.

Read the Bible in 90 Days

Here's the suggested schedule.

I hope to blog my reflections throughout the summer.  Join me with questions, insights, etc.

Vacations with Dogs

Some people may ask, "Why would you want to take your dog with you on a vacation?"

It's a fair question.  There are limitations to things you can do when/if you bring your dog with you on vacation, and there are logistical issues that you have to deal with.

First of all, not all hotels will let you bring your dog, especially your rather large dog (but often, any dog at all).  We have found three hotels (so far) that we really like because they welcome our dog, and they are actually quite nice.  One hotel we used to just stay over at overnight while we were taking our son back to college up north.  We remained loyal to this hotel during some major renovations, because they were so unfailingly friendly whenever we walked in the door with Scout.  And, we have a lot of fond memories of this hotel, one of the nicest being the time Scout escaped one wintry Easter after we had taken her outside for bathroom duties.  She ran around the hotel in circles several times before just running back inside through a door left open.

Second, you are not able to bring your dog into fine dining establishments with you.  I realize that some people will leave their dog in the car sometimes, but we are leery of doing that, since we once left Scout in the car briefly on a very cool spring evening, so that we could get a little bite to eat.  Someone came into the restaurant and said in a very loud voice, "Hey!  someone left their dog in the car!  I'm calling the police!"   So when we take Scout on vacation with us, we usually eat at places where they have outdoor dining, or get sandwiches, or eat in our room.

Third, if you are going to visit, for example, Split Rock Lighthouse in Two Harbors, Minnesota,  they do not really want you to bring your dog with you.  Most retail establishments forbid dogs (with the exception of a few antique malls), so we either 1) don't shop, or go to Split Rock Lighthouse, or 2) take turns going in, or waiting outside with the dog.

So, if she's so much trouble, why take her along?

Of course, there are times when we don't, times when we expect we will be spending a lot of time on subways, or at museums, or in other places that we don't think Scout will enjoy.

But there are advantages some advantages to traveling with your dog.

For example, just looking in the back seat and seeing her there, with her head on my husband's guitar, with her eyes open or closed.  (I do get annoyed when she tries to sit between us in the front seat, because there's NOT ROOM.)

Or, let's say you are just minding your own business, taking your dog on a walk because you can't go into the toy store, and while you are walking you happen to run into three llamas!  How much more fun is it to run into llamas if you can see your dog's reaction to the llamas, and the llama's reaction to them!

Or, let's say you are visiting antique stores.  50% of antique stores we visit allow Scout to shop with us, and some of those establishments actually welcome her, and say nice things to her, and tell her how beautiful she is.   Some people even ask which antiques she is most interested in.

People of all ages want to talk to us because we have a dog.  Well, actually, they just want to pet our dog, or wonder what kind of dog she is.  They often ask about the ears.  And we are frequently mistaken for Fine, Upstanding Citizens simply because we have a friendly dog along with us.

It's kind of fun to be offered dog treats when you go through the drive through (though we eschewed the ice cream with a milk bone sticking out of it).

There's nothing like relaxing in your hotel room with your husband and dog at the end of a long day of hiking, sight-seeing, eating at picnic tables, and (possibly) meeting strange animals.  You should try it.

Really.

The Rapture and Tornadoes

So, the world didn't end on May 21, 2011.  Jesus didn't appear, and those who followed him were not raptured away from this world on Saturday, never to face pain or evil or suffering again.

On Sunday, tornadoes devastated Joplin, Missouri, and destroyed homes and lives nearer to me, in Northeast Minneapolis.  Not the apocalypse, but for those who experienced it:  close enough.

To me, the most disturbing thing about believing in the rapture is not the propensity to choose exact dates. It's the idea that some followers of Jesus believe that they will escape great suffering while the majority of the human race goes through the tribulation.  There sometimes seems to be an unseemly glee when some recount the misery that others will encounter after they themselves are raptured.

First of all, there is plenty of evidence that followers of Jesus are going through, and not escaping, tribulation, every day.

And second, I would hope and pray that in the event of tribulations, in the event of disasters, the last thing that followers of Jesus would want to do is escape. I would hope and pray that followers of Jesus would follow Jesus:  more deeply into the suffering, into the tribulation: to bind up wounds, to heal, to comfort, to rebuild, to make peace.   I would hope that followers of Jesus would want to be in Joplin, Missouri, in Northeast Minneapolis, as well as in chemotherapy wards, in hospice care units, on battlefields, showing the mercy of God, showing the face of the love of God.

Until the real last day.  Whenever that is.

It's NOT the End of the World

After the second service this morning, someone came up to me and said, "I didn't think you'd be here this morning."  I found this a singularly puzzling statement; I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she thought I wouldn't be in church.  (I'm on vacation now, but did she think I was on vacation last week, too?)

It finally occurred to me:  the Rapture.

Though it has been on my mind here and there for the last couple of weeks or so, by this morning I was so totally over the presumed Rapture that I wasn't thinking about it at all.  Instead, I was thinking about my children's sermon (would I find some kind of blocks to use, or not?), the installation of the call committee, the reception of new members, the fact that Confirmation was last week, and Sunday School ended last week, and so the crowds have already thinned out a little.  I was thinking about the list in the back of my mind of things that I needed to do before I could leave town this afternoon.  I was thinking about presiding and preaching and making sure both services were lively and meaningful and that I could still stand up afterwards.

Oh yeah, the rapture.

So, there were no references to the rapture in my sermon, no prayers, and no little jokes about how we're all still here.  (though I heard that at my husband's church, the youth director preached, and he mused, "what if we were all still here, and all the people at all the other churches are gone?")

Me and the end of the world:  we go way back, at least to the 8th grade, when my dad first read the book The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsay.  I also read, or at least skimmed, the book at that time.  I remember as an 8th grader, that I was adamantly opposed to the end of the world.  At thirteen, there were rough spots in my life, but, hey!,  I had a future, and nobody was going to tell me otherwise.

So I've never been attracted to "end of the world coming soon" theology.  Ever.  Even in my most fervent, college-era, tongue-speaking, charismatic era, I was agnostic about the rapture.  And I had read enough (Lutherans had published a rebuttal to Hal Lindsay called The Future of the Great Planet Earth) that I had becoming a dedicated amillenialist.

I have to say, however, that while I'm not looking forward to the end of the world,  excited to be raptured or worried about being left behind, I do think there's something to be said for living expectantly.  Perhaps my hope and expectation is somewhat different than that of the ones looking forward to the rapture.  But I do confess and expect the reign of Christ, a time of justice and abundance on earth, a time when there will be no more crying and no more pain, where the lamb will be the light.  So much as those rapturists who thought May 21st would be the day, I expect a new world, and I have to say, from the outside this hope seems every bit as foolish as the hope of the followers of Harold Camping.

 It's also true that I get so distracted by things like:  the installation of the call committee, finding some blocks for the children's message, calling the pianist with next week's songs, that I lose sight of the things I really hope for, and the signs of Christ's coming, and Christ's presence right now.

So, May 21st has come and gone.  So what?  As for you, what do you hope for?  We do not know the day or the hour, it's true, but I hope we are ready, all ready, to catch a glimpse of him when he comes.

Every day.  And in the end

You Are....a sermon for Easter 5

1 Peter 2:2-10

When I was a little girl, there was a pretty solid line between the kind of toys boys got to play with and the toys girls got
– for example, my brother got trucks – we got dolls – we got the Easy Bake Oven, he got the chemistry set.
But every once in awhile, my brother got something that I kind of envied, that I wished someone had gotten for me, instead.
One of those presents was something called a “Rock Tumbler.”
This was a contraption, or a machine that promised to make plain ordinary stones into beautiful shiny agates.
You just put the rocks into the machine – more than one at a time, of course, and you put in something called “grit”
– and you turned on the machine and the rocks went round and round and when they came out – magic!
– they were changed, they were beautiful, they were something you might want to put on a necklace and hang around on your neck.

“Come to him, a living stone.... and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.....”

So. Last week we were sheep.
This week we are stones. Living stones. That is what you are, according to Peter.
You are.... living stones being built into a spiritual house.... Last week, you were sheep who need a shepherd.
Perhaps you thought it was a little insulting to be called a “sheep” – if you know very much about sheep, it’s not the most flattering comparison, believe me.
Sheep are not the brightest animals, and getting lost, and getting into trouble is something they are very good at.
But consider what it means to be called a stone. A rock, if you will.
What words come to your mind when you think of the word “stone”?
Stones are — inert, they are unmoving.
They are usually quite plain, they are, you might say, personality-less, or boring. That’s what we are called, though. Stones.
Living stones, but still – stones.

So, what does it mean that Peter calls us “stones”?
What is the significance, perhaps?
We might consider a couple of the stories in the Bible where stones figure.
First, there is the story of Jacob in Genesis.
You remember Jacob? Son of Isaac and Rebekah.
Tricked his brother out of his birthright and his blessing.
He’s running away, having tricked his brother Esau. And when he is exhausted and he has to finally sleep, he uses a stone for a pillow.
I can’t imagine anything more uncomfortable, but Jacob is on the run and has to take what he can get. In the night he sees a vision of angels climbing up and down a ladder, and the next morning he’s convinced that “God is in this place, and I didn’t know it.”
He makes an altar right there, and pours oil over the stone, and calls the place “Beth-el.” Which means, “house of God.”
Where those plain old stones are. The house of God.

Or, there’s the story of the Israelites while they are finally getting ready to go over into the promised land.

Each of the twelve tribes is encouraged to find a stone to carry over with them from one side of the Jordan to the other side.
This stone represented something from the past that they would carry with them into their future. Fair enough.
But the stone was something from a very specific past – they were to carry mementos from their forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
The stones weren’t just for fond memories of their successes back in the good old days.
The stones represented how God kept faith with them in the wilderness, even as they were about to cross over into the promised land.

And then finally there is this stone, the stone that the builders rejected – Jesus, the stone that would become the cornerstone of ourfaith.
Come to him who is also a stone – a stone that most people looked at and threw out, a stone that was rejected,
a stone that was considered plain and ordinary and even worthless, maybe even worse than worthless – you know,
as in, “get rid of that stone hanging around your neck – it’s only weighing you down” –


there is the stone who is Jesus, who is, by the way, the cornerstone, the foundation of a new community, a spiritual house.

Last week, you were sheep. This week, You are .... stones, plain old stones.
Plain old stones, but the house of God
Plain old stones, but mementos of God’s presence in the wilderness.
Plain old stones, but being built into a spiritual house.
But not without some rock-tumbling, and some grit.

You are..... You are....
if we’re honest, you hear a lot more different kinds of endings to this sentence, many of them not like Peter’s.
You are.... you are one small person, and what you do will never make a difference.
You are.... you are... consumers, defined by your wants and your desires.
You are .... trying to make it on your own. You are popular, you are not, you are successful, you are not, you are rich, you are poor, you are liberal, you are conservative, you are what you eat.
You are....

We are always being told who we are by someone or another.

But Peter says, you are stones, and you are being built into a spiritual house, a community.
You are stones in that rock tumbler, and you are God’s people, and you are becoming.... beautiful.

You are stones in the rock tumbler, you are the house of God, which means You are.... something else too.
First, you are .... chosen.
I have a bucket of rocks, a few left, I think, from the stones I found for the children’s message.
I picked them up from around the church after it stopped raining yesterday.
And I’ll tell you something, not one of these stones jumped up into my hand by itself.
All of them I chose, I picked up out of the dirt, turned over, washed off.
In the same way, you are chosen by God, picked up, turned over, washed off.

You are also called, you are called by God to a different kind of life.
Because Jesus is our cornerstone, and your life is built around him.

He is not society’s cornerstone, he’s not our culture’s cornerstone.
In fact, he’s been rejected, again and again, by the powers that be: too plain, too humble, too impractical, to merciful.
But he’s our cornerstone and our lives our built around his life.
And so we are chosen and precious, and we are called, called, called to a different kind of life

And you are... you are not alone

Anna Quindlan was asked to speak at a commencement, to give some advice to those who were graduating. Here’s a little about what she said:

“ here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life.

Get a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.

Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights,
a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.”
(Source: Commencement address at Villanova University (February 8 1999)

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.

You know what this reminds me of?
It reminds me of the young woman from our congregation who told me she would rather go on a mission trip to South Dakota than play summer basketball.
It reminds me of the people from this congregation who decided to sponsor refugees, from many different countries;
it reminds me of the people who come out for the funerals of friends, it reminds me of people who have taken time out of their schedules to teach immigrants to read.
It reminds me of people who stick their necks out for people who don’t have a voice.
It reminds me of you, the body of Christ.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love who love you.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is exactly the life we are given in Jesus, our cornerstone.
We are given a life in which we are chosen and precious, in which we are called to live differently, in which we are not alone.
We are the house of God, and surely God is in this place, and we didn’t even know it.
We are the signs of God’s presence in the wilderness, God’s faithfulness in the wildness, on the way to the promised land.

You are.... you are... stones in the rock tumbler, you are the place where God dwells, built around the cornerstone, the one who died, the one who lives.
AMEN

Riding the Bus

This week I've been (mostly) away at a week of Feasting for preachers called "Festival of Homiletics."  Well, okay, I'm not really "away."  The Festival came to my town this year, which meant that I could afford to go.  I've been spending every day in one of the big gothic churches in our downtown area, listening to eloquent and truthful sermons and lectures, words that uplift and break your heart, alternating between taking furious notes and just sitting and letting the words wash over me.

There has been some pretty incredible music too.

I don't live far from downtown, so every day I've been taking the bus downtown.  I haven't taken a bus for a few years, but long ago, before I was a pastor, I took the bus to work every day.  When I was in high school, I took the bus downtown for piano lessons at MacPhail Center for the Performing Arts (I know, sounds impressive, but I'm really not that good.)  And when I was a little girl, my grandmother used to take me on the bus downtown with her to go shopping, and to the public library.  So, the bus and I go WAY back.

But like I said, it's been several years since I have taken a bus.  I don't know the schedules, and had to google the bus company to find out what the fares are now (2.25 one way).  I started out taking the 18 bus on Tuesday morning.  It's a route I knew a little bit about, since I got on an 18 bus once by mistake long ago and ended up lost.  But from that experience I learned basically where the 18 went.

It's a bus route that takes a basically straight route from where I live to our downtown area, stopping every block to pick people up.  On the 18 you will find mothers with small children, the Somali woman with her head covered, the woman who rides with her carry-on luggage, boys with ipods in their ears.  It's a pretty diverse crowd.

By the next day I had figured out that there was a bus stop less than 1/2 from my house, an express bus that stopped on a freeway exit, picked up people going to work, and got right back on the freeway.  As you might imagine, this bus carries a somewhat different crowd.  (I even ran into someone from my church!).

A few things about taking the bus after a long hiatus:  You really have to pay attention to where the stops are. Some of the rules (I discovered) have changed about which buses stopped here.  I also remembered that it's good to bring some reading material for the journey.  You are riding together, but generally speaking, people don't talk to each other.

Taking the bus every day has taken me back, in a way, back to a time and place before I was a pastor.  Taking the bus every day has taken me back to a time when I was a little girl, holding my grandmother's hand, and wandering through the aisles at the big public library downtown.  Or back to a time when I sat at a desk every day, typing and answering phones and wondering what was the purpose of my life.  Or back to a time when I didn't have a car.

So, I'm going to this preaching conference every day, and I'm remembering what it was like to be something other than a preacher:  a kid, a student, a clerical worker, someone struggling to make ends meet, someone trying to figure out where God was at in the world, or in her life, someone going home exhausted every day.

And I think, that after hearing all of the eloquent words and wise advise of the week, maybe just taking the bus every day will do something to make me a better preacher.

What do you think?