Thoughts on Holy Week.

For those of you unaware, my background is Protestant. We do Holy Week a little differently from the Catholics. I think actually a lot of Protestant churches play down Holy Thursday and Good Friday. I think it's because there is some...turning away, maybe? From the violence of the image of Christ on the Cross. (Most Protestant churches, for example, have an empty cross - symbolizing the Resurrection - rather than a crucifix in the sanctuary).

But I think, if you're a practicing Christian, it's important to be reminded.

I talked last time about feeling kind of worn and weepy this week. I noticed that last night at the Holy Thursday service. It is as if this week of the year, the insulation of intellectualism or whatever it is I put between my rawer emotions and the world is thinner than normal, that I can be swept up by things and feel them in a way I might not feel them at other times.

Some years my church has done a Good Friday service. One year in particular, I remember the pastor reading a physiologist's account. I don't remember the man's name, but someone who was a doctor- and trained in human physiology - read all he could about the practice of crucifixion and he wrote up what he hypothesized would be going on in a person's body - the pain, the difficulty breathing, and so on. (For example: breaking Jesus' legs was actually a concession, so He would die faster, no longer being able to "push up" to try to get breaths). It was...the best word I can think of is "harrowing." Very, very difficult to hear. But again, important.

We've also sometimes done Holy Thursday evening services...I think it was in one of these that I totally lost my composure, a few years back, during a prayer I was saying. And I'm still baffled and amazed by that; it really was as if something from outside me grabbed a hold of me and said "LOOK. Look at the suffering Christ underwent" and I could not bear it at that moment.

Last night, the service was a little different - but very meaningful and moving. The head of the Elders and the minister sort of acted out the Last Supper. (The head elder played the role of Christ; the minister was Peter. The rest of us in the congregation were to represent the other disciples...including Judas.)

One thing they did - instead of the usual communion wafer we use - they used matzo. Which was surprising but appropriate, as it's the modern descendant of the unleavened bread that would have been used at the Passover meal. So there was a very tangible reminder of our link to Judaism, to the history of what we do.

"Jesus" spoke a traditional-sounding blessing and prayer, lit the candles. He also symbolically washed "Peter's" feet, and they went through the discussion of what that meant.

We all read the 114th Psalm, which, I don't know if it's traditionally read at the Passover table (how little I know, really, about the practices of Judaism), but it referred to the escape from Epypt, so it could be.

And then "Jesus" blessed the bread and the cup. And he spoke of his body being broken for us. And that he would be betrayed. And "Peter," ever-impulsive Peter, asked him, "Who will betray you?" And "Jesus" did not respond directly to that, but held a piece of bread out to the (unseen) Judas and said "Go quickly and do what you must do."

But - and here's the thing that grabbed me about it - when he held the bread out, he held it out toward the congregation. It was a subtle thing but I do think it was intentional - a reminder to us that at times we have all played the role of Judas and betrayed Christ, just as at times we have all played the role Peter would play later that night and deny Christ. It was a reminder that we are all in part responsible for putting Christ on that cross, and it was pretty breathtaking.

And then, we all slowly came forward, and were given a piece of the matzo, and a cup was held out for us to dip it in the wine (normally we do not do communion by intinction, so this was also different) and then we silently returned to our pews.

It was interesting: after the benediction and the minister and elder walking down the center aisle, everyone just sat there. Sat in silence, as if under a spell, for several minutes. (Normally, at the end of a Sunday service, there is a lot of shuffling and getting ready to go - parents getting ready to collect their small children from the nursery, people quietly wishing one another a good week, plans being made to go out to this or that restaurant for lunch. But this time, we all just sat for a while...and then someone broke the spell, and got up, and walked out, and the rest of us all walked out - much more quietly than after a normal Sunday service, which seemed right to me.)

I was very tired when I got home. Emotionally tired, I think. Even though the focus of this service was very much on the idea of the Last Supper, and why we do it, and why it's important, and less on what would happen AFTER the supper ended, I still found myself tearing up at a couple points during the service - again, I think that "insulation layer" I put between my feelings and the world is thinner right now.

I also got to thinking about the events of that night...and of the next day. And I realized something I never really thought of before...Jesus and his followers got no sleep at all (well, other than the few who fell asleep in the garden, briefly) during that time. Now, maybe people during that time were tougher, but I can imagine it adding an extra nightmare quality over the events of Christ's arrest...and the crowds out below where Pilate stood, in the flickering torchlight...and how it might have seemed unbelievable, nightmare-like, to some of the Disciples. (No wonder some of them fled).

You don't hear much about the intervening Saturday. For one thing, it would have been the Sabbath, and the observant Jews would not have been out and about, but I also imagine Jesus' followers, each in their own lodgings, reflecting in horror over what happened and wondering what they would do next...and whether THEY were next in line for arrest.

Something I've been thinking about

In one of the responsive readings on Sunday, there was a passage included - I don't know if the minister wrote it, or it came from some published source, or whatever, but it said something like,

"You provided us with an Eden, and we chose to wander in a desert of our own making."

That struck me, and kept me thinking about it. Because I believe it does pretty well sum up one human weakness (one I know I have sometimes) - the inability to see the good, to see the 'garden,' but instead to see the desert, and to complain about it. To walk through it, wailing about "why me, what did I do to deserve this?"

I can't remember where I read it, but I remember reading some allegory or other about people who talked about how horrible the place they were in was - how it was burning hot, with relentless sun, and no water to be found. And the "sojourners" who were observing these blighted souls could not understand - it was a pleasant spring day, to their observation. (Come to think of it - I may have read something like that in Lewis' "The Great Divorce").

As I said, one of the things I'm consciously trying to do is avoid the whole spiral of complaints: yes, the budgets suck right now. Yes, there are lots of problems in higher ed right now. There's not a lot that one prof can do about much of it.

(And another thing I keep thinking of these days, the good old Serenity prayer - having the serenity to accept the things I can do nothing about, the courage to try to fix the things I can, and to be discerning enough to separate the two).

I'm happier and more content, and I don't find myself falling prey as much to the "siege mentality" that some people seem to have. Because that's just not FUN.

And anyway, things could be worse. As thin a consolation as that is, they could.

I've said before that gratitude - for whatever it is - tends to drive out an entitlement mentality. When you are grateful for something, it's almost as if it's the opposite of "expecting" it or feeling you "deserve" it. And I think it makes room for the thought of, "It could be other than it is. And I am glad that it is not."

I think also gratitude tends to make you see the "Eden" more than the "desert." Oh, maybe some days you are wandering in the desert - you get off the path. Or you live in a world that's inbetween - some desert and some Eden. But you can at least, by stopping and looking at things, and being able to muster up a "this is good" (no matter how small or weak it may be), it keeps you from being all the way in the desert.

makes me smile

This is from an e-mail from a friend: "God is so big that His love can blanket the world, and so small that He can curl up inside your heart."

I LOVE that image...the idea of God curling up inside people's hearts. It makes me feel warm thinking about it.

I hope my heart is a welcoming place.

cosmic joke

Don't ever let anyone tell you God does not have a sense of humor.

Today was Bring-a-Friend Sunday at church; they had a brunch afterwards. (There's a big push to try to grow the church right now; we are trying to get a new minister and I think they're worried that we're not big enough as we are to support one).

One of my friends at church is a lady who's been the police chaplain for years. (So long, in fact, that most everyone only knows her as "Chappy")

So I saw her, and there was a seat left next to her, so I sat there to eat.

And she introduced me to the "friend" she brought - a young man who is new to the force. And his girlfriend.

And do you know who that might be?

None other than my plagiarist.

I tried VERY hard to be friendly, to not be uncomfortable, to smile, all that good stuff, to make it clear that it was behind me...but I have to admit, it really isn't, and I was kind of uncomfortable. (And she's probably coming to the women's league meeting tomorrow night. Well, at least I'll be prepared for that...part of the discomfort was that I was caught by surprise).

Walking out after the brunch, as soon as I was alone, I kind of looked heavenward and muttered, "I hope You got a good laugh out of that one."

Something for the weekend.

This is "God stuff" so if you're not into that, feel free to skip.

I am not generally fond of "contemporary Christian" music. I recognize that my failure to be moved by it is often a failure in me, rather than a failing of the music. (Though I do think there are some "praise songs" that are theologically or artistically weak, but that's not the topic here).

But last Christmas, a young woman who sings in the church choir with my parents sang a song called "Breath of Heaven." I had never heard it before, didn't know it was an Amy Grant song...it was the first time I had ever heard it.

And it was all I could do not to put my head down on the back of the pew in front of me and sob. For some reason the song hits me in a very vulnerable place.

I think part of it is the chorus, which I find haunting and beautiful:

"Breath of heaven, hold me together. Be forever near me, breath of heaven.
Breath of heaven, lighten my darkness, pour over me your holiness..."

Even though the song is specifically about Mary - it imagines some of her thoughts on the way to Bethlehem - I still think that prayer, asking to be "held together" is something so universal among believers. I think that's why it got to me - there are literally days when I have prayed something like that: "God, just let me get through this day. Just let me manage until I can go home at the end of the day. Please keep me from falling apart"

It's funny - at times it seems like such a small prayer compared to some things some people ask for (or some things I have prayed for in the past). But at the times I've prayed it, when I really was in some kind of extreme situation, it was literally the only prayer I could squeak out, and the ONLY thing in the world I wanted.

And you know, it's always come through. I've managed...maybe I didn't totally avoid tears, or maybe the day didn't get any EASIER, but I still managed to make it through.

Oh, and the part where she sings, "Help me be strong ....Help me be....help me" gets me too.

Like most things out there, there's a version on YouTube. (I think it's Amy Grant singing on this one). (And amazingly, it's one of the few things I've seen on YouTube that has mostly positive and supportive comments).

So, in case the song is unfamiliar to you (or if it's familiar, and you just want to hear it again):

Something for Easter

One of my favorite books by Madeleine L'Engle is "The Rock that is Higher." I've found a great deal to comfort me when afflicted (and also, at times, to afflict me a bit when comfortable). It's complex and challenging and has a lot to say to modern Christians.

(One of the particular points she makes again and again that people need to cease trying to place themselves at the center of the universe - to stop seeing the little junk that happens in daily life as something specifically orchestrated by the universe to thwart your happiness).

Anyway, it's a book I turn to again and again. It also has lots of wonderful anecdotes, things that cheer and comfort and challenge in a few pages.

One of my favorites is an account of something that happened in Soviet Russia.

"I remember a story about an event in Red Square in Moscow that took place not long after the terrible days of the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the atheist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The people of Moscow were called to a gathering in Red Square. There they were addressed by one of the new leaders, who spent well over a half an hour proving to the populace that there is no God. His factual arguments about the nonexistence of God were incontrovertible, and the mob of people standing in Red Square was silent and subdued.

Then a priest who was standing with the people asked permission to say three words. Permission was granted, and he stood in front of the packed square, raised his arms, and cried out:

"CHRIST IS RISEN!"

And the entire mob responded joyfully, "He is risen indeed!"

To all who celebrate: have a blessed Easter.

Not sure

I'm not sure what to do about some stuff. I don't know, I know I let things people say bug me more than I should, I tend to interpret tossed-off comments as slams or criticisms.

This has to do with the Youth Group. We (finally) had a decent-sized group last night. But there is this one girl. She is very pushy and opinionated. And I dislike dealing with pushy and opinionated people.

She started talking about all these things that would be "great" - stuff she had seen in other church's youth groups (and I hasten to add - other youth groups that have four times as many attendees, plus a full-time youth pastor whose paid job it is to shepherd these kids and plan activities).

I have me, plus my co-leader, plus the occasional help of one other person. None of us are paid. We don't even really have a budget anymore; if I want to do anything snazzy I need to buy the stuff out of my own pocket.

But here's this girl - who, incidentally, hasn't attended for the past 2 months - telling me how we need to have rocket-building contests and send cards weekly to people and stuff like that.

Part of it was, she used my Least Favorite Phrase Ever: "You need to."

No, honey, I don't NEED to. You WANT me to. There's a difference. I NEED to breathe. I NEED to eat nutritious food. I NEED to sleep. I NEED to do my paid job so I continue to have income so I can pay for food and the roof I sleep under and clothes to keep me warm.

Other than that, I don't NEED to do a whole lot.

She also talked about the "peer counselor" idea - about how it would be "cool" if some of the "older kids" (meaning: her) had "input" on the lesson plans (for Heaven's sake, I'm sometimes planning my Youth lesson at 1 pm on the Sunday I am to give it) and how they could "counsel" the younger kids with their problems.

And I'm sitting there, looking at her, going, honey, you have NO idea. No idea at all.

This is my big frustration. I'm dealing with a generation raised to expect dancing ducks and Powerpoint animations and loud music and craziness. And that's just not me. My style is much more quiet, more sit-them-down-and-talk-with-them. More "turn off your cell phone and listen to the person next to you."

Part of the problem - and the conflict I'm feeling - is that while I don't WANT to give up "control" to the point of allowing the chaos I've seen in some other youth programs - and while I don't WANT to vet my lessons past a group of "peer counselors" who could then say, "That's boring; do something else" and I'm faced with a couple more hours of work with no help - I wonder if maybe I SHOULD.

I kept hearing - and maybe it's me - under her words the implication that "I find this boring and want it to change. I want to change it."

But the thing is this, and this is what stays my hand - I've had some minor successes. There's one kid - who describes himself, as much as I wince at it and tell him not to say it, as being in the "retard" class at school - who has grown so much. He asks such good questions. He has such interesting viewpoints. He GETS it on a level some of the supposedly "smarter" kids don't.

And I get the feeling that it's the structure and the quiet and the calmness that this kid responds to - that if he were dropped in a more distraction-filled space, he'd be lost, he'd be run over by the louder pushier kids (like he is, apparently, at school).

So I don't know. Until last night I was fairly content with my quiet little C.S. Lewis-esque way of doing things - keeping it low key, letting the kids talk, not being afraid of silences. But now I get someone saying we need MUSIC! and we need GAMES! and we need stuff to GRAB THEM AND DRAW THEM IN!

And I just don't know. I wonder, honestly, how much of my resistance to that is "my stuff" - I've been doing this with pretty much the only help coming from my co-leader for four and a half years now. I've lived through some very serious criticisms of the program; I've dealt with bad situations. I rarely hear words of praise for what I'm trying to do - though I don't mind that so much, I realize that we're kind of invisible to a lot of the adults in church; we meet at a time when most of them are not around. And at any rate, praise from others is not why I'm doing this.

But I feel like - I've built this up largely from nothing. I started in after the church split doing this, thinking I'd do it for a few months and then hand it over to someone "better equipped" than I. And here I am, still. Apparently my co-leader and I are the only ones who "can" do this, or, more likely, the only ones willing to put up with the complaints about marks from rubber-soled shoes on the Fellowship Hall tiles, or the complaints about spilled soft drinks (we MAKE them clean them up but they don't always get every drop, and besides, we do have a custodian), or the complaints about the kids being noisy. I feel like I've weathered all that stuff, and finally the worst of the complaints have died down, just to be attacked from "within" as it were.

And also, the idea of the "peer counselors" concerns me a little. One reason I have a very hard time delegating much responsibility is that I have had no fewer than four different adult "volunteers" crap out on me - they come, all gung ho for a couple weeks, then they realize they don't get paid, and they don't get much thanks, and there are more "interesting" things to do....and they drift away. And they tell me they're sorry but they're "tired," or they have a real busy day at work the next day, or they want to relax in the evenings. And I feel a bit sad because all of those things apply to me, too - and to my co-leader, even MORE. (She has aging parents she is partly responsible for caring for).

I was also at one time promised a college intern, but that fell through.

So I'm not sure about giving tons of responsibility - especially something like "peer counseling" - to someone whose attendance has been spotty.

(I'm also not sure whether a person can call themselves a "peer counselor" with no training. And if I had to send them for training - well, again, that would probably be out of my own pocket).

I don't know. It's hard. I get tired of it sometimes. I will say most weeks I'm surprised and pleased by the response; someone will say something that makes a lot of sense, or someone will ask a good challenging question. But all the administration process of it - if we had money to hire a youth pastor, I'd have absolutely zero complaint about handing over the program. (I don't see that happening any time soon; we are very small, constantly fighting for financial survival, so most things have to be on a volunteer basis).

I've actually reached the point where I've quit asking for volunteers because I've been disappointed so many times. But I don't know...what that girl said keeps eating at me. Is the program small just because we are a small church, or is it small because I'm not doing enough exciting stuff?

And for that matter, should we even HAVE to do "exciting" stuff? I know it's how things work now, but it frustrates me that well-delivered content loses out to toy rocketships. I don't like the idea of surface trappings maybe obscuring what is really important. (And that's really the crux of my concern about how a lot of worship and faith-related things are being done now - there seems to be such an emphasis on slickness and coolness and technology that the idea that there is a Message, one that's been around for some 2000 years, that's far more important than slickness and coolness and technology - in fact, that is so important that trying to "dress it up" to "make it relevant" actually does a disservice to it.)

(Right now I'm reading Eugene Peterson's "Eat this book" where he makes a similar argument - that there are too many people out there seeking to make the Bible "relevant" to their lives, and that they have it exactly backwards - that they should be striving to make their lives relevant to what God wants. Which is maybe why I feel irked by the impression that I need to make things more "interesting" or "slicker.")

please pray

I have a friend - I think I'll just give her first name here, it's Gail - who had something horrible happen this week.

She lost her husband last year - this week last year - to a sudden blood clot.

Well, almost to the day, the grandson that she and her husband raised committed suicide. And she was the one who found his body.

I'm horrified by this. It makes me so sad - Gail seemed like she was just starting to get back on an even keel after the loss of her husband, and now this.

I got the call from another church member this morning - apparently I was in class when all this happened, and the people who know Gail really well just went over to her house to be with her without taking the time to notify anyone else (which I totally understand and that was the right thing). So now they're slowly getting the word out to everyone.

If you pray, please say one (or more) for Gail. She's going to need a lot of love and strength and support during this time.

And, if you're so inclined, say a prayer for her grandson's soul. I always feel like "such a waste" when I hear something like this - he was only 25 or so. I know, you never know the underlying stuff that's going on in a person's life and sometimes to the person it looks like dying is the only way out of the pain but, still - what a horrible thing for the family.

Happy Valentine's Day

From (of course) I Corinthians, chapter 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels,
but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.

And if I dole out all my goods, and
if I deliver my body that I may boast
but have not love, nothing I am profited.

Love is long suffering,
love is kind,
it is not jealous,
love does not boast,
it is not inflated.

It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth


It covers all things,
it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things,
it endures in all things.

*****

And you know, that kind of sums up my dissatisfaction with what Valentine's Day has become.

Nowhere in there does it say "Love buys diamonds for its beloved."
Nowhere does it say "If you spend enough money, you get a 'free pass.'"

No. It makes the much harder requirement. (And before I go any further: the "love" being referenced is, of course, not merely romantic love, but rather the love we are all expected to have for our fellow humans. Even the ones who make themselves unlovable. Perhaps, especially, the ones who make themselves unlovable).

Love wants what's best for the other person. It's not kind of holding back, kind of going, "I'll do this but there better be something in it for me." It doesn't keep score - "Well, he screwed up in this way and that way and that way last week, so I'll just remember those and hold them over his head when he wants something from me."

It doesn't boast. It doesn't force itself on others.

It's really hard, I openly admit it, for me to have that kind of love for my fellow human. (I must confess: the other day, when I wrote about going to the wal-mart at 4 pm - when I encountered the first Special Snowflake, I was sitting in my car, shouting "*sshole! *sshole! *sshole!" at him. No, he couldn't hear me, of course. But I was still agitated and angry and I still could not love him at that moment).

I don't think any of us can have that kind of constant and abiding love for our fellow human for all the time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work on it. But it's a hard task.

Sometimes I wonder - thinking, as I do, of the Fall as more allegorical explanation for characteristics ingrained in human nature than as a literal account of "this is how it really happened," if the real Fall of humanity happened when the first man committed the first malicious act against another man. I'm not talking about simple predation or competition like animals do; I'm talking about the first premeditated act, done not out of a need to survive or to get food or any of those basic survival needs, but the first act done to wound the feelings of another - and done specifically for that purpose. I wonder if that's when our eyes were maybe "opened," and we became like God in the sense that we now had the power to either comfort or wound. (But we have not God's wisdom to make us want to AVOID wounding)

I think a lot of - if not all - of the things that we think of as sin (at least, those of us who still use the concept of sin) can be traced back to that fundamental selfishness, that desire to have your own, and the heck with the other. Traced back to not loving one's fellow man.

I don't know. I do know it makes me sad to think of some people using Valentine's Day as a way to try to buy the love or forgiveness of the other person in their life. If you really do have love for that other person, if you are kind and loving most of the time (no one is all of the time), a card or some kind of silly inexpensive gift should suffice. Because you're showing the person love - you're doing love - the whole year through.

It also makes me sad to think that Valentine's Day, at least when you're an adult, is aimed at one type and one type only of love - romantic love. For those of us who don't have it in our lives (or don't have it at this moment), it makes the day a tiny bit bitter. It makes it just a little harder to think of the love we DO have - be it love of parents, or of God, or of good friends, or of children - and be grateful for it. Because some folks, it seems, see those other kinds of love (which frankly, in my life, have been far more faithful and far more abiding than romantic love) as somewhat of a "second prize." You know, it's the single "losers" who talk about how much they love their friends. Or how they're happy they have a close relationship with family.

And that just is sad. Because I've found that when the guy left me, when he started dating another woman without telling me when we had earlier made a sort of "exclusivity" pact, when he claimed that "following his bliss" meant his going somewhere he knew I couldn't follow - the ones who were there to console me, to tell me, "He doesn't deserve you, and he proved it by doing THAT," who said, "It doesn't matter anyway; you're a strong person and you don't need a man to depend on" or "You do not deserve to be treated like that" were my friends and my family.

It's too bad, really, we don't have a day - or that we don't take back Valentine's Day - to celebrate THAT kind of love. (Well, OK, there's Mother's Day and Father's Day but that doesn't cover a lot of the people who love me)

I may have fewer than 10 people in my life I can count on that way - people that, no matter what happened, no matter what awful thing I had to phone them up about, would still listen to me, still commiserate with me, still LOVE me (even if they were telling me they were going to "kick my ass" for me being stupid and getting into whatever problematic situation it was). They're the ones I'd want to sent a Valentine to, to thank them for their loyalty and their love.

little kids

There's a young family that belongs to the same church as I do: the man, his wife, and their two kids, a girl of perhaps 4 and a boy who is not quite 2.

The man comes early every Sunday morning to check on the soundboard and make sure the mikes are all working right. His wife and the kids come a bit later, right before church. She sings in the choir and the little ones go to the nursery.

I saw something today that made me smile. The mom brought her kids in, and the dad came walking out of the sound-system room just to say hi to her and to make sure everything was right. The little girl saw him (they couldn't have been separated for more than an hour) and she said, "Daddy!" and ran up to him and grabbed him around the knee (he's a tall man). The little boy kept reaching out until his mom put him down, then he ran over to his dad and stretched up his arms, wanting to be picked up. His dad picked him up, and then said, "Okay....let's go to the nursery now" and led them out gently.

Those little simple moments, a family being a family. Oh, I'm sure there are times when the kids are cranky and the parents are tired and everyone wants to yell at everyone else, (But I don't see it in that family; they always seem to be content when I see them).

Seeing the little kids - the girl in particular - reminded me of my own early childhood. When you have good parents, how easy it is to trust. When I was little, I thought my mom was the most beautiful and the most talented woman in the whole world - she could sew and knit and crochet and make toys for me and bake and cook and grow a garden and she knew the names of the birds and the bugs and she could sing and she could make me feel better when I skinned my knees or the bigger kids in the neighborhood made fun of me. And I thought my dad was the smartest and strongest man in the world, that he could fix anything when it broke and he knew the answer to all of my questions.

And while I still esteem my parents highly, I don't have quite the same blind admiration I had as a kid. And while I realize it would be impossible to hang on to that as an adult - and it probably isn't even desirable to - still, I kind of miss that feeling, that feeling of being able to trust another person totally and 100%. Of them always living up to your image of them.

And I thought about two other things: when did this feeling change? I think, reflecting upon it, it changed after I went to school. Part of it being in and around other people, but a bigger part realizing that there were some things my parents just couldn't protect me from (I was teased a lot in school; I got knocked down a lot in the halls. And though the teachers were more attentive than what you hear in some of the horror stories from schools today, they still didn't always manage to stop things or prevent things). I began to learn that grownups were falliable - some played favorites, some pretended not to see stuff that happened, some even lied to you.

And I also got to thinking this morning: I wonder if about the time I learned that grownups weren't as perfect as I thought they were, if that was when my mental image of God started to change. When I was a kid, I had the typical kid mental image: the old, old man with the long white beard, sitting up in the clouds. But after some of my school experiences I began to realize that that image didn't work for me any more.

Now, if you asked me to describe an image of God, I'd be hard-pressed (well, at least for God the Father). I'd probably hem and haw and say I saw God as something like a Force (not The Force, although in the original Star Wars movies - the ones that came out when I was a kid - the description of the Force comes sort of close. I did not like that "midchlorian" thing they introduced in the "prequels that came later" movies. I liked the more non-material, mystical, non-reductionist version of the Force). But it's hard for me to really conjure up an image, while it would have been easy as a kid.

I don't know - just thinking out loud here. Sometimes when I see a little kid I'm briefly reminded of what it was like - the dim and shadowy memories of my own childhood, and I wonder a little at how I got here from there.

a letter

My church women's group's Christmas party was last night. It's mostly "fun" without much "serious" - we have a potluck dinner and do a white-elephant gift exchange (where you never know if the gift you choose will be something nice-but-something-that-particular-person-couldn't-use or something awful - there are a couple of "awful" gifts that make the rounds every year).

But we do have a devotional. I particularly liked the one this year. I do not know if the person who did it wrote it herself or if she found it published somewhere.

It was a letter. She described it as a letter that could have been written on the first Christmas, or any Christmas after that.

It started out, "My dear children."

It went on to say, "There are people in this world who are here to deceive you. They will try to convince you that you are not smart enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not good enough, that you've broken too many promises, that you've lived too many lies..." through a long litany of things that people use either to beat themselves up or to beat other people up. The letter writer (who it is supposed to be I am sure you have guessed by now) goes on to say, "You do not belong to those people. You belong to me. And I love you, you are precious to me."

The letter writer adds "I have given my all for you, to show you how much I love you."

I have to admit I was fighting tears during part of the letter (okay - in case you didn't guess, the conceit is that it was God writing the letter to humanity). But I do that SO MUCH, telling myself I'm not smart enough or good enough or whatever. I let people's criticism of things I do become evidence to me that I'm NOT good enough (and not that I need to improve that one particular thing, or that that particular event didn't go as planned, or that the person is just lashing out and it's not me, it's them). I let the mistakes I make be proof that I'm not worthy to hold down the job I do, or do the things I do, or whatever.

So it's something I need to hear, and something I find almost surprising, to be reminded of. That although I may screw up, there's still something worthwhile in there.

I find myself thinking of all the crap I've taken over my life - as a kid, I was called "retard" (which still puzzles me). I was told I was ugly, I was told I was stupid and a "spazz" and all kinds of things. And I think people do internalize that stuff, especially as kids. (I still think I'm kind of a spazz but I also think there are some silly/positive connotations to that - you can be a spazz because you're really enthusiastic about something, for example)

(And yes, I know, "spazz" used to be a very horrible insult to people with certain types of motor defects. By the time I was on the scene, it was pretty much used as a synonym for "nerd" or "geek")

And as a teenager, I believed myself - for some reason - to be hideously ugly. (I'm still surprised and taken aback when someone comments positively about my appearance. I was in a wool shop over Thanksgiving break with my mother and while I was looking around, I overheard the owner say to my mother, "she's a pretty woman." Which surprises me, a little).

As an adult, I was essentially kicked out of the first grad school I attended (because I didn't have a good enough research plan). I was criticized roundly and (I think) unfairly by a supervisor my first semester of being a teaching assistant when I went back to grad school. I get nasty comments on evaluations from time to time. And every one of those things is like a little coal burning in my heart - it hurts, and I have no good way to put out that hurt. I tend to dwell on it and when I'm lying awake in bed at night I return to those criticisms and use them as evidence - almost like I am on trial - of why I'm no good.

I wonder if anyone really believes themselves to be "good enough" or if everyone is carrying around some sense that they're messed up - either generally messed up or messed up in some very specific way.

And yet, my faith teaches me that despite my perception of messed-up-ness, there's still something valuable there...there's something worthwhile.

I once read an essay that surmised that our lives are kind of like a tapestry we weave. And because we're human, mistakes get woven into that tapestry. But at the end of our lives, the writer suggested, when we see God, God takes that tapestry and either fixes the mistakes - so it's complete and whole and we can see what it was meant to be - or else somehow transforms the mistakes so the tapestry is whole. And you know, that's something I kind of hold on to. Something I kind of hope for - that the things I screwed up in this life will either be undone (so they don't matter any more) or will be changed so that although it may have been a mistake at the time, it comes to be an integral and good part of the whole.

I don't know. But it's funny, in such a self-esteem obsessed world that at least some of us seem to be walking around a lot of the time feeling like we're not good enough.

(And I do see a difference between accepting yourself as a child of God - and therefore valuable to God despite everything you know about yourself - and having a sort of false self-esteem, where people tell you that everything you do is perfect and wonderful. I'm just not very good at articulating what that difference is...perhaps it's the difference between flawed-but-still-valuable and I-don't-believe-I-have-any-flaws).

"At their level"

I had meetings to travel to earlier this week. On the way, I flipped through the various radio stations (most of the stations around here, like the lady at the honky-tonk in The Blues Brothers, make the proud claim that "We play BOTH kinds of music! Country AND Western!").

I hit on a talk station, which was preferable to some of the things.

And an ad came on that made me think - and I'm still thinking about it. It was apparently one of those megachurches, where they have a group for everyone and a wide range of social activities. And one of the things the announcer said kind of bugged me. He made a comment along the lines of, "And we have groups for youth, too - we meet them on their own level with exciting, drama-based lessons and video game stations."

First of all: what kind of video games? Do they just have ordinary but maybe "family friendly" games like Tetris and Guitar Hero, or do they have special Youth Group video games, like "David's Target Practice" or "Spot the Pharisee"?

And second - this raises an issue that frankly bugs me. Not just about churches, but also about education and society at large.

Yes, I understand that sometimes you need to meet youth or the unchurched or students or whomever where they are. But you damn well better not LEAVE them there! I wonder about the kind of faith a kid might develop if he is only ever exposed to fun song-and-dance type lessons, or video games, or all that kind of entertainment-oriented stuff. What happens when he hits a difficult point in his life? (I guess what I'm thinking here: don't coddle them - just like you don't water your lawn a little bit every day in a dry climate, because it then never develops the deep roots that can sustain it when there's a period when you can't or are not permitted to water it, you don't always do the happy-clappy stuff so that when the person hits the inevitable pain in life, they don't recoil from the church and think it is a place that cannot help them, because "it's just for happy people.")

As the saying goes: we need to do the hard things.

And I am concerned about that. It seems so much any more there's a push to shield people - especially young people and students - so they are kept as long as possible from having to do the hard things. And you know what? Just as a muscle becomes soft and weak by not being exercised, I think a person's moral capacity can become soft and weak when they are kept from the normal difficulties in life (or, worse, when they are shielded from the consequences of their actions).

I hear this a lot from educators: "Make it fun!" or "Have a student-centered classroom!" (which usually actually means: show movies, allow discussion extraneous to the topic at hand, throw softball test questions at them). And you know what?

I am not here to make the students like me, my subject, or the class. I am here to help them gain the skills and knowledge they need to be productive and well-rounded citizens.

Especially in the majors classes - I do not think I should have to "sell" the subject. If a student majoring in Biology doesn't love biology, thinks it's too hard or stupid or boring or not worthwhile or feels they shouldn't have to work for their degree, they need to be in another major. Not in mine.

I do try to make the subjects interesting - I bring in real-world examples, if I can come up with a funny anecdote to illustrate my point, I use it. Or I do activities appropriate to the topic. (I work very hard to choose lab activities that reinforce and mesh with what they're learning in lecture).

Now, don't get me wrong - not everyone loves every subject in their field equally well. That's why people specialize. But I've had a few students who hated ALL of their classes - who griped about all their professors, about all the projects they were doing. They just seemed miserable - there was no spark of enjoyment there, no sense of "This is something I want to be doing."

Either they need some kind of intervention (chemical or talk-therapy, because they are suffering from depression), or they need to look for a new career. I find it hard to deal with people who are ALWAYS sour and are ALWAYS bored with everything.

And I refuse to dumb down my classes - to take out some of the much-complained-about math in my Ecology class, or stop teaching certain topics in general biology, or not do "all that chemistry" in Soils. Because that is stuff a person who has had a class in that field needs to know! I do not want graduates to go out from our department with our name on their diplomas, and then have the employers later go, "Man, it was a mistake hiring someone from THAT school. Let's never do that again."

I don't know. I wonder at people who look at every challenge they are faced with and automatically shut down - automatically go "this is too hard" and don't even try. Or worse, who go running to someone to try to intervene for them and get a stop put to the hard thing.

Actually, the most satisfying things I've ever done in my life have been the hardest. Dealing with essentially being asked to leave the first graduate program I was in (I was partly sabotaged by a particular faculty member, but I didn't find that out until later - it was the first time I had "failed" at a big thing in my life and it took a lot of soul-searching to deal with it). Doing the research for and writing my dissertation. Moving a thousand miles away from family to a town I'd never heard of before I sent the job application in and starting to teach from scratch in my first real job ever. Revitalizing a youth group after a congregational split, when I had never worked with anyone under 18. Heading a campus committee where there was a lot of in-fighting and a lot of things done that really weren't with the students' best interests at heart, and really pushing the group to consider the students' best interests. (And I think I succeeded on that last one. I saw one of my former committee members a few weeks ago - normally we never have contact as we're in different schools, let alone different departments, and he commented on my leadership of the committee and how he appreciated that "you always put what was best for the students first, even if it wasn't popular with everyone." And that committee chairmanship was one of the hardest things I've done, because I HATE conflict and would much rather just not say anything, compromise, allow people to run over me. But there are some things that are just NOT right, and in that case, I guess I can find the guts to step up and say, "No, that is not right. We need to do it this way.")

And you know? I look back on all the hard things and I go, "You know? I'm stronger than I think I am." And I think that's an important lesson. Now when I face something difficult, I can say to myself, "You survived these things in the past, you can survive this."

It's by doing the hard things that I know I can do them. I know that sounds kind of silly and tautological, but it's easy to get stuck in the loop of "this is too HARD. I can't DO THIS." and never move out of it.

And it's the same way with faith. I am not satisfied that my youth group kids can merely parrot the Ten Commandments back to me; what I want is for them to be able to explain why they are important, why THAT ten, and how the commandments apply to their everyday lives.

And you know what? When you expect a lot of people, sometimes they rise to that. Oh, there are weeks when I'm met by blank stares or by responses that show they didn't "get" the question. But other times they really have good insights, and they ask good pointed questions about things. Or they share things that happened during the week and once and a while I get the feeling of "Yes! Some of this IS sinking in!"

And I think because I make it challenging - I make the lessons more intellectual or more scriptural than what a lot of my friends who lead youth groups do - I think the kids respond to that. I do think young people want challenges...or at least they want them until they hit a point where they've been so coddled for so long that their ability to work hard or think hard has atrophied.

I think the other thing is that there's an awful fear of failure, and a strong desire to protect kids from it.

Now, don't get me wrong: I HATE failing at stuff. Hate it tremendously. When I do screw up and something I try fails, I either go home and cry about it for a day or two (if it's a big thing) or stomp around and cuss for an hour or two (if it's a little thing). But at the end of that time, I kind of square my shoulders and go, "Okay. THAT didn't work. Now what do I try?" And I try again.

Failure sucks but it can also be useful, in the sense of that you know one way that doesn't work.

And sometimes failure plays a more corrective role. It teaches us not to do that thing again.

(Though I guess not everyone learns. We had to become much more anal-retentive about kids wearing their safety glasses in lab because a girl in one class [not my class] broke a pipette and got glass in her eye [doctors were able to remove it without any damage]. But you know what? The prof whose class she was in when it happened - and whose class she is in again this semester - says that of all the people in the class, she is the one she has to harp on the most to wear her safety goggles. That blows my mind, that she wouldn't be the FIRST one in the class to have them on every day.)

So, it worries me when people talk about "you need to meet them at their level" or "you need to interact with them at their level" or, worst, "you need to bring it down to their level." Okay, maybe sometimes you need to start where people are - but you also need to bring them up to another level. You need to install some aspiration in people. It's because of people's aspirations - because of people saying "Where we are now is not good enough" that we have things like antibiotics and the polio vaccine and electricity and computers and clean water and all the blessings of the modern world...it's why we're not still living in the trees and having to spend 15 hours a day hunting and gathering food.

And you know? Having aspirations and not just saying, "oh, well, where we are now isn't great but it's too much trouble to try for more, and anyway we might fail" has worked awfully well for us in the past. I'd hate to see "let's just meet people where they are and not take them out of their comfort zone, because that might hurt their feelings" become the new paradigm of life.

so many prayers...

My prayers (for safety and also for freedom-from-fear) are going out to the people in Southern California who are affected by the fires. I don't just have IIFs (Invisible Internet Friends) out there, I have flesh-and-blood friends and also flesh-and-blood relatives (a cousin - as far as I know he's okay; I haven't heard anything. We don't talk on a regular basis so I'm not worried that I've not heard anything).

I do not live in a fire-prone region (our main natural-disaster threat is tornadoes, which is different from a fire storm in a lot of ways), so I don't know what it's like but it looks very frightening.

And as Emily said on her blog - stay safe, and when they tell you to leave, you pay attention to that, okay? Don't make this another New Orleans.

At any rate - stay safe. Hopefully some of the giant tanker planes the Feds are sending today will help make a dent in the fires.

And more personal prayers, prayers of another sort:

Joel has a beautiful post up about prayers for Lauren (the tiny child with neuroblastoma; the one upon whose behalf a great many FOs have been issued against cancer on the FFOT. And you know...when I think about it, in a kind of twisted way those FOs themselves are a form of prayer...a recognition that something is Not Right and a hope that somehow things can change). He compares the situation to the OT lectionary reading from this past Sunday, how Aaron and Hur held up Moses' hands against the Amelekites (I have to admit this is a passage I am less familiar with than many). And Joel observes that praying for others is like that - that you are helping them to hold up their hands, that you are providing some amount of strength and assistance to them in a difficult time.

It's a nice metaphor and one I will remember. I earlier talked about how I sometimes envisioned prayer as sort of an invisible spiritual net that the pray-ers try to set up under the person being prayed for. And I like that image too, because it reminds me to pray for the FAMILIES of the afflicted person as well. As someone who has had seriously ill relatives, I'm well aware that the family members are almost as much in need of that "net" to hold them up as the ill person is.

One of the things that strikes me - and humbles me again and again - about people of faith is how WILLING - no, how EAGER they are to offer up prayers for assistance or healing for people they have never even met. I think it's perhaps because so many of them see us as being all connected...it's kind of like the bit in one of the early Star Wars movies where (I think it was) Ben Kenobi made the comment that he "felt a great disturbance in the Force" when the evil Empire snuffed out a bunch of innocent lives.

(And I have to say I liked the Old-School Star Wars way of dealing with the Force - leaving it somewhat mysterious, so that you could almost accept that it was their way of describing the Holy Spirit - rather than the New-School "midchlorian" explanation, which seemed clunky and mechanistic and not-full-of-wonder to me. When I was a kid, I loved the idea of the Force.)

At any rate - that kind of plugged-in, everyone-is-my-brother-deep-down feeling - it's a good thing.

One of the memorable scenes from My Antonia - which is one of my favorite novels - is when the Mr. Shimerdas (the father of the recent-immigrant, Bohemian family) starts to pray over something (I don't remember what) in front of Jim Burden and his grandfather. Now, the Shimerdas are foreign (and, presumably, Catholic - and Jim and his grandparents are old frontier Protestant), and there's a moment where you think there might be some rejection there (remembering how badly some Protestants in my country have treated Catholics over the years - and that's one thing I think we as Protestants should be ashamed of), but it doesn't happen - Mr. Shimerdas' prayer is accepted by those being prayed for. And later, Jim's grandfather makes the comment that, "The prayers of all good people are good."

And you know? I believe that.

Something I need to hear

My pastor describes himself as a "lectionary pastor" (I'm not totally sure which one he follows; there are a couple of slightly different lectionaries - the Catholics have one, and the Anglican one is slightly different, and the Lutheran one is different still).

I like that he does that. Part of it is that it's organized - and I like organization. But part of it is - as he said himself, several weeks ago - that lectionaries can be more challenging. You are confronted with passages that sometimes you might rather "blip" over and go on to something warmer and fuzzier.

Well, his sermon this Sunday wasn't warm and fuzzy. And it was something I wrestle with on a regular basis - something I know intellectually I should deal with, something I know intellectually that is right, but emotionally I find difficult.

The passage he used was this:

(Luke 17: 5-10)

5The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? 9Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

The bolded part is what he concentrated on, and what I found so striking.

Because, see, I'm a person who likes to be thanked. I like recognition for what I've done. And on some level I know, yeah, I'm just doing my job and that should be good enough - and I should (and I do) take a certain pride in doing the job (whatever it is) well FOR THE SAKE OF DOING IT WELL, still, I tend to get cranky when I go too long without hearing positive reinforcement.

Case in point: there was an on-campus duty this weekend. Now, one of us was supposed to be there. I was (apparently) the only one free. So I did it. It was okay - it was not bad or anything, it's just taking a timespan from about 10 am until noon kind of shoots your Saturday from being able to do much else.

And I kind of griped about it to myself ahead of time: "They should be grateful - GRATEFUL - I'm taking this on, that I was a big enough sap to volunteer."

I griped about it to my dad, observing that a record small number of people had signed up for the thing I was doing, and so my department would probably see zero benefit.

"But," my dad pointed out to me, quietly, "you are doing the right thing."

Dang it, he was right.

And you know, Sunday morning, when the pastor talked about how people really shouldn't expect gratitude for doing what they're supposed to do (He updated the "slave" example by pointing out: "Do you expect a letter of thanks when you pay your bills?" making the point that there are a lot of things people do that is expected of them, that is necessary for society to work normally, and we should not expect thanks when we do those things).

And you know...when the shoe is on the other foot, I get irked. How many times have I complained about students who come to class on a day when "no one's" there and ask me for bonus points because they showed up?

Well, my wanting to be thanked for things I should probably be doing anyway is my version of that. And I know it's something I need to work on - I tend to crave recognition, I think because I was at the very beginning of the "self-esteem" generation (But I didn't get it as badly as some) and also because I was a high achiever all through school, and you do kind of get used to getting those gold stars or A plusses.

And that's a hard lesson of adulthood - that sometimes you have to be the one to give yourself a gold star because no one else really cares, because you're just doing your job. Sometimes, on my better weeks, I can tell myself, "If no one's complaining, that means you're doing well." Because in my experience that's when you hear from people - when something's wrong.

I also admit to a certain jealousy...I do craft stuff, I have a flickr page of stuff I've made, I have a few patterns I've written floating around the web...and yet, the people who get interviewed on the Craft blog, some of whom are doing stuff that I tend to think is uglier or sillier than what I do, they get all this love and all this attention (or what I perceive as such). Some of them get book deals. And I have to admit, it's sort of an ugly little part of my personality, I read those things, and I'm jealous. I think, "I wish *I* had a book deal. I wish *I* had thousands of people clamoring to read what I think, who want to know my thoughts and my opinions."

(Hence the blog. I may not be getting paid for it, I may only have a handful of readers, but it does satisfy that basic ego-need to talk about what I think with someone that I can't SEE when their eyes start to glaze over or when they begin checking their cell phone to see if they've got any messages).

And you know? I think that's a fundamental human desire, the desire for recognition. But I do think it's in conflict with the idea of service - you can't serve with a happy heart if you're always needing to be thanked, because people being what they are, they don't always thank others.

And I also think there is something about the desire to be loved and important and popular amongst your peers that tends to go against the idea of doing jobs because they need to be done. Because who is going to volunteer to sweep the floor, if no one sees that it's clean, and if it just gets dirty again?

(One of the things I am doing with the Youth Group is requiring them to help clean up after dinner. Several of the kids have pointed out that a lot of the mess they clean up is from the day care that meets several hours before we do, and I just observe to them that life isn't fair, and sometimes it's necessary to clean up after other people. And yes, I do my share of cleaning up, too. I don't think it's right for the teachers to stand back and make the kids work without pitching in themselves).

One of the things I have to work on with myself is that laboring in obscurity isn't really laboring in obscurity, in the cosmic sense - that everything everyone does to help others, or increase the balance of love in the universe, or serve God, or do good in whatever way they can - does add to the good of the universe, even if no one ever sees it.

Another story about my father - about a year ago, the church he belongs to had a ceremony for "honored servants" - people who have provided lots of service over the years. My father's been on just about every committee the congregation has (and head of several), for a number of years he was the Head Elder (which is not a fun job; it's a lot of responsibility without really any benefits. And you have to make the schedules, which means people come and complain to you for putting them on duty when they want to be out of town). So he was one of the "honored servants."

And my dad was kind of opposed to this. He said: I am just doing what everyone should do.

And yet, at the same time - very few people actually DO what they "should" do, at least in the sense my dad meant it.

He somewhat-embarrassedly accepted the plaque they made up, and stood up at the front of the church with the other honorees, but I don't think he was comfortable with it.

And you know, that's an attitude I need to develop - the attitude of "just doin' my job" when someone comments on how hard I'm working or something.

I mean, I guess I'll still feel secretly pleased ("someone noticed!") but I need to work on not trying to seek that out, and especially on not feeling bad when people DON'T notice.