The Twelve Books of Christmas, December 27

My book recommendation for today may seem unusual, as it is not really a Christmas book.  It is a winter story set in the Ukraine, based on an old folk tale.  My recommendation for today is Jan Brett's book, "The Mitten."

It is a lovely, whimsical story about a boy who received a pair of pure white, hand-knitted mittens from his grandmother.  (This is not, by the way, a Christmas present.)  She is worried because a pure white mitten will get lost in the snow.  And that is exactly what happens.

As soon as the boy loses his mitten, a tired mole finds it and takes refuge inside the mitten.  Not long afterwards, a snowshoe rabbit also finds this refuge, and before we know it, there are many animals from the forest inside that mitten, as it stretches to many many times its normal size.

But grandmother's stitches hold.

At the end, of the animal sneezes and all of the animals are released from the mitten, which finds its way home.

But I want to focus on that stretched-out mitten, with all of the animals inside, as a wonderful image of the mystery of the incarnation.

How is it that the great and infinite God became so small, that God could fit inside a new-born baby? It is impossible, just like the folktale.  And yet -- God is with us in this tiny baby.

Other Voices

Holy Week is one of those aerobically challenging times for pastors, a marathon of liturgies to plan, sermons to preach, services to choreograph and to lead.   I remember back to past Holy Weeks:  frantic calls to people to request that they consider getting their feet washed or read a portion a scripture, rehearsals for midweek worship services, nestled in the midst of communion visits with shut ins and occasional emergencies.

So it was a bit of a surprise to find myself sitting at our Good Friday service at 3:00, listening to members of my congregation read portions of Matthew's story of the passion.  I had not called any of the readers, assigned the readings or helped rehearse the readers.  My assignment for the service was to pray, to listen, and occasionally, to sing.

I could do that.

I have been in this congregation for a long time.  I know these voices, having heard them for years.  Some of them have been reading and assisting in worship for a long time.  There were a few who I had never heard read scripture before.  I recognized quiet intensity, faith, passion and pathos in their voices as they read.  They each, in their own way, inhabited the scripture reading.  

I heard one man's voice crack as he relayed Peter's denial.  Another woman's voice rose as the crowd roared, "Let him be crucified!"  

I sat, and I listened, less encumbered than usual with a sense of responsibility for making worship happen.  I sat and I listened and tears collected in the corners of my eyes, partly because it was Good Friday and partly because I could allow myself to be in the story, listening to other voices, voices I knew so well, as they told it.  So well.

Your voices, I want to tell them, your voices are more powerful than you even know.  You can do it.  You can embody the love of God.  You already do.  You have.  For me.

My New Favorite Devotional Book

I have used a lot of different devotional books in my day, with varying degrees of success.  I remember being enamored, long ago when I was in college and sort of a Jesus-fanatic, of a classic called God Calling, which I read more-or-less faithfully for awhile.  (I don't remember how long.)  God Calling was supposed to be the Voice of God, coming directly to me, and all of the other people who bought the book, as well.  I also vaguely remember a book called "Come Away, My Beloved".  The title makes alone time with God seem sort of, well, seductive, in a way.  I don't remember if the contents of the book delivered on that promise.

Then there was the task of finding a daily Bible reading.  It seemed so simple back then.  Had I ever read the entire Gospel of John?  No, I had not.  So, I did.  A little every night.  Afterwards, I waded through Romans, with no outside help from theologians.  I had heard a lot of Bible in church, but had not sat down and read most of it for myself.

Sometime later, everything seemed to get more difficult.  No bragging here, but between those old Jesus-fanatic days and seminary and the work of being a pastor, I actually have sat down and read a lot of the Bible for myself.  What do I do now?  I would find myself at a loss as to how to order my days.
I still longed for the structure of daily devotions, but somehow I had a hard time sticking to a daily discipline.  Even now, this is true.  I think I should have a daily discipline, and I have tried many many good daily discipline ideas.  There is nothing wrong with any of them.  (Well, maybe there have been a couple which were kind of cheesy….) I have prayed in color and prayed while knitting.  I have prayed the hours and prayed the Psalms.  I have prayed with beads, with icons and I am now curious about praying the alphabet.

But a couple of weeks ago, I stumble upon a kind of devotional book which I think is absolutely brilliant.  It is not a book of Bible readings and prayers.  The content is not explicitly Christian.  It is such a simple idea that I can't believe I never thought of it.

The book is called Your Daily Rock. The author (Patti Digh) has written a thoughtful paragraph for every day of the year.  Underneath there are two simple questions, one for the morning, and one for the evening.  In the morning, the question invites  me to live what I read in the paragraph during the day.  In the morning, the question is something like this:  "Well?  How did that go?  Did you discover anything today?"

That's all.  So simple.

One thing I have discovered after all of two weeks is this:  It's not so easy to keep what I have read that day with me all day.  More than once I will become immersed in my day, and suddenly look up and say, "What was it that I was invited to reflect on today?"  I feel like the man described in the letter of James, who looks at himself in the mirror, but as soon as he goes away, forgets what he looked like.

Another thing I am thinking after all of two weeks is this:  What if I read scripture this way?  What if I read a passage, however short, every morning, and came back to the same passage in the evening.  What if in the morning I read "Let your light so shine before others" or "Love your enemies" or "You have been saved by grace through faith", and lived with that short Scripture passage all day?  And then, in the evening, what if the only question was, "Well?  How did that go?  What did you discover today?"

So, for today, here is my short scripture reading:  "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  And at the end of the day I will say, "Well?"

Maybe it will be the same verse, tomorrow.

Reading, but not to Get to the End

I just started reading Joan Chittister's Rule of St Benedict.

I bought it some time ago, but hadn't started reading it, for some reason of another.  I am interested in Benedictine Spirituality, as much as I know about it:  the practice of Listening, Radical Hospitality.  I wanted to know more.

But I picked up the Rule this weekend because I had just finished a good mystery novel, and I was restless.  I haven't been able to pick up the next mystery in the series yet (I am promising myself that I will get books at the Library instead of purchasing them), and I was restless to start something new.  Before the good mystery novel, I had raced through a work of young adult fiction, loving every minute of it.

I got started late last night, and picked the book up again today, eager to get going.  The Rule is really simple, Sr. Joan wrote.  It should not take very long to read it, I thought.

After a little while, I found myself intrigued the fact that every few paragraphs there was a series of dates:  January 1, May 2, September 1.  That was the first set.

What could that be about?  A few paragraphs later was a second set of dates:  January 2, May 3, September 2.  I soldiered on.

At some point it dawned on me:  this book is meant to be read in short segments, three times every year.  It is not meant to be read quickly, to amass information, to get to the end.  It is meant to be savored, meditated on.

I am not sure I even know how to read in this way.

I have been taught and trained to read to get to the end -- and sometimes, as quickly as possible.  The good mystery is my favorite genre, and of course, a good mystery is a page-turner, a book that keeps you up until all hours of the night, because you have to finish it.  This is a compliment.

I have also been taught that volume is important:  how many books I plow through in a year is a measure of my competence.  For the past few years I have been involved in a reading challenge where we make a commitment to read a certain number of books every year.  Making it through the right number of books is the main thing, although I suppose it is important to pick books you really want to read.

But I can't do that with the Rule of St. Benedict.  It is not a book to be plowed through.  It is to be savored, re-read, meditated on.

I am not sure I know how to read in this way.

There is virtue in reading to get to the end.  There is nothing wrong with a good mystery, one that keeps you up until all hours of the night, racing along until finally you either figure out the mystery or the mystery is revealed.

But there is another kind of reading, just as there is another kind of mystery, one that is never quite figured out, and only revealed in the flashes of stars, in the clouds on the mountain, in a Word spoken over and over, chewed on until its unique character reveals itself, but briefly.

Tomorrow I am going to slow down and start reading The Rule of St. Benedict, but not to get to the end.  Just like life, it will come to an end in its own time.  In the meantime, I will savor it, and try to learn as much as possible from each page, each paragraph, each sentence, each word.

Celebration of Life

More and more, it seems, instead of funerals, there are these events called "A Celebration of Life."  We don't use this language at my congregation, but I see it everywhere.  And I know that this trend has been roundly criticized by most serious and pastoral theologians.  It is is part of the denial of death.  Someone dies.  Instead of grieving, we celebrate.  Funerals are depressing, after all.

I am not here to deny any of these realities.  It is true.  Our culture is deeply death-denying.  We're not all that fond of aging, either.  I, personally, have been putting a lot of lotion on my neck recently, even though I know it doesn't do any good.  Why do I do it?  I don't want to look too old. I don't want to think too hard about the fact that someone I loved has died, and that someday, I will die, too.

So, yes, I suppose that the motivation for a Celebration of Life is at least, in part, due to our deep desire to avoid anything unpleasant, or depressing.  But lately, I have been thinking that there might be something else going on as well.  We desire to have a Celebration of Life not just because we want to deny death, and deny grief, but for another reason as well.

Recently, my father died, after a long battle with Parkinson's Disease.  This time I was on the other side of the desk, with the mourners, the rememberers.  I was considering scripture and music and what we would say during the service.  I was with my family, going through pictures, sharing stories, trying to put together a collage of pictures that would say something about my father's ordinary, un-celebrated life.  Besides the pictures, we had mementos of his time singing with a Swedish Men's Choral Group, and a small collection of Mickey Mouse pictures and stuffed toys (my dad thought that he and Mickey Mouse shared a birthday).

My father was an ordinary person.  He sold and repaired radios and TVs, he raised a family, he sang, he told jokes.  He picked up stray dogs when he was little, but his parents never let him keep one.  Later on he learned to tinker with radios.  He was always amazed by the miracle of broadcasting.  He lived all of his life in Minneapolis, but after retirement, loved spending the winters in Arizona.  He was amazing with voices and accents, and until he lost his hearing, he had pretty good pitch.

 As I looked at the pictures and mementos, I realized that I wanted to celebrate my dad's life.  I was mourning as well, but I wanted to celebrate..  I wanted to try to gather as many memories as I could and sweep them into a container so that they could not be forgotten. I wanted to write down the memories while I can still tell them.

I just picked up a copy of a book called Ties that Bind, by Dave Isay, the founder of Storycorps.  It is a compilation of a few of the stories from the first ten years of that organization.  Storycorps mission is to record stories of ordinary people.

In the introduction to the book, Dave tells about a founding event, at Grand Central Terminal.  Studs Terkel is there, and he proudly announces, "Today we shall begin celebrating the lives of the uncelebrated!"

And there it was.

The legacy that most of us leave is small, and ordinary.  We are not celebrated.  Our obituaries in the newspaper are short.  And yet we are children of God, as promised and proclaimed.  And what is a funeral, after all?  It is a time to name death, to grieve, to proclaim hope.

But it is also a time to celebrate the lives of the un-celebrated.

Like my father.

Reading and Faith

We are starting a new Bible study at my congregation this fall.  Well, actually, it's not a "Bible Study" in the tradition sense, but sort of a course in "How to read the Bible".   There's a video, and a study book, but we do spend some time in the Bible as well.

One of the things that I like about the course, and the author, is that he is honest about the fact that he enjoys reading the Bible, but also about the fact that he didn't always enjoy it.  The Bible is a daunting book, after all, and sort of strange, too.  It has this small print and footnotes, and it comes from this very strange and far away culture that we don't know much about.  It is a story, but probably not like the stories we might pick up in the airport and read on vacation.

One of the theses of the book is that we might not like reading the Bible in part because we think of it as a sort of textbook, or answer book, or encyclopedia of facts, and really, who likes to read those?  The power of the Bible, though, is that it tells stories, and that those stories can change our lives.  I love one example the author tells about his daughter, reading one of the "Little House" books, was inspired by a Christmas story from one of the books to collect and donate toys to needy children.

That has how reading has been to me.  I have gone down the rabbit hole with Alice, out to the prairie with Laura and her family, tried to sell stories with Jo from "Little Women."  I have opened the magic door to the Wardrobe with Lucy from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," and have discovered things that have changed the way I look at the world.  Reading has changed my life.  But it is not so much reading for information.  It is reading to enter stories, go to new places, hear new voices.

So I resonate with this study, and I think it could help people read the Bible with more enjoyment.  Not only that, I think that people might find their lives shaped and formed by the stories they encounter there.

And yet.....

What if the problem is not HOW we read?  What if the problem is not that we are reading the Bible in the wrong way?  What if the problem is that a lot of people don't read anything at all (much less the Bible) for enjoyment?

I recently read an article that stated that a strong and growing minority of people don't read anything at all.  Maybe they did read at one time, when they had to, but they really now longer read anything at all, not the dictionary, not a good novel, (or a bad novel, for that matter), not memoirs or the newspaper.

What does this mean?  And what does it mean for a faith that is dependent on a written word?  What if, for some of us at least, it's not a matter of learning to read to be enchanted rather than simply to get information?  Is 'post-literate' a word?  Are we becoming post-literate?

I still know a lot of people who read.  But, I know a lot of people who don't, too.  And I do believe that the central premise of stories -- that they are a means to enchantment offering us entrance to other worlds -- is true.  But I'm wondering how, in the future, people will be enchanted, if the future is, indeed, in some sense, 'post-literate.'

What do you think?

The Pastor on Vacation

I have been told that when you go on vacation, it's really important to get out of town.  And, for the most part, I have obeyed (though there was the time we went to Paris, came home and stayed holed up in our City, watching movies which featured Paris, and sneaking out for the occasional in-town excursion).

My husband loves to plan vacations.  Even though Mesa Verde was my idea (a long-dreamt dream), he made all of the arrangements.  As for me, as much as I love going places and seeing beautiful things, what really excites me at first is this:

time.

I always bring along more books than I can possibly read.
I bring paper and think I am going to write.  (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't)
I bring knitting.
I actually had the recorder out, wondering if I should bring it along and spend a little time practicing.  (I decided against it, at the last minute.)

Yesterday I took a really nice, un-planned nap.  Wow!, was that good.

On vacations, I like to learn things (I discovered that on the StrengthsFinder inventory, I am a "Learner", so that is no surprise.)   I think about things like learning the recorder, but actually, what I love is learning about a new place, like San Francisco, or Atlanta, or  Paris, or Santa Fe.

The tricky thing for me is that while I am taking a vacation from work, I realize that I'm not taking a vacation from God.  I think that this is one of the tricky things about being a sort of religious professional, at least it is for me:  how to not make my work so close to my identity that I can't just worship God without thinking about it in terms of work.  So, it's a growing edge sometimes to practice prayer and hear scripture without thinking about the next sermon.

so, there's time.

Time to read, knit, see in a different way, with different eyes.  And time to pray.

Bookstores, Reading, Community

I opened up my emails this morning to find bad news I did not expect:  another one of my favorite independent bookstores is going out of business.  This is one of the bookstores I visit in a local, historic small town; frankly, I think it's one of the things that make the town worth visiting (besides their fine hotel and antique stores). 

We have been visiting that town, and so we stopped in this morning, though it made us sad.  One woman entering the store said, "Where am I going to buy my books?"  I said, "I think on the internet."  She said, "Sometimes, you have to go into a bookstore."

Apparently, not enough people agree with her.

I love bookstores (yarn stores, too, but that's possibly another post).  I did used to have this dream of opening a small bookstore, though I knew little or nothing about the business angle.  (Just to show you that the dream hasn't completely died, I recently thought a store called "A Good Yarn" would be a great idea for a shop that combined books and knitting supplies.) 

I do remember, however, a time before bookstores.  Our biggest department store had a book department, but the first bookstore I saw (a B. Dalton, I believe) was when I was in high school.  I was very intrigued.  A whole store of nothing but books.  It wasn't a big store, but it was a book store.  It was like a library, except you didn't have to bring the books back.

I went to the library as a kid.  I did not have a large personal library of children's books.  We bought a few books through the mail, but most of the books that I read I did not own.  One of my prized possessions was an edition of Little Men, given to me by a friend for a birthday.  I didn't really start accumulating books until I was in college.

So on a rational level, I understand that markets come and markets go.  When I was small, my dad had his own small business:  G&B Radio and TV.  He sold and repaired a lot of TVs.  He used to win sales contests, and he won prizes.  Then, fewer people bought TVs from small shops, and especially in that neighborhood.  Now I believe that a small TV Sales and Repair shop is a rare thing. 

But there's a part of me that thinks that this is about more than books, and more than markets.  It's about community.  It's about the value of real places where people gather, say hello, exchange goods, opinions, and actually know that they matter to one another.  And those places are not gone, I'm not being alarmist.  But somehow I feel that it needs to be said.

In an internet age, brick and mortar sometimes seems like a liability.  I mean that in a bottom line sort of way.  Amazon can sell more cheaply partly because they don't have brick and mortar stores.  But if you are a brick and mortar store, you also are a member of a particular community, and that is a value too.

In the community where I served for four years, there was a small grocery store.  Most people did their grocery shopping in the nearest city, thirty-five miles away.  But I remember one of my parish members who told me that she made a point of doing some of her shopping at the small store, even though they didn't have everything she needed, and even though the prices were higher.  Because, she said, having a grocery store in her community was a value to her.

So in the race to the bottom line, I still think it's a good question to ask:  where are the places that remind us that we are members of one another, that our destinies are intertwined, that we all do better when we all do better?

Thanksgiving

On Thursday morning at 10:00 I was standing in front of a congregation in my church for Thanksgiving Day worship.  It was a small but active group (many good singers among them); we also are a part of an ecumenical Thanksgiving Eve service where our choir joins with three other churches.  I preached on both occasions so the sermon was the same, but we did a lot of singing on Thursday morning, including "Sing to the Lord of Harvest."  It just isn't Thanksgiving if you don't sing this particular tune.

A couple of hours later, we were on a plane and landing in a Nearby Large City where my husband's sister and extended family were hosting Thanksgiving Dinner. 

It was a large, happy, noisy crowd.  There was lots of laughing, there were lots of children (eight and under), lots of food, including the famous White Jello, which I have made on occasion, with some success (some of the time.)  At one point I went upstairs and crashed, missing the pie.  They did leave some for me.

It's good to get away.  It's good to give thanks. 

It's been noisy and it's been quiet this Thanksgiving.  I miss the smaller celebrations with my family, but I do enjoy being a part of the bustle and hustle, and I love all the children. 

This morning it's quiet again, but last night the family came over again, and we had a noisy delicious dinner of spaghetti casserole.  My husband's sister is a good cook, one of her many gifts.  She also has the gift of making people feel welcome, and of not making a big deal about mishaps.  She rolls with the punches.  They were the first place we took our dog when she was a puppy, and it turned out to be the best idea.

So at the large Thanksgiving Dinner, I talked to a couple of people from the family I knew well, and met a new member of the family.  Among other things, she recommended a book to me:  "The Warmth of Other Suns."  (I will read this.) 

The next day we did a little shopping (though not at a large mall), and I found this wonderful picture book, "Balloons Over Broadway:  the True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade".  (links later, I hope).  I am still working on the shawl with bobbles. 

And I'm reading, at odd, quiet moments, Father Greg Boyle's book, "Tattoos on the Heart."  Makes me cry.  And it makes me realize how many of us, and how much of the time, we really really don't believe in the power of grace.

Saturday Night

Saturday nights are quiet around the house.  No late night parties, no big plans (usually), no large dinner parties (or small ones, even).  When I preach on Saturday, in fact, I'm usually in the office for at least part of the day, after which we do something really exciting like watching "Antiques Roadshow".  I might glance over my sermon once or twice, or I might avoid it altogether until just before I go to bed.

This weekend I am not preaching.  I'm not even presiding at the early service.  It feels odd, actually.

So, I'm knitting a turquoise footie (the second one, actually).  Last weekend, I started it, found a dropped stitch, and ended up ripping up the whole sock and starting over.  I'm just about where I started again.  (There's a metaphor in there, somewhere, I'm sure.  Or, a sermon illustration.)

I'm reading a little.  I just finished The Birchbark House, by Louise Erdrich, and want to get the next in the series as soon as I can.  I read all of the Little House books when I was little.  Louise Erdrich was inspired to write her counterpoint from the Native point of view, at least in part, because of something Caroline Ingalls said in one of the books, "There's no one here."  I'm glad to know this Ojibwe family; I think in future books they will probably travel from place to place like the Ingalls family, but for different reasons. 

We watched an old movie from 1932, Love Me Tonight, while my husband did interesting historical background on his ipad.  He also worked on an old acrostic.   I could watch over and over the opening sequence, in which the song "Isn't it Romantic?" travels from person to person and place to place.

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to hearing Nihjar Ekka-Minz preach, instead of me.  I'm looking forward to hearing about work in faraway North India.  Nihjar and her husband tell fascinating stories.  And I can't help loving stories.

On the 7th, 8th and 9th Days of Christmas...

okay, so I've been off line for a few days.  I haven't had access to internet, which (except for blogging) is probably a good thing for me.

Suffice it to say...

Everyone and their dog seemed to want to spend New Year's Eve at Epcot this Year.  I'm glad that we weren't among them.  We were at Epcot early in the day, but returned to our hotel for a wonderful dinner and quiet evening together.  (sadly, without Scout.)

We have been keeping a good balance between rest and activity.  I'm almost done with my first book of the new year, The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay: Fiction.  I'll let you know.....

I also read the children's book Snowflake Bentley (Caldecott Medal Book).  One of my New Year's Resolutions (If I had New Year's Resolutions) is that I am going to read more children's books.  Also, one of my criteria of a good book:  if it makes my eyes wet.  Snowflake Bentley made my eyes wet.

I've been knitting here.  I finished a pair of red cable footies, and have begun a pair of lime green cable footies.  (Right now, it's all cable footies, all the time...)

And, we're been doing some things too...

Epcot, Seaworld, Kennedy Space Center (although that would be the 10th Day of Christmas)....

on this the 10th day of christmas, already, I do have a short list of things I want to tackle, or do differently, this year:

1.  keep track of my reading, read in many genres and include children's books
2.  get one more article published this year
3.  buck an authority
4.  speak the truth in some strategic times and places
5.  print out some of those healthy recipes for two I found...
6.  give thanks for what (and who) I have

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

....we hung out at the hotel, because it got up to 72 degrees, and it was good just to relax and not have any goals or purposes.

I exercised.  I sat by the pool.  I wrote a little.

I finished a book called Little Bee, by Chris Cleave. 

I didn't read as many books as I had hoped this year (though I knitted a lot, and that's something).  But one result of having a goal:  I did get some books in that I might not have read otherwise. 

I regret that I stopped recording books somewhere during the year.  I think in 2011 I won't try to have a goal, but I'll try to be better at recording the books I read, which is the most interesting part.  It turns out to be an eclectic list.

Besides Little Bee, I recently read an historical novel called Forge, by Laurie Anderson.  (really recently:  on the plane.)  It's the second of a planned trilogy (at least, I think it will be a trilogy) about young African Americans seeking freedom in the era of the Revoluationary War.  The first book was called Chains, and featured a young girl named Isabel who was promised freedom when her master died.  Her new master reneges on this promise though.  The second book features her friend, Curzon, who escapes and serves with the revolutionary forces in Valley Forge.  I will admit it took me awhile to get into Forge, but by the end I was eager to find out what happens next to Isabel and Curzon. 

And though it hardly qualifies as "reading", I really liked a present I got from my husband, a book called Beautiful Oops.  I grew up thinking it was a sin to make a mistake, so I think I need to keep this book by my bedside and read it every day for awhile.

Prayer and Justice

I'm behind, I'll admit it.  I haven't been preaching much lately, and I've had a little mini-vacation, to boot.  So, instead of thinking about this Sunday's readings, I'm thinking back to last Sunday.

We are in Stewardship season already in our congregation, so we haven't been preaching on the texts.  We've been talking about generosity and giving and why we should pledge and our congregation's mission and ministry. 

But I caught myself listening to the texts, and especially the gospel, with special interest on Sunday.  I listened to myself reading the story about the unjust judge and the persistent widow in light of our visit to the Martin Luther King Center last week.  We toured the old Sweet Auburn neighborhood, the house where Rev. King was born and raised, checked out the exhibits about the history of the civil rights movement.  (Among other tidbits, I learned that, as a child, Martin hated doing the dishes.)

At the gift shop, I bought a book,  No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King.  The book was written by an Episcopal priest called Gurdon Brewster.  I had read a review in the Christian Century magazine about the book, so I looked for that one in particular. 

I ended up reading the whole book on the plane home.

In the summer of 1960, Gurdon Brewster was a seminary student in New York who spent the summer working with Martin Luther King Sr. and his son at Ebenezer Baptist.  He worked with the youth group at Ebenezer, and tried to put together some special events for integrated youth groups.  He had a couple of successes and a lot of setbacks, and some close calls.

He also learned to pray.

When he first got to Ebenezer, he had never said a prayer out loud, except for those written in the Book of Common Prayer.  He  relays his fear of speaking, his stilted language, and his progress in prayer as he gains more and more experience throughout the summer.  In particular, he tells the story of a young teenager who is in the hospital, dying of an unknown disease.  It is as he prays for and with her, that he begins to pray intimately, as if he were in conversation with God.  This dying young girl teaches him how to pray.

Prayer and Justice.

I don't know about you, but for some reason I rarely think about them in the same sentence, or even the same breath.  My friends who are passionate about social justice:  I don't think of them as being passionate about prayer. Social justice is Doing Something, and prayer is, well, isn't prayer just the opposite of Doing Something?

On the other hand, the people I know who are passionate about prayer, for the most part look at me blankly when I talk about social justice.

Prayer and justice.  Those were the two things that Gurdon Brewster learned from his summer with Daddy King.

And, as I listened to the gospel reading on Sunday, it seemed to me that these are more connected than I had thought before.  Is the parable about the widow beating on the door of the unjust judge about persistent prayer?  Or is it about seeking justice?

Yes.  I think the answer is yes.

Persistent prayer and seeking justice:  both of them, it seems to me involve struggle, involve wrestling, involve honest questioning.  When we come to God in prayer, we learn to speak honestly, to ask questions, to persist despite failure, despite silence.  And when we persist in seeking justice, we also struggle, become more honest with God and with others and with ourselves, and persist despite failure.

In both cases, we persist because, somehow, we have learned to trust God.  We believe that God is just, that ultimately, God is on the side of healing, or reconciliation, of the poor being lifted up and the silent finding a voice.  I don't know why we keep believing it, sometimes, but we do.   There's so much failure, so much silence, so much injustice, so much death -- except for that strange story that intrigues us, that we keep coming back to, you know the one:  about the Son of man rising on the third day.  So, despite ourselves, we keep praying.  Or we keep seeking justice.  But usually, not both.  Why not?

Prayer and justice.  If we put them together more often, what an explosion the world would hear. 

In the meantime, the question remains:  "When the Son of man appears, will he find faith on earth?"

Sometimes It Just Ends Up Being A Good Day

The day began with a cool breeze, and a blue sky, and ended with the bright moon ahead of me.

In between I waited for a friend at what turned out to be the wrong coffee shop.  I'm still not sure where I went wrong.

I had a productive meeting with one of my church leaders in the late afternoon.  We were talking about planning a series of house meetings this fall, house meetings where people would be encouraged to share their faith values, and really explore what it would mean to be a congregation that makes a difference in the lives of our neighbors.  We already have at least four people who are interested in being a part of the planning for this. 

Like I said, sometimes, it just ends up being a good day.

Tonight was my church book club meeting.  We haven't met for a long time, and tonight we read and discussed The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean.  (22).  Almost everyone was there, which felt so good after a long summer where we have often passed like ships in the night.

The August book was a short one, and rather elliptical, by which I mean, there are mysteries not ever explained.  But I think that is intentional, and not any reflection on a lack of skill.  The main chracter is an old Russian woman living in the United States named Marina.  She has Alzheimers disease, which is why I think the mysteries are somewhat intentional.  She does not remember much in her present day to day life, but she remembers vividly her life during the siege of Leningrad during World War II.  She worked in the museum there, and memorized all of the paintings that were taken down and stored. 

Sometimes she would give tours to older people and to cadets, tours where she would describe the paintings that no longer hung on the walls so vividly, the people thought they really could see them.

It's funny that though this book describes harsh and depressing realities, there is a hopeful and a beautiful quality to it:  maybe it is the visions of the paintings, and the imagination required to see beauty in the world even where there is great ugliness.  Maybe that is what hope really is.

Like I said, sometimes it just ends up being a good day.

Afterwards, I got email messages from two other people who think they are interested in our House Meeting strategy.  They're not sure, but they're intrigued.    Maybe if they close their eyes, they can imagine a faith community that really makes a difference in the lives of their neighbors.

It's been a busy summer, and sometimes a lonely summer. There have been a lot of funerals, a lot of them hard.  I've been missing a couple of colleagues who have retired.  They have not been replaced yet.  I'm behind in my reading (although I have done a little, and I'll try to report later on 23. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, 24, On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet , and 25.
Things I Learned From Knitting.)  But tonight, I'm just watching the moon, and thinking, sometimes it just ends up being a good day.

Just A List...

...of books I've read. I haven't had time to report. Let me know if any of them picque your interest, and you want to know more.

11. The Girl who Fell From the Sky, Heidi Durrow
12. On Christian Liberty, Martin Luther (re-read for a short essay I wrote recently; the essay may be published!)
13. Preaching from Memory to Hope, by Thomas Long (He's awfully hard on Marcus Borg, but I like the idea of movement, and how hope is integral to good preaching).
14. The Book Thief, Marcus Zusack (May book club book)
15. Instructions, by Neil Gaiman (counter-intuitive life instructions for graduates and others)
16. Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach, by Peter Steinke (I posted a little about this here.)
17. Jesus Freak, by Sara Miles. (The first book I read on my "nook".)
18. Leaving Yesterday, Kathryn Cushman. (June book club, religious fiction)
19. The Underneath, Kathi Appelt

Not so impressive, actually, if you consider that it is June 30, and I'm not to 20 yet! I have two or three books I'm working on right now. But I've been distracted, and reading magazine articles and essays rather than books right now. I've been having fun re-reading Little House in the Big Woods right now (looking at the old, original illustrations by Helen Sewell.)

So -- any book here you want to know more about? Let me know.

I'm Still A Simple Girl At Heart

So, we are here in this Lovely Place, this Warm Place, and I said that I wanted to have a vacation where we didn't try to run around seeing things all the time.

So we haven't. Which, even though I requested it, I know, still feels odd to me.

I keep thinking that since I have time, I should write a little bit.

But I haven't.

I've been exercising, though. And eating, regularly. (including chocolate-covered strawberries that I didn't ask for, but were just delivered to our room.)

And reading.

I didn't quite make it to 50 books in 2009, My 49th was a re-read: The Living Reminder, by Henri Nouwen. I read it in college long ago, and was surprised that it was a book about ministry, a book for ministers. One of the things that has always struck me and stayed with from Nouwen's book is that he talks not just about a "ministry of presence", but a "ministry of absence". The minister's absence, as well as her presence, can be a reminder, a living reminder of God, Nouwen says.

(Aside: I do blame the scarf-knitting project for the ebb of reading in December. Anyone who can read a lot and knit a lot in the same year has my utmost respect.)

(Another aside: I fee a little brain-locked because one of the Stepsons said to his dad that I "might be a big shot in the religious blogging world.") I don't think it's true (after all, he doesn't know Songbird or Mimi or Elizabeth Kaeton), but it makes me think that I ought to be having profound thoughts all of the time.

I have read two books in two days here, the beginning of the 2010 challenge. They are:
1. Among the Mad, the 6th and last of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries, dark and challenging. (There will be another, I hear).
2. The Art of Racing in the Rain, a Christmas gift from a parish member. Enzo is a wonderful dog-hero.

More later -- although how much later I can't say for sure.

What day of Christmas is this? I've lost track.

Still Reading after All These Months....

A short update on books I have read:

43. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. Just happened to see it in a bookstore in Red Wing on the day it won the National Book Award (or was it the Newberry?). I was reading around All Saints' Sunday and mused on the idea of being taught by the dead.

44. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Shaffer and Barrows. This was our November book club book, a charming and multi-layered book about the occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II.

45. Dog On It, by Spencer Quinn. I love Chet, the crime-fighting dog, and his partner Bernie. The next in the series comes out in January; I hope I get a gift card so I can buy it.

46. Christmas in Harmony, by Philip Gulley. A short trip to Harmony, Indiana, and an account of the first and only "progressive" Nativity scene.

47. I will soon be done with Kevin Kling's wonderful book of stories/essays Holiday Inn. And yes, it is named for the Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire movie. Kling's a midwestern version of David Sedaris; just as funny with about half the cynicism. Just like Sedaris, he's as funny to listen to as he is to read. (I believe he also graduated from my alma mater.)

will I get to 50? I'm pretty close, anyway. You'll have to admit, it's an eclectic list. And that was as much the point. I'm happy with the variety of reading I've done so far this year.

Books #16 and #17, (but who's counting)

In my self-imposed reading challenge this year, my latest were:

1. Plain Truth, by Jodi Picoult. This was our church book club's selection for May. It's about a young, unmarried Amish girl who is accused of smothering her new-born baby. I found the book intriguing at the beginning, a little slow in the middle, but absorbing by the end, with the plot twists and turns, and the trial. I thought that the author was very sympathetic and detailed in her depictions of Amish life and faith (that being said, I have very little first-hand experience with the Amish faith, myself). I'm looking forward to our discussion tonight.

2. Eat this Book, by Eugene Peterson. I now have one of his other titles, Tell It Slant, and want to read as well Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. I was pulled in to the first chapter, but again got bogged down in the middle, and really enjoyed the last two chapters, on translations and new manuscript discoveries. Now, as I write that sentence, I make it sound like this is a scholarly book for scholars -- but nothing could be further from the truth. Peterson makes the discoveries of the Egyptian manuscriptions about a century ago into a really fascinating conversation about how God speaks to us in our ordinary language(s). Just in time for Pentecost.

Now, I'm reading a young adult novel called Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. Anyone out there heard of it? I'll let you know when I'm done....

What are you reading? What do you recommend?

Today is My Day Off.....

It's warm and lovely today here in the Twin Cities: it feels like spring, although it's not officially spring until the weekend. And by the weekend, who knows? It might feel like winter again. We took advantage of the day by taking Scout on a little afternoon walk nearby. (We took her to the bank too, but just to the drive-through window.) Our back yard has a mini-lake right now, in the far back yard where the tall, old pine trees are. Scout isn't quite sure what to make of it. She's used to running in circles around the pine trees. She's only dipped her paws in so far. We can only hope that the lake dries up before she decides to go for a stroll, or a run.

Otherwise, it hasn't been a noteworthy day: we went out to breakfast, did laundry, worked on taxes, bought a few groceries. I also read a few pages of the book Chains. The reading pace has fallen off considerably since Lent began. I'm okay with that: more than the number of books read, I've tried to be intentional about actually finishing books that I begin reading. Half-read books is a bad habit for me. I'm also very comfortable with reading a book of poems, or a children's book (or two or three) if that's what takes my fancy.

I've also lost a knitting needle, and am stuck right now on the prayer shawl I've been working on. Where can you lose a knitting needle? The red scarf still plods along. Not even half-done yet, but I am making progress.

In fact, "half-done" seems to be a theme and a bad habit for me. I need to get back to my story-telling series (the true ones), as well. How many things in my life have I started, and left half-done? I blush at the thought.

When I wrote stories as a girl, I did leave some undone (as well as done, but half-baked), but I finished some, too. I never finished a pants outfit I started as a teenager, but I did finish a nice pair of knitted slippers and a cabled hat.

I still use a journal sometimes, and I am just a few pages from finishing one. I am so anxious to begin a new journal (I have a pretty one waiting in the wings) that I am filling up pages with nonsense, and tempted even to tear out a few. What is it about the promise of starting a new project that is so appealing?

The dog is outside now, but just sitting on the porch, looking out at the backyard and the lake. She looks like she is meditating. Oh! I just heard her husky "yodel" sound, which means she misses us and is anxious to come in.

Fine Tuning

It's been an potpouri of a vacation so far. We've been up to small-town Prescott and back, over to the Desert Botanical Garden and done some moderate antique-shopping. Plus, I met a blog-friend who lives in a nearby town (I will say more about this later). Husband has been listening to Alan Hovhaness' Mysterious Mountain; he says it's perfect for driving around here. I've been reading Clyde Edgerton's novel The Bible Salesman.

On the way over to the Botanical Gardens today my husband gave me a mini-overview of 20th century music. This was in response to my question regarding Hovhaness, about whom I knew very little, except that I love his piece, And God Created Great Whales. (Our dog, Scout, seems to like this piece, too.) It seems that 20th Century composers felt that they had a dilemma; what could they do that was new and different? After Wagner, everyone felt that "you couldn't get any bigger." Wagner had taken the genre about as far as it could go. So the 20th century "new thing" was to be atonal, and "not pretty", at least in the way music had been "pretty" before. Composers like Hovhaness and Vaughn Williams are considered less serious composers by some because they composed pleasing music. (I realize that many music scholars may disagree with this.)

On the way to the Desert Botanical Gardens, then, we were listening to Mysterious Mountain, and I was reading The Bible Salesman, a wonderful little novel about a young man who in the early 1950s South who is an unwitting accomplice to a criminal. He also is selling Bibles, and, coincidentally, really reading them, as if for the first time. This Bible-reading theme is a background, a curious counterpoint to the story of the naive and earnest young man and how he grows up. He's asking questions about the Bible that he has never asked before, and wondering about whether it is true, and how it can be true. In the end, he finds comfort in different truths that he discovers in the Bible, and in his life.

I thought about how our ears need fine tuning so that, in each age, we can hear God's word -- in the strange words of the Testaments, Old and New, in our words to one another, in the soft or loud voices of those on the mountains or on the margins, speaking a counterpoint to the big and brash news of the day. I thought about how my eyes need fine tuning so that I can see the beauty in the desert, where, the land is big and barren, and it takes a sharp eye to capture a quail walking through the brush, or fairy dusters, small bright red spots among muted browns and greens. Some beauty is loud and brash, and takes my breath away; some beauty skirts along the edges, or even hides; I need to fine-tune my eyes to see it, just as I need to fine-tune my ears to really hear the truth.

In a few days we'll leave the warm and barren land to come back to the frozen north where we live. I hope I can fine tune my eyes and ears again to see the beauty, and to hear the truth of the strange and familiar place where I live.