Roadtrip South!

Ok....so...I did ask for prayers for this journey! Travelling for days ina medium sized car with three stubborn men aged 13, 17.5, and 82 is not the average person's idea of a vacation. (and I am a middle-aged woman, so there is that dynamic, too!) but as it turns out, this is amazing! What fun! I am geeking out on watching the trees I am so accustomed to morph over the miles to trees that are not at all what I know! And Spanish Moss! And palms, and little lizards everywhere! Fabulous! Who would have thought this would be so full of wonder when I agreed to go to a wedding in the Land of Disney!

Truth be told, I was dreading it. Fighting, sweating, negative progeny who are not interested in all the educational and inspirational gifts of an iconic American roadtrip was what I expected, and not at all what I have...at least today, two days in! 

The whole concept of a journey through wilderness and trusting is clearly a theme here....I'm not sure I'm good with Disney World being my shikinah cloud, that's taking the imagery too far, but wandering is scary and good at the same time....and that is a tension that God seems to know pretty well....it's part of the whole story!

The puppet takes a trip to Uganda!

Well. VBS is full of wonderful surprises....but this summer takes the cake! The adorable, colorful, live wire puppet known as "Rivet the Ant" has....departed! Err.....yeah....he's gone alright!

Yes. Somebody stole the VBS mascot! Nothing else. No candles or crosses or sound equipment (thankfully)....Just the mascot that we use for the openings and closings.....weird.

It couldn't have been a kid...I don't think.....Rivet is like 20 inches tall, he's not a puppet easily stuffed under a size 8 t-shirt. So, we made do with pretending he went on a quick trip to Uganda where the church funds a school which we were going to talk about anyway. So we managed to cover up his absence. We had the "voice of Rivet" call in on the cell phone which we pretended to put on speaker. Funny. We can be pretty creative, but still. This is super sad. We kind of miss Rivet. And I find myself wondering. Just wondering.

A Rivet replacement is being shipped overnight, so tomorrow we can just pretend it never happened. But it did. My only hope at this point is maybe this situation will work out to be like that great 1953, Victor Mature, Richard Burton classic "The Robe"! Which was about how, at Christ's crucifiction, when the soldiers cast lots for his robe, the owner of said robe was converted....and each successive owner also was strangely moved to acts of love and eventual conversion to Christianity! My hope is that whoever is in possession of Rivet will mystically come the God! Let's pray for that! Blessings on Rivet and whoever holds him! We love you Rivet!

It's VBS eve!

Well! There is nothing like knowing people are looking to read your blog to motivate writing!

This is a tough night...Tomorrow begins the marathon that is Vacation Bible School. So, the week has involved a lot of coloring and cutting and pasting and memorizing with the anticipation of the little darlings having such a fun time, and learning songs that will be, for most, the theology that carries them through their life (sorry to be so negative....just being realistic)

And this joyful preparation is happening half a globe away from war; from cultures killing for control of land, and passenger planes shot out of the air.

I have always, and will always, find this tension difficult. How do I act like there is nothing wrong, yet what could I possible do to change events so far away and so much bigger than me?

This week's lectionary text tells us the story of God choosing Jacob: "Heel Grabber", hang-out-in-tent-whilst-your-brother-does-all-the-work, sneaky trickster Jacob is who God speaks to in a dream....a dream of the very gate of heaven with angels coming and going....God likes the broken characters. Go figure.

Psalm 139 that reminds us how this God of Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob knows us...from the very start of us...all around and through and totally there in it all.

Of  Paul reminding us in the Letter to the Roman church that we are adopted by this same God. So Jesus is our brother....and like equals to Jesus, we are inheritors of all God has. Wow. Equal with the Divine. Wow.

And then....there's the Matthew text! Of Jesus' parable about the wheat and the weeds, the explanation involving burning and gnashing of teeth for the weeds. Ouch. We don't want to be the weeds, right?!?! This is sort of an icky text. It's violent. It feels uncomfortable. Did the seed ask to be bad? Or good? Yikes. But, we are told not to separate the weeds and the weed. We're not to worry.

Not to worry?! We hear the news and we worry. We want to know why God let's all this bad stuff happen. Evil. War. Violence. Injustice. Why? If God can do anything, then why is there any bad?

Who is the wheat, and who are the weeds? 

Well. That theme runs throughout the Bible, the story of this Relational God and us stiff-necked people, and still we wonder and we write, and we worry.

With the weeds and the wheat parable we have let God deal with that in God's time.

I don't know how that applies to Israel and Palestine and Russia and The Ukraine. I really honestly can not even BEGIN to know the politics of those places. Tempers here flare at discussion of those places.

There is evil and there is righteousness and the weeds and the wheat look the same.

As always I have to simplify and look to what Jesus thought was the most important thing:

LOVE.
Love God, love neighbor, love self.

I cannot effect the middle east tomorrow, but I can effect my community's kids.

And through my prayers, I can love. Because prayer is how we relate to this Relational God.

Let your wondering and worrying be known!

Pray has power and changes things....and so does VBS!

Advent 3A

Mary.

I instantly see sky blue....somewhere in the back of my imagination....when I hear the name " Mary".

Probably because of her cloak. It's a really saturated, "Maxwell Parish", October sky blue. My poet friend Aliki (alikibarnstone), who is half Greek, told me that blue, Mary-blue, and also that cobalt blue, decorates all houses in Greece. It is a powerful thing that wards away evil. The evil-eye. (I still don't really know the concept of the eye...just that you don't want it on you.) so blue is a protection from that which is bad and can harm you. And, of course, that is confusing because to "be blue" is...well...not a good thing, and if it leads to depression and suicide....well, that seems pretty evil. To sing the blues is sort of in the middle....it can go either way....you either sing and get get it out of your system and feel happy again, or you just keep on singing the blues forever....or until you can't take it anymore.

So Mary got a complicated colour.

Which works because she is complicated. She comfortably fills in the spaces that the goddess has left.

She's like everyone's best imagination of a mom.

She's either human in it's most perfect imagining....or perfect in that she's just a little edgey.

She is not scary, though. Not for me.

Somehow, if I woke to find an angel standing at the foot of my bed, I would be screaming and clawing with terror...

But if Mary was standing there, in her blue cloak, I think I would be OK. I would feel really blest even.

Go figure.

It's like there's a part of me that "gets" why God chose her to carry Godself. Good choice!

She's like the best of grandma, mom, and girlfriend wrapped into one....which brings her right back to the goddess! She is the teenage girl pregnant mysteriously, she is the broken weeping mother at the foot of the cross, she is the one gently pressuring the miracle at Cana, she is the one we think of when Paul McCartney sings "Let it Be" (his deceased mother was also named Mary....so there's that...but anyway)

She is as real or as cosmic as we need.

But she does comfort. The quintessential maternal duty. 

On this pink-candle lighting Sunday, we think of Mary. Maybe it should be a blue candle....the blueness that surrounds her is somewhat ineffable...but the candle for the day is special. It's pink. And she was the carrier of God.

Just as Creator being created has reset all creation, God's choice of her has certainly reset her!

Deified her.

Mary. The Mother of God! God has done great things!

Advent 1 of Year A

Just like all of the other "New Year's" today is a great day to make a resolution about blogging more frequently...yeah. So, since this is the brand new, spanking fresh liturgical year I should write my musings on the first lectionary of year A. Here goes:

Seriously, lectionary people? Seriously? Now, to be fair, the first week of Advent, traditionally, focuses on when Jesus comes "again".....but this Matthew is harsh! My congregation just decorated for Christmas all day Saturday. They probably listened to holiday tunes on the radio. They are thinking about "baby" Jesus who is very sweet and innocent and loves us in a way deeper way than we can know....what we're getting is "thief in the night", scary, threatening, judging Jesus"!?! This is just not what we want to hear this week. Just sayin'. I, being a third Quaker and all, have to admit that the incarnational  aspect of of God is rockin'! I probably do stress that more often than some would like (hey! We all have our thing, right?!) so, Immanuel...God with us....and the next step God in us....is a huge, big deal for me. The whole second coming thing is just not a part of my usual theological discussions. (if I can help it) So, this first week of the new liturgical year, my plan was to go off lectionary and just preach on a Bible story of God with us...O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and all that...I came really close, but something was not right. It seems a bit phony to go off lectionary just because the text is something you don't really want to preach for whatever reason.

Matthew and Mark are the highlighted Gospels for year A. Maybe, I should start there. Matthew is a kind of more Jewishy book. History matters. Tradition matters. There's lots of reference to law and things from the whole arc of the story with God. Likely, it was written for an audience that was in Jerusalem. These were God's Chosen who were following the teachings of Jesus Christ, not gentiles hearing the whole thing fresh and new and having a relational God introduced who is different from the god or gods they knew from their culture. Jesus is even referred to as "rabbi". His preaching, when we sum up Matthew, stresses LOVE. So, there's that. Yet....He doesn't seem that lovely in this text! The first bit is strangely comforting....about the day and hour no one knows.....not messengers from heaven, not the Son (that would be Jesus) but only the Father. I wish that in high school I would have rememinded of this. Many a slumber party conversation centered on Nostradamus and the end of the world...and of course, recently, those people who lost all their money because they thought the world was coming to an end. I think their minister told them. I can't reacall what exactly they did with their money, but the end did not come and they were all broke. It was in the news....there was either a comet, or just current events had the minister thinking prophecy was met and Jesus was back. I guess he forgot this passage. Actually, when there were riots in Egypt a few years back Fox News had "footage" of what looked like a ghostly horse and rider above the crowd...clearly one of the four "Riders of the Apocalypse" that we hear avout in that other text that is, quite frankly, bizarre, Revelation. 

And was it May 16th of 2012...then moved to December 23rd of 2012 when we were told the Mayan Calendar predicted the end times......and all the other prophecies proved that the end was nigh. And here we still are. But are we ready?? If Jesus was returning tonight, are we ready?

Advent 1 is when we are meant to think about the Advent yet to come, and to do that is to confront texts that our tradition ( the reformed one) doesn't really dwell on! We would sort of rather skip it! It's the end of days! What could that mean and be?!? It's unknown and freaky! Back to the text! Get ready!

Ok Jesus says "For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." Call me crazy but the Noah story is HARSH! With the hurricane just a few weeks ago in the Phillipines, the Boxing Day Tsunami which wasn't that long ago, followed closely by Katrina....and recently we were personally effected by Sandy (almost embarrasing to mention compared with the loss of any of those other disasters) we know how unfun the whole flood thing is. God did not seem all that loving in that story. Jesus coming back is gonna be like that?! But Jesus loves us! All those people....eating, drinking....getting married....whatever. Totally unaware until the day Noah got in the ark that it was CURTAINS! Dang. So, (and this is where the story differs from the Noah one) Jesus continues; "like two people will be in the field; one will be taken, one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, one will be left." WHAT? And which is the good one? The one left, or the one taken? Where did they go? This is what some other denominations stress....this second coming time when only some people get to heaven. There are a lot of jokes about it, too....one I sort of partially recall is about a pilot. When Jesus comes back the pilot just vanishes into thin air, and the plane, obviously, crashes! So, I don't know if you should seek a Christian or a Jew/muslim/pagan/atheist pilot? I'm still not clear who disappears. Anyway. Does anyone know the joke?!

"So", he continues, "Keep awake, for you do not know when the Lord is coming"

Is it just me, or is it a little confusing. How does being awake effect the outcome of this? Or is it just good to know? I think back to the whole Noah thing, or the Tsunami thing and think....well....maybe it's best to NOT know....I mean if there's nothing you can do about it...

And yet....the creepiest bit is yet to come! Is Jesus breaking into our house in the middle of the night??? "Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the theif was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into."

How messed up is that? 

Jesus, who we assume is the Son of Man, and that is who we assume the allegory is illustrating, says"thief"....so, the break-in isn't just because he forget his key or something...a thief in the night!

These decorations are for Baby Jesus! And he loves us! This I know! For the Bible tells me so! But today the Bible is telling me he's breaking in and you should stay awake if you are the owner of the house....to not let it be broken into....by Jesus.....WHAT?

WHAT?

Be ready? The Son of Man is coming. At an unexpected hour. And it's sort of scary.

But somehow being aware makes it better? I'm wondering....is there something we can do about it?

Well....

Maybe repentance? We are scum buckets (in case you hadn't noticed) We are selfish jerks that want tocontrol everything and we are crap at it. I look at the last few days....Black Friday...in preparation for celebrating the birth of Christ with buying in order ot be giving and getting tons of STUFF or adventures or experiences to delight ourselves. Even Thanksgiving, when we show God thanks for all that we have by over-indulging instead of showing thanks by doing what God would do if God was here i.e. anything remotely Jesusy (oh there I go with my high Christology again!) 

We are kind of mixed up. Admit it! We are sinners all. We need to WAKE up and face it pretty much all the time. 

It's rather a shame that the lectionary stops at verse 34.....if we were to keep reading, in verse 46 Jesus says, "Blessed is the slave whom the master will find at work when he arrives." I'm thinking that's healing and feeding, but maybe being in the field or grinding meal. How God wants you working is between you and god, right?

We can't just leave out the tricky parts of the Bible. (As tempting as it is) there is nothing I want more than to preach on John 17:21 where Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him, and jesus is in us and we are in him and the Father is in us and all of us are in each other and through each other and there is nothing but love and light glory and it is AWESOME in the truest sense of the word! (Uh...I kind of paraphrased there) The truth in THAT text hasn't changed one tiny bit! But this Matthew text is in the Holy Bible, too. Living Word. Fresh and pertainent each time we encounter it....even if it scares us a little.

What do we need to hear on this first day of the first week of December, of the Season of Advent in the Year of our Lord two thousand thirteen? A day that will never, ever come again? Why do we need to hear this now? How will it transform us?

Are you awake enough to think about it?

That is your job to discern.

And look busy! Jesus is coming!

Happy Movember!

It's November today. All Saints...or Souls.....or Hallows. hallows is the best. It sounds exciting....like. Harry Potter. November, though, is not really all that exciting. It's a classic bittersweet time. Of course, there's Thanksgiving, and being thankful for all we've got, which is rather important, the coming of the holidays...family...presents...caroling...meant to be a good thing....but the year is dying...the dark closes in, it gets cold...November's annoying premature celebration of Christmas, "Christmas" itself plastered everywhere in a really blatantly pagan way...consumerism gone wild at a time when we should be contemplating the need for an Incarnate God...some men grow beards.

(I'll bet you didn't see that coming, did you?)

Yes, November, in some circles, is even called "Mo-vember" because men grow mustaches for prostate cancer research, and it becomes a marvelous competition for facial hair lunacy and grandness. Being in a household of men, (big, hairy men) who are forever up to a challenge, November and its mustache craze is something I....well....dread. Not that I don't appreciate a good 'stache! I remember the seventies and Magnum P.I.! But I'm not a super-big fan of facial hair. Overall, it seems kind of scary, but that's just me. I suppose the Theological thrust to this is that I can see things coming that I know I don't like, and I know are outwith my control..death and dark, glitzy Christmas stuff everywhere...advertisers trying to get us to buy stuff we don't need with money we don't have....men with big, wacky mustaches...and the kicker is: others find great joy in all this. Yes they do! And that is the truth of it, and the bittersweet of it! Stuff is going on all around that I, quite frankly, don't like. 

What to do? What to do?

This is a tension; a real tension between sacrificing my wants and needs and pretending to go along with the fun(groan), and just being honest and being a stick in the mud. Where is God in this, and what is God calling me to do here?

If I rant against the culture, if I unplug early Christmas decorations, if I shave off crazy mustaches in peoples' sleep I might very well feel somewhat better, but in what way am I living out God's call to be the hands and feet of Christ? To be flesh, created by God and acting out God's wishes?

It's a tough one.

And yet, in just writing what annoys me about November helps me put it in perspective. If I simplify what it is God is saying to me at this time of year, this time when we finish up the liturgical year and get pulled down into the dark of Advent and the cycle beginning again, I am reminded again:

Love God with all that I am: heart, mind, soul, strength!

Love my neighbor as myself.

That is all. That is our job. All the rest is detail.

So turns another year. God is still speaking. Neither dark, nor cold, nor frivilous waste, nor facial hair changes the covenant between a steadfast, loving God, and God's People.

And....at least the Movember Campaign raises money for cancer research!

Movember.com

Peace. Love.

Be the hands and feet!

And here's tonight's sunset because nobody has a hairy enough face yet....it's just day one!

The Lorica: Jeanie's Breastplate.

Those breastplates were made of the skins of the 

Leaping wild deer

Who were chased by strong, glancing youths

And smiling, slevering hounds

Over swift sparkling waters 

Bright

Like the eyes of themaidens 

Blushing at their 

Bold return

And carefree laughter.

And that is the magic 

Protection

In battle

Hearts protected

By the summer sun

The running river

The green of hill

The muscle and cheer

And swift response of boy

And dog

The tinkle of laughing girl and birdsong

All in the work of the tanners'

Hands

The armorers' hands

The squires' hands

The warrior 

Surrounded by all 

That creation praises

And mine.....

Now woven

Of rainbow and 

The vapour of grandmothers songs

Of the sounds of daddy's

Whirring lawnmower

And the energy off a firefly's glow

Of the color of the love that has no words

And the words of respect 

Whose color has no name

All in the work of mother's

Hands

The friends' hands

The children's hands

Me

Surrounded by all 

that creation praises

I gather up the strong name of the Trinity