Our Dear Darwin

I don't often write about my parishioners, for a whole host of reasons.  Their privacy, my pastoral responsibilities, etc.  But please keep Darwin in your prayers.  Everything I'm about to reveal is common knowledge.  Last Monday, as I was about to leave for Pacific School of Religion's Earl Lectures, I stopped by to visit him in the hospital, as he'd recently broken his hip.  To put it clearly and concisely, it was not good.  For some time, my trip was questionable.  After several hours with Darwin and his family, time of prayer with him and them, we decided it would be okay for me to go.  I expected them to call me on Tuesday at the latest with the sad news of his death.

But by late Wednesday, still no word.  I learned on Thursday at he had been released from the hospital; the word was that he'd apparently rallied enough to go back to the nursing home.  

Today I went to see him; he is non-responsive but still alive.  Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

I also want to give a shout-out to Southwest Airlines.  When I called to say I'd miss my flight and figure out my options, I learned that I didn't have to cancel my reservation or change my plans until I knew better what my plans would be.  If I arrived at the airport at least 2 hours before the last flight left, there would be no charge and I could fly standby.  The woman also checked and made sure that the later flights had room; "they're all wide open," she said cheerfully.  "You should be with your parishioner."  I did not actually make the 2 hour window, but Southwest still did not charge me for the switch.  I even got an "A" seating.  Plus, everyone with Southwest was so friendly and cheerful on all the flights that it was practically a pleasure to fly again.

Random Television Post

Backbencher may have the upper hand on Scrubs trivia, but it is only because I bugged him and bugged him and bugged him to give the show a shot.  He claimed he already had enough shows.  (Is such a thing possible?)

However, I was the one who noticed this weird thing on the show.  It's odd that the staff works at a hospital called "Sacred Heart."  Okay, that's not the odd part.  Lots of hospitals have religious names, especially if they are run by the Catholic Church.  What is odd is that Sacred Heart on Scrubs has advertisements for NuvaRing, a popular hormonal birth control, on practically all its walls.  Which you would almost certainly NOT find at a Catholic hospital.  (At least not the posters.)

Also, now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen a priest on the show.  Psychiatrists abound.  Priests, not so much.  Either they just picked a random, vaguely-religious-sounding name for the hospital and took the NuvaRing money without thinking about it, or it's an intentional ironic riff - which makes more sense, given the utter ridiculousness of the show.  And, I realize that "Sacred Heart" is not "vaguely-religious," it's an image fairly specific to and prominent in the Catholic tradition (perhaps also in Orthodox churches, if I remember correctly).

Anyway, it's late and I'm tired.  I'll get to that list tomorrow, and I do promise to get on that Viagra sermon, too!  (In the blogosphere, my seminary professors are wrong: Sunday does not come whether or not my sermon is ready.)

Processing All the Weirdness...

...that was this past week.  It was, for the most part, weird and wonderful, with more blessings than I expected and exactly what my soul needed.

The high points now, and I'll cover them in the next hours and days:

1. Darwin lives!  

2. Jay Bakker.  Seriously.  He's one of the few non-linear, random preacher-types I could listen to all day long.

3. The Miller-Mutias.  best.people.ever.  Except maybe Backbencher.

4. News from friends: pregnancies abound!  

5.  Karen Ward is my new shero.

6. Time with mentors is always great.  I heart Lizann and Kyle.

7. The 'kids' are all grown up, and one of them is my twin, separated at birth.

The weird and totally unexpected things:

1. Darwin lives.

2. PSR worship with the words "Jesus," "Lord," and "saves."  And progressive-theology praise music.  It was Earl Lectures, but still, it was surreal.

Reason, Science and Sanity...

...returns to global family planning services.  Thank you, President Obama!

I know there will be times when President Obama disappoints me, maybe even all of us.  I know he's not the Messiah, or even a political savior.  But today's troubles are enough for today, and today's solutions must be celebrated.

Oh, wait?  Did you want to hear that one more time?  Me too.  "President Obama."

Tears in My Eyes

I know it's a little bit old news, but last night as I was driving to a meeting, I heard that President Obama had outlawed torture and said that Gitmo will be closed in a year (at the longest). This morning, I heard on NPR that he says interrogations must follow the Army Field Manual. Now, I'm not an expert in the Army Field Manual, but I do know it says everyone we capture has to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, which the previous regime was loath to agree to. (and why was that again? Oh, yeah....because we TORTURED.)

We're not all better again, we need to make amends for the ways we have hurt our fellow brothers and sisters - and I have no idea how we can repair some of these wounds - but at last, our president is calling us to account, and to a new and better way of operating in the world. AT LAST!

Can I repeat that one part again? Sure - President Obama. And that other part? No more torture. Music to my ears, kids.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Look, Ma's, I'm published!

There's lots more I wanted to say, and more nuance that 600 words simply does not allow.  And, of course, they took the most provocative statement of my column (the phrase that frankly, I was least comfortable with, though I believe it to be true) and made it the title.  

Thank You, Jesus

...for "the sweet victory of this hour."

Random Miscellany

1. Backbencher is AWESOME!  Tonight I went to play practice, which meant I missed my precious CSI (please don't tell me what happened in Grissom's last episode).  No problem, we have a VCR.  (Yes, a VCR.  We're too cheap for a DVR [to clarify: I'm too cheap for a DVR.].  And yes, you can buy VCR tapes, but not real easily.  But I digress...)  Well, tonight was Bush's farewell address, and Backbencher was concerned that the recording would end at 9pm, which might have been in the middle of CSI.  He changed the end time of the recording, but he expressed his anxiety that it might not work and that none of CSI would have gotten recorded.  He said, "I realize if this doesn't work, it may be grounds for divorce."

Silly Backbencher.  I can also watch CSI online if I need to.  But, he gets all kinds of points anyway ... (even though, upon checking the tape, he inadvertently got the start time a couple of minutes late.  No one's perfect, and anyway, it was just a rebroadcast of the prior episode, so no harm, no foul.)

2.  Dude, why has John Basedow not aged in a decade?  And why haven't his commercials changed in that time period, either?  His "Fitness Made Simple" ads are just plain weird.  

Time for bed, kids.

Random Football Post

Look, I don't consider myself that much of a jock.  True, I ran cross-country and track in high school and college - but I attended a Division III school and went on an academic scholarship.  (And, as Backbencher likes to point out, I do have a school record - in the 2000-meter steeplechase, which is no longer run because now the collegiate authorities have determined that we womenfolk can handle the rigor of a 3000.)  

However, I enjoy watching sports, particularly baseball and football.  I like to think I have more than average knowledge about the games, but this season in football I've learned two things that, frankly, I'm surprised I never knew about before.  I think this may be due to both the sheer volume of football I've watched this season, and to the fact that I'm paying more attention to what's going on the field in a bigger-picture sort of way.  I find I'm no longer just watching where the ball goes, but also how the offensive and defensive lines work (or don't).  I think I'm figuring out "plays," in other words.  (Though, God help me, I could never memorize the volume of plays most NFL players have to know.)

Here's my learnings from the 2009 season:

1. Play Action - this is when the quarterback (QB) pretends to hand off the ball to a nearby player, thus buying himself a few more seconds to throw the ball down the field.  I mean, I've seen this play for years (and I'm always surprised when it works, and when it doesn't), but it's only this season that I've heard announcers refer to it as such.  I guess I didn't pay that much of attention to the announcers previously....because this is clearly not a new move.

2. "Offsides, defense, unabated to the QB" - this is a foul called when a member of the defense crosses the line of scrimmage before the snap and has a clear path to the QB.  Apparently, defensive players can cross the line of scrimmage before the snap, as long as they get back on their before the snap AND they don't touch anyone on the offense; however, if that defensive player has an "unabated path" to the QB, it's a foul.  I just heard this foul called today for the first time, and I've heard it called at least 3 times this afternoon.  What is up with that?

And, can I just express my displeasure with the common play of handing off the ball to a running back who goes straight down the middle, right into a big mob of defensive players?  This is a silly move, IMO, and it seems like it isn't very effective.  True, sometimes all you need is a few yards, and this play can get you where you need to go.  (It is also very popular near the end zone, where, okay, it makes some sense.)  And, of course, sometimes you go straight up the middle, find a fantastic opening, and are twenty yards down the field before anyone else knows what's happening.  

But that second scenario is not that common.  Mostly, the running back ends up at the bottom of a huge dog pile, and has gained his team at most 2 or 3 yards.  Yes 2.5 yards x 4 downs = first down (usually), but it seems to be a very rough and ineffective way to get the job done, particularly if you are mid-field.  Plus, I've seen it fail so much, and teams actually lose yardage in the process.  It's not a bad play, but I'm just annoyed at how often it's used.  (As a side note, I think - and Backbencher agrees - that there is a good possibility that I prefer passing plays to the diving plays because of my love for the Joe Montana and Steve Young years of the 49ers.)

My friend, the genius

I think it's very admirable that my beloved, Backbencher, takes no offense at or bears no jealousy toward my near-continual pimping of our mutual friend Matt. Now, go read this.

I think I can say with some certainty that Matt would be a little pleased and proud to know that I find his blog post about not being impressive to be, well, rather impressive. Because, as much as we all (and by "we all," I mean we preacher-types) claim we don't want to be impressive, um, deep down, we do. We really, really do. (We know it's wrong and soul-killing, but we want to impress nonetheless.)

We want to impress not only for our own glory (which is nice), but also because we are on some level convicted that if we're impressive, what we'll really be doing is representing the Gospel really well. We seldom take it to its logical next step, because when we do, we're embarrassed at where it leads us. That is, if we're not impressive, then the Gospel - the call of Jesus Christ - won't be impressive.

As if!

And, way to go, Matt! Enjoy your friends, your beloved, and your time today. Use it wastefully, extravagantly, even, and give thanks to God for the freedom and power of the Holy Spirit.

Extravagant Welcome

When a church, like, say, our church, says it has an extravagant welcome, and that everyone is truly welcome, no matter who we are or where we are on our faith journeys, the amazing thing is that people believe us. They come to us, looking for that extravagant welcome which is to supposed to be representative of God's love for each and all of us, and they bring their full, true selves.

The humbling thing is, sometimes we don't like what they bring, and wish they'd be different. They bring their smells, their travails, their bad prior choices, their bad ongoing choices, and their unrealistic expectations of who and what God/the church/the pastor is supposed to be and do for or with them. And we are so tempted to try to fix them up, to make them "respectable," or at least less embarrassing.

Thank God for reminding us that it's not our job to fix people, but to love them, unconditionally.* (And to marvel at the transformations that come from unconditional love.)


* "Unconditional love" does not equal "tolerating any kind of wretched or abusive behavior." That's not what I'm talking about in this post. You can look for me to talk about that in my "doormat for Jesus" spiel, which should be posted sometime after the upcoming "Viagra Sermon."

Sorry to be on an unplanned hiatus...

....for the last week or more.  First there was Christmas, then there was the New Year's Adam party (which this year took place on the day after Christmas), which itself entailed massive housecleaning, and then, just about the time I thought I might recover, a dearly beloved 90-year-old church member, Gretchen, died rather unexpectedly on Monday, hours after I rushed to be with her and her family.  Her funeral was yesterday.  And that has been my week.

Tomorrow I will baptize Gretchen's great-granddaughter, in another somewhat unexpected (but this time very happy) situation.  So, trying to work in baptismal theology with the remnant of Israel and the "In the beginning was the Word..." has proven interesting.  Also, my children's time was going to be about gratitude to accompany the Ephesians text (1:3-14), which I may or may not work in, or do it well.

If it all works out, maybe I'll post the sermon.  If not, well, I've got some other ideas rattling around, including the perhaps previously-unmentioned "Viagra Sermon."  

Christmas Eve Mental Health Break

This is a great YouTube video starring a kid from our church and his dad. As his mom puts it, this "is classic Harris." I have to agree. He is goofy almost beyond compare, in a completely unique way. Also, I like to think this reflects well on me, because, um, I know such a cool nine-year-old? Seriously, you will love it - I can almost guarantee it. And if not, it's just two-and-a-half minutes.

Merry Christmas, may there be no unintentional fires at your Christmas Eve (or Day) services, and if you are in Red Oak around 5pm, join us! 608 E. Reed Street. If you are not Christian, I hope your December holidays (if you celebrate any) are or were meaningful and full of the Holy Presence.

More stuff coming after the Christmas holidays - I've been rather busy of late, which I hope is understandable.

Sir, Your Fifteen Minutes Were Up Some Time Ago

Please, Kenneth Starr, slip back into obscurity.  Don't be a footnote in TWO shameful events in U.S. history.

A great many things about this whole situation put me into fits.  First of all, I find it maddening and a little sickening that a majority of Californians saw fit to eliminate the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry.  Marriage equality ("gay marriage" to some of y'all) is not popular, I get that.  Extending equal civil rights to people in the minority seldom is (see Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education, etc.) - but just because it is unpopular does not make it okay to discriminate.  The Bill of Rights and state constitutions enumerate the legitimate powers of government, and they also ensure the rights of individuals against the tyranny of government and the tyranny of the majority.  (entering sidebar rant) Look, I don't like guns.  I really, really don't like guns.  I've never fired one - in fact, I've never even held one and hope never to hold one - and yet, it is clear that the Constitution protects the legal rights of individuals to keep and bear arms, and so I support that right.  I find many uses of this right to be odious and unChristian, and I do not plan to ever make use of this right, and I wish there were fewer guns out there (especially those bought "for protection") and fewer people who used them....yet, it is a fundamental civil right that should be available to all citizens.  (not unlike marriage....)

Second of all, this lawsuit reveals the disingenuousness of the supporters of Prop 8, who, before Nov. 4, swore up and down that this change to the CA state constitution would not in any way affect the marriages already performed.  Cold comfort indeed, but now they are reneging on even that.  (I realize that supporters of Prop 8 are no more monolithic in nature than are its opponents, and that not all members of the "Yes on 8" coalition have to agree to everything that every other coalition member says, but still.)  Furthermore, the state AG, Jerry Brown (yep, former Governor Moonbeam) has already expressed his opinion that marriages performed in California during from June to November were and shall remain valid, and he's said repeatedly that would be his position before the courts.  

Third of all, and most personally, this raises up the same specters of fear that my moms lived with for nearly twenty years before I married them this summer.  (I posted my experience here.)  You know, they really were not that into getting married when it was not an option for them, and obviously their relationship isn't any more valid with that piece of paper than it was without it.  And yet, their marriage was a profoundly moving event for all of us, and it was only in the experience of being able to be legally married that they realized just how important it was for them, personally, politically, and spiritually.  

And now Ken Starr wants to take away all of this, for my family and for thousands of other families throughout California.  Thanks a lot.  

Pimpin' My Man

Check out his blog: http://ultimatebackbencher.blogspot.com/ If you don't know what a backbencher is, he'll probably explain it in a future post. Or, you could start watching a lot of Prime Minister's Questions on C-SPAN, and you'd probably learn for yourself.

Urgh.

This is making the rounds on the blogosphere: Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church will be giving the invocation at the Inauguration of Barack Obama. Urgh.

He's the man who spoke out in support of Prop 8, who said that "stopping evil" was the legitimate function of government, and who wrote the truly atrocious Purpose-Driven Life, of which theologian Fleming Rutledge once said (and I paraphrase), "It's a book that starts out by saying, 'It's not about you. It's about God,' then proceeds for the next 250 pages to talk about you."

This is not a good choice. I would be much better. I've even had some practice - in 2008 I gave the invocation at the Iowa Statehouse (and I am pretty sure I'll be invited back in 2009).

Even better than me, though, would be my friend MML or my beloved Mr. LiturgyGeek, because both of them are great ministers and have excellent sensitivities on the diversities of religious experience in the United States of America. I can think of lots of others. Why don't you nominate a few people you think would make a good inauguration-giver in the comments, and I'll forward them to the Obama peeps. Because surely they'll be interested in what I have to say...

Mental Health Break

So...about a week or so ago my friend Matt posted on his blog about his preaching anxiety dreams. (Yeah, this is going to be another Mardis-related derivative post, not nearly as good as the original) I've been having a lot more of them lately, which I do not understand at all. I used to get them sometimes on Saturday nights, perhaps if the bulletin hadn't yet been folded or the sermon given that last tweak.

Now I'm finding I'm having them during the week, even in weeks I'm not scheduled to preach, which is deeply unsettling for me (still, thank you, church, and thank you, Intern, for these little respites!). Generally the dream goes like this: there are not enough bulletins to go around, we have every visitor imaginable - the Jewish dad who used to sit behind me in the church where I did my field ed (hi, Larry, if you're reading!), whole biker gangs (seriously), all my friends from everywhere, BISHOPS (from other denominations, naturally), etc. Also, I've forgotten everyone's name, the musician isn't here, it is five minutes to church, I have no sermon and no ideas for a sermon, and I am not wearing shoes.

It is nice, however, to wake up from that dream and realize it is only Tuesday, and that there is still plenty of time to make bulletins, find shoes, and remember names. And make sure the biker gangs feel welcome - though in my dreams, they are always well-behaved. (It's usually the bishops you have to worry about.)

Wiki Madness!

For those of you snowed in, or wishing you could be snowed in, I offer to you: Last Thursdayism.

The lengths of crazy that people will go to never ceases to astound me. Then again, as a philosophical argument, it's kind of intriguing.....

I hate wind chill.

I am a California girl, raised in the Mediterranean clime of Sonoma County.  I, therefore, had no idea what the term "wind chill factor" meant until my first year of college in NYC.  For those of you who've never left the temperate regions of the world, it's when the weather is not only insanely cold out, but there is also a strong wind that makes it feel even colder than it is.

Tonight in Red Oak, if you listen to our local station, the wind chill could get as cold as -25.  Yes, NEGATIVE twenty-five.  If you listen to our local NPR affiliate, it could go as low as -28.  I am just so very grateful that I don't live any farther north.  In some places, I hear it gets even colder, though I am not sure how that is even possible.

UCC Primer: Introduction

Starting us out, I have two points to make.  Really, the first point is just for any Catholics out there in Liturgy-Geek land, or former Catholics who've left the RCC but haven't made their way to a new church home.  Or, if your only experience of "church" comes from what you see on television, you might want to read that first one.  If you're a Protestant or have experience among the Proddies, you can skip right ahead to #2:

1.  When I was getting ready to start seminary, I used to get so sick of answering the question of if ministers can have sex (living in NYC, it seems I knew a lot of Catholics). The answer is YES.  (This alone should be a reason for you to consider making the switch.)  The larger point is: Have you heard of a little thing called the "Reformation"?  It's kind of a bump in the road of your church's history, but it rather important for us Protestants.

Yeah, it has to do with your church, and people breaking away from Rome. I'd love to say some folk broke away out of solidarity with the poor, or in protest of the church hiearchy's protection (sometimes for decades) of priests who sexually abused children, or important things like that. But no, the Reformation came about because of the church selling indulgences to the rich, and annulling a king's marriage so he could marry a new hottie, and other stuff like that.  Some people - mostly men, sometimes priests - got mad and threw little fits or nailed stuff to church doors trying to get the church hierarchy to pay attention. They were trying to REFORM the church from within (hence the name "Reformation," get it?).  When that didn't work, then they left. Sometimes reluctantly.  Sometimes they got kicked out ("excommunicated").  Some of the names you need to know regarding the Protestant Reformation are: Luther, Calvin, Zwingli. Do you need to know more about them? Probably. But I'm not the one to ask. Wiki them if you want.

As a result of the Reformation, yes, priests (or "ministers" as we're more commonly called in Protestant churches) can now have sex. We can marry. In some traditions, we can even marry someone of the same gender. And, yep, women can be priests. Try not to let all that blow your mind.

2. Now that that's out of the way....let's move on to the UCC.  If there's really one thing to know about the UCC, it's that any question you ask about us can be answered in two words: "It depends." (This should really be our motto: The United Church of Christ - it depends! Hey, that has a nice double meaning....) EVERY UCC congregation is different and does things differently. Sometimes those differences are small, but often they are very significant for that congregation. So even the stuff that I write is going to be true of my experience in the UCC, but you can bet that others will have different experiences. That doesn't make me a liar or their church bad, it just makes us the UCC.  There is no "UCC consensus" about anything....other than Jesus Christ being the sole head of the church.  (And I'm pretty sure there's no consensus among all UCC members about what "Jesus Christ being the sole head of the church" means.  You can see now what I mean about, "It depends.")

This is because, according to our polity (the rules governing our life together as a denomination), "the basic unit of the church is the local congregation." Each church has autonomy and gets to make its own rules. We don't have bishops. We don't have a pope. We do have a General Minister and President, but he doesn't technically have any more authority to speak for the UCC than does my parishioner K, who drives me nuts most weeks (though I do love L very much).  

We do have this every-two-years gathering called General Synod, where we come out with various statements and pronouncements (you may remember this one about marriage equality, it was big in the news in 2005) that is supposed to guide the national setting in its work between Synods, but this is where it gets tricky. General Synods speak TO the church - to its members and congregations and associations and conferences.  It does not speak FOR the church - to the world, to the media, etc. No one gets that.  (Even within the UCC, people don't get that.)

This basically means that at General Synod, the gathered assembly could vote to encourage every congregation to become a tithing congregation within the next five years, and that would mean that our stewardship and evangelism teams would be working hard at producing materials aimed toward this, our General Minister and President would start talking about tithing a lot more, etc. etc. etc., and ninety percent of our churches could still ignore the pronouncement. And nothing would happen to them. No votes removed, no penalties, no ministers pulled from pulpits.  

But now that I think about it, wouldn't that be a cool pronouncement?

Getting back to the UCC and autonomy...you may legitimately ask, "Why bother with denominational ties at all, if you don't have to agree with anything other settings of the church do?"  That will bring us to the next topic, "Covenant."  I'll post in a couple of days, God willing.