What a great weekend! Youth Sunday was a great hit...our young people did an awesome job leading worship. Today, the children and youth of the church (and some adults called in as last-minute replacements for sick kids) put on a great musical about Nicodemus. It was one of those things that seems like a good idea, turns into a whole lot of work, and then winds up really good. We weren't sure who would come; we put out 60 chairs and I think probably had to add another 60. We never got a good count, but I'd be willing to guess we were somewhere close to 150 all told. It was so good to know that our church is so supportive of its young people.
It's also been a tiring spell; we have a huge Confirmation class, and they are meeting on Sundays, which makes Sundays exhausting. It's just one thing after another, and I am responsible to some degree for all of it. I've been missing worship team practices, which leaves me feeling a bit out of the loop, but the worship team has done very well without me, and that's a good feeling. I hadn't intended to leave them at all, and when I hurt my back and then Confirmation started, I kind of felt like I'd abandoned them. That service is very much my baby in a lot of ways. Eric's kind of a hands-off leader, not in a bad way, but but since I'm not, that means that I have taken on a lot of responsibility for the music, the PowerPoint, and so on. Being me, it's hard to let that go.
In other news, I did a new thing this week in the worship service: I sang the offertory anthem with someone else. It's been very well received, which makes me a little uncomfortable, but also makes me feel good. I don't sing well in front of people and with music...Ben and I think we figured out tonight: it's the music. When we transition from melody to accompaniment, I get lost, and then I lose the key I'm meant to sing in, and it just goes downhill from there. I can sing something I already know a capella and do pretty well, but anything else makes it a lot more difficult. So, that said, I had John to sing with, so he helped me stay anchored to the melody (plus it was a hymn, with makes it easier).
I couldn't have done anything like it until a couple of years ago. I have always liked music and liked to sing, and have sung in church choirs for years. But singing solo was beyond me, until I had sinus surgery, and cleared out a lot of nastiness that kept my head stuffed up and my ears infected (not to mention the sinus infections and bronchitis that it seemed like I had all the time). Since then, my "ear" has improved, as has my ability to sing. Even so, I still don't think of myself as someone who can sing. It was fun, though. I'm looking forward to doing it again sometime...but maybe I'll stick with Sunday evening specials for the time being. It was kind of intimidating singing Sunday morning.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
It's appointment time
It is that delightful time of year when Methodist clergy anxiously listen for news of who is moving where and shamelessly gossiping about what we know. One of the real gifts of our Discipline is the assurance of an appointment. One of the curses is that we move on a more or less regular basis (actually, it's a curse to me now because I'm very happy where I am and have no interest at all in moving...I've known a time when I couldn't wait for the news).
Anyway, so here we are. Usually by the first of May we've heard about a lot of the new appointments, but this year is different. Most years we've heard by now about the larger churches, but not this year. Many of those seem to be up in the air, or kept unusually close to the vest. And the smaller churches are no clearer.
I am sure that all will become clear in the reading of the appointments at Annual Conference. I'm spoiled, I suppose, and want all my news early. But now that I feel a little confused about the appointments, I feel a little anxiety about my own. If we can't be sure what's going to happen until the middle of June, then can I be sure?
Now, I am aware that I am overreacting and hypersensitive. I guess this year I don't understand the process, and that makes me less sure of myself. But I do know this: I don't want to move, my senior pastor doesn't want me to move, and my congregation doesn't want me to move. That's something to have some confidence in.
Anyway, so here we are. Usually by the first of May we've heard about a lot of the new appointments, but this year is different. Most years we've heard by now about the larger churches, but not this year. Many of those seem to be up in the air, or kept unusually close to the vest. And the smaller churches are no clearer.
I am sure that all will become clear in the reading of the appointments at Annual Conference. I'm spoiled, I suppose, and want all my news early. But now that I feel a little confused about the appointments, I feel a little anxiety about my own. If we can't be sure what's going to happen until the middle of June, then can I be sure?
Now, I am aware that I am overreacting and hypersensitive. I guess this year I don't understand the process, and that makes me less sure of myself. But I do know this: I don't want to move, my senior pastor doesn't want me to move, and my congregation doesn't want me to move. That's something to have some confidence in.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Long days
Seems like Wednesdays can be such long days!
I start at 7 am with the Beaufort Fellowship of Churches meeting. As Ben pointed out today, "You can't call that a spiritual meeting." Sometimes it is, more so than others. One of its functions is to administer local missions funds, and that seems to work fine. Another is to do some community events, and so we have worked together on a community Thanksgiving service and an Easter sunrise service at the waterfront (which was pretty good). And the other function, intentional or otherwise, is to give us pastors a place to be human. We laugh at jokes we know we should groan at or ignore, we share pieces of ourselves we can only share with someone who knows what our lives are like, we share good news when great stuff is happening in our churches. And when our lives are less great, we can share that, too...sometimes.
It's an interesting group for me to be in because the pastors are mostly from traditions that do not accept female clergy, but they have become comfortable with the other women (1 regular, 1 who comes occasionally) and with me. And because sometimes in our conversations, our doctrinal differences come out, and those can be pretty illuminating.
For example, today we were talking about how we were doing, and someone said, "Do you ever just feel like a big old sinner?" We all agreed that sometimes we do, but many of the folks in the room seemed discouraged by an overwhelming sense of guilt and the knowledge that there is nothing we can do on our own to earn God's mercy and forgiveness. Unfortunately, they sort of stopped there.
I hadn't given much thought to our Methodist doctrine of assurance, but I realized it's importance today. It helps us to keep our perspective: there is nothing we can do on our own to earn God's grace, but in Jesus Christ, God reaches out to all people to offer grace and forgiveness, and we can know that we have received this gift from God. I really didn't think much about it until I found myself in a room full of people who didn't seem to have much sense of assurance of salvation. Without that assurance, I don't really know how Christians remain encouraged and have a real sense of hope. What do we have to offer, what's the "up-side" to church and the Christian life if we don't have some sense that we are changed for the better by God, and that our salvation is a gift that we can receive and feel that we are in Christ new creations, with merit that is from God, but is merit nonetheless.
I'm going to have to sleep on this a little, I've left musing on the until it's too late to think clearly. But it was curious to me to feel okay about not being a big sinner, when my friends seemed to feel it so acutely. Maybe it's arrogant, but I tend to think it's a gift from God.
I start at 7 am with the Beaufort Fellowship of Churches meeting. As Ben pointed out today, "You can't call that a spiritual meeting." Sometimes it is, more so than others. One of its functions is to administer local missions funds, and that seems to work fine. Another is to do some community events, and so we have worked together on a community Thanksgiving service and an Easter sunrise service at the waterfront (which was pretty good). And the other function, intentional or otherwise, is to give us pastors a place to be human. We laugh at jokes we know we should groan at or ignore, we share pieces of ourselves we can only share with someone who knows what our lives are like, we share good news when great stuff is happening in our churches. And when our lives are less great, we can share that, too...sometimes.
It's an interesting group for me to be in because the pastors are mostly from traditions that do not accept female clergy, but they have become comfortable with the other women (1 regular, 1 who comes occasionally) and with me. And because sometimes in our conversations, our doctrinal differences come out, and those can be pretty illuminating.
For example, today we were talking about how we were doing, and someone said, "Do you ever just feel like a big old sinner?" We all agreed that sometimes we do, but many of the folks in the room seemed discouraged by an overwhelming sense of guilt and the knowledge that there is nothing we can do on our own to earn God's mercy and forgiveness. Unfortunately, they sort of stopped there.
I hadn't given much thought to our Methodist doctrine of assurance, but I realized it's importance today. It helps us to keep our perspective: there is nothing we can do on our own to earn God's grace, but in Jesus Christ, God reaches out to all people to offer grace and forgiveness, and we can know that we have received this gift from God. I really didn't think much about it until I found myself in a room full of people who didn't seem to have much sense of assurance of salvation. Without that assurance, I don't really know how Christians remain encouraged and have a real sense of hope. What do we have to offer, what's the "up-side" to church and the Christian life if we don't have some sense that we are changed for the better by God, and that our salvation is a gift that we can receive and feel that we are in Christ new creations, with merit that is from God, but is merit nonetheless.
I'm going to have to sleep on this a little, I've left musing on the until it's too late to think clearly. But it was curious to me to feel okay about not being a big sinner, when my friends seemed to feel it so acutely. Maybe it's arrogant, but I tend to think it's a gift from God.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Just How Big Is God?
Today's sermon:
John 21:1-19 “How Big is God?”
The meaning of my name, Anne, is grace, or full of grace. I’ve always thought this was kind of a bad pun: I’m clumsy much of the time, which would seem to be graceless more so than graceful. And I’m not inclined to be particularly gracious to myself for moments when I lack grace…which means I don’t often look for others to be gracious to me. But several times in my life I have had an encounter with the grace of God and loving folks, grace I myself did not merit on my own. Holy Week was one of those times.
That’s the week I hurt my back and lived on the couch. It’s also the week many people called, sent cards, and came by the house to see how I was faring. Now, I started that time on the couch worrying about how I was going to do what I had planned for the week. I knew the answer: Eric would handle the church, Ben would handle the house and meals and pets, Fran would teach the Bible study…but my vision that week was kind of narrow. My world shrunk to the size of my living room, and I wasn’t looking for grace in the midst of it all. But my eyes were opened and my vision expanded as the phone rang, and the mail came, and grace was offered to Ben and to me as my wonderful neighbors brought over soup and chicken salad, friends brought muffins and cakes and all manner of food, even an entire Easter feast. One wonderful soul came by to see if he could mow the lawn for us. These gracious people expressed their love, and God’s, in caring for us, and in so doing, my world, and my sense of God’s presence, expanded back beyond the walls of my living room—God’s love and presence and power became bigger to me, even in my pain.
Today’s story makes me wonder how big God’s love, and the power of the Resurrection was, to Peter. We don’t hear from Peter from the crucifixion until today’s story. He goes to the tomb, but says nothing. Jesus had appeared twice after the Resurrection to the gathered disciples, and brash, bold, impulsive Peter had nothing to say. John does not record for us the expression on Peter’s face when Jesus showed up in the room where they hid. The gospel doesn’t tell us if he hid behind someone else, or if his face showed fear, or joy, or shame. We don’t know what it was like for Peter, who had three times denied Christ, but we know that after some time had passed, he and several other of the disciples returned to the life Peter had before Jesus called him from fish to men: he went back to the sea, to a life he had once left but never betrayed.
Jesus finds Peter again, this time by the Sea of Tiberius, where he and six others have gone fishing. After a fruitless night, Jesus suggests a new approach, and the fishermen meet with great success, Jesus gives them breakfast, and gives Peter a new commission to serve God’s people.
But is it so easy for Peter? Let’s watch him a minute. When the disciples realize that the man calling to them from the shore is Jesus, Peter jumps in the water. My Sunday school teachers taught me that Peter was running to Jesus…but I don’t think we know that. Peter jumps out of the boat but we don’t hear that he’s come to shore until the whole boatload of men comes to shore. I think maybe Peter’s feeling a little shy, a little scared, and a lot like someone who expects to receive very little grace from one whom he has offended…like someone whose vision of God and love and grace is a little too small, whose world has become too small to deal with the greatness of God and the miracle of the Resurrection, who can’t see how Jesus can be alive again, when Peter had seen him crucified. Peter’s world must have crashed in on itself on that day…just as it is changed again, there by the Sea of Tiberius.
The world changed for us this week, too. It didn’t just change at Virginia Tech but in Houston and Iraq and Sudan and right here in Beaufort. It changed for us all. Life happened this week, and some weeks life happens to be pretty great and some weeks it turns out okay and other weeks, let’s face it, wind up being pretty lousy. For me, and for many, this was one of those lousy weeks. As the news unfolded on Monday, I watched and grieved for lost lives in Blacksburg and for a world that watched in shock and horror.
It feels like the world ought to stop for events like what happened at Virginia Tech, but it doesn’t. A look at the news shows that the stock market goes on, the war in Iraq goes on, a volcano erupted in Columbia, someone was eliminated from American Idol. People lived and died. We sleep, eat, work, talk and life goes on. Somehow, we go on.
Peter must have thought, too, that it was time for life to go on again. He must have somehow thought that making his world small again, going back to the safety and livelihood he had once known as a fisherman, might make him feel again safe and secure, that finding comfort in familiarity might help him be comfortable with himself again, might come to feel a little less like Jesus’ betrayer and a little more like an ordinary guy. But the power of God and the message of love and redemption in Jesus Christ is bigger than that…Peter tried to hide his head in the sand, metaphorically speaking, there by the sea of Tiberius. He wanted his world, his God, the demands on him to be manageably small…but Jesus’ love was bigger than Peter’s understanding, and he just wouldn’t let Peter off the hook. And so Jesus asked, “Peter, do you love me?”
In asking the question, “Do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter and us if we love God enough to see God past the tragedies that veil our eyes with tears and break our hearts. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” and in the words calls us to look not only past the cross to the Resurrection but past our own betrayal to grace and redemption. The question, “Do you love me?” asks what Easter, and resurrection, and Messiah mean in a world that lives by the cross and calls us to see that Easter changes everything. It asks us to see with the clarity of the Holy Spirit that nothing, nothing can separate us from God: not illness, not evil, not time nor space nor carelessness nor malice nor neglect, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not bombs, or planes, or wars, or guns, or famine, or global warning. No act of will, no accident, can separate us from the love of God. Not even a three-times repeated, compounded, shameful and shame-faced betrayal by Peter can separate Peter from the love of God. God is bigger than you think. And so we can’t hide…from God or from what goes on around us.
Our faith demands that we engage in the world…we cannot simply go about our own business, but we must be a part of what goes on in the world, good and bad. So we respond to this last week with sadness for the families of the Virginia Tech murder victims, for the others whose names will escape our notice because they’ve been crowded out by something more sensational, for the victims of terror and war all over the world, for those who die from hunger and AIDS and cancer and old age. And we should respond with joy, because we do have a resurrection faith that proclaims boldly that we must not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.
A pastor taught me years ago his formula for preaching funeral sermons. They all started with "Our Christian faith is made for times such as these, when we come together in our grief to celebrate a life of faith." They all celebrated the successes and good qualities of the deceased, and ended with the affirmation that he or she had "fought the fight, run the race, kept the faith." That was pretty much it. I hope the funerals this week have better sermons, but I also hope they acknowledge the terrible tension of the Christian faith: God existed for Peter when he denied Jesus, even as Jesus was tried and tortured. God exists in this place and time where lives can be snuffed out at random. The resurrection does not exempt us from fear, pain, and danger, but rather the Spirit of God accompanies us in our fear, pain, and danger, and redeems our suffering with eternal life.
I suspect this comes as paltry comfort to those who have lost loved ones this week. I wish I had something better to say, but the fault is in my words and ability to express the goodness of God, and not in God's guilt, vengeance, or absence. What makes sense out of the evils of this week and of this world is not that God did it, that God is mad at us, or that God is simply not there when we need him. Instead, we can find meaning as we live together in grief and bewilderment, knowing that God is present, and bigger than our pain, fear, and doubt, and as we struggle to understand what that means for us.
We can't live with our heads in the sand, hiding away in little protective enclaves, trying to keep the world from hurting us. Turning off the news or saying, "thank God it wasn't me or mine" is selfish and short-sighted. Instead the Christian community must come together and support one another, and find that we can be our truest and best and closest to God when we love each other in the hard times.
It's no kind of love that's not there in the rawest of times and places or in the sweetest and best of days. And it is love we are called to offer: the love and mercy of God, the hard love that we live because we believe it even when we can't feel it, because God loves through us when we can't love on our own.
That's our goodness: that God's at God's best even and perhaps especially when we aren't our best, and when we are. When we are weak, God is strong. And when we are strong, God is strong. And it is God's strength, God's presence, God's mercy and grace we must rely on when the world seems to turn against us. It is to heaven, and the unending presence of God, that we turn always and in all things to answer our questions and share our tears and our laughter.
Although I can't explain it, somehow God is affirmed, not challenged, when the worst happens. That's when we should come together and put hands and feet and hearts and voices and presence into sharing God's presence with those who suffer. And because we share in the suffering, we share too in the healing, and the mercy and grace of God takes our joy and pain and produces redemption and resurrection. Our God is big enough for that.
I believe the Virginia Tech community began to see resurrection in the life-giving love of students and professors who risked themselves for others. I think Nikki Giovanni preached resurrection when she rallied the community around the words, "We are Virginia Tech." And when the strains of "Amazing Grace" were shouted down by cries of "Hokies, Hokies," a community was resurrected in love for one another and a common determination to live and not die, to love and not surrender to grief and recrimination, to go on as a testament to life and faith and the goodness of God. The Hokies are modeling for us a world view that expands beyond ourselves, encompasses what they have suffered, and looks forward in hope to who they are and will be. This is what Christian community can be, and God is big enough to be with us in our suffering and in our joy.
This is the word of grace we have to offer Darfur and Baghdad and the people who are hurting just down the block: we are here, because God is here. We love you, because God loves you and us. We will share our lives with you, and together we will see resurrection, grace and love that conquers evil, are greater than sin, and replaces death with life and hope and peace. We are the people of God, the followers of Christ, accompanied by the Holy Spirit. We live in this world, we love in this world, and we demonstrate the presence of God in this world. We are the people of God, and God's love will prevail. We are the people of God, and our God is bigger than death, bigger than fear, bigger than our questions. With Peter we answer, Lord, we love you, and hear in reply: tend my lambs. May we have the vision to see with God’s sight, to love with God’s heart, to serve with God’s grace, and to know that of all the things we can think and do and know and experience in this world, God is bigger, and God is with us. Amen.
John 21:1-19 “How Big is God?”
The meaning of my name, Anne, is grace, or full of grace. I’ve always thought this was kind of a bad pun: I’m clumsy much of the time, which would seem to be graceless more so than graceful. And I’m not inclined to be particularly gracious to myself for moments when I lack grace…which means I don’t often look for others to be gracious to me. But several times in my life I have had an encounter with the grace of God and loving folks, grace I myself did not merit on my own. Holy Week was one of those times.
That’s the week I hurt my back and lived on the couch. It’s also the week many people called, sent cards, and came by the house to see how I was faring. Now, I started that time on the couch worrying about how I was going to do what I had planned for the week. I knew the answer: Eric would handle the church, Ben would handle the house and meals and pets, Fran would teach the Bible study…but my vision that week was kind of narrow. My world shrunk to the size of my living room, and I wasn’t looking for grace in the midst of it all. But my eyes were opened and my vision expanded as the phone rang, and the mail came, and grace was offered to Ben and to me as my wonderful neighbors brought over soup and chicken salad, friends brought muffins and cakes and all manner of food, even an entire Easter feast. One wonderful soul came by to see if he could mow the lawn for us. These gracious people expressed their love, and God’s, in caring for us, and in so doing, my world, and my sense of God’s presence, expanded back beyond the walls of my living room—God’s love and presence and power became bigger to me, even in my pain.
Today’s story makes me wonder how big God’s love, and the power of the Resurrection was, to Peter. We don’t hear from Peter from the crucifixion until today’s story. He goes to the tomb, but says nothing. Jesus had appeared twice after the Resurrection to the gathered disciples, and brash, bold, impulsive Peter had nothing to say. John does not record for us the expression on Peter’s face when Jesus showed up in the room where they hid. The gospel doesn’t tell us if he hid behind someone else, or if his face showed fear, or joy, or shame. We don’t know what it was like for Peter, who had three times denied Christ, but we know that after some time had passed, he and several other of the disciples returned to the life Peter had before Jesus called him from fish to men: he went back to the sea, to a life he had once left but never betrayed.
Jesus finds Peter again, this time by the Sea of Tiberius, where he and six others have gone fishing. After a fruitless night, Jesus suggests a new approach, and the fishermen meet with great success, Jesus gives them breakfast, and gives Peter a new commission to serve God’s people.
But is it so easy for Peter? Let’s watch him a minute. When the disciples realize that the man calling to them from the shore is Jesus, Peter jumps in the water. My Sunday school teachers taught me that Peter was running to Jesus…but I don’t think we know that. Peter jumps out of the boat but we don’t hear that he’s come to shore until the whole boatload of men comes to shore. I think maybe Peter’s feeling a little shy, a little scared, and a lot like someone who expects to receive very little grace from one whom he has offended…like someone whose vision of God and love and grace is a little too small, whose world has become too small to deal with the greatness of God and the miracle of the Resurrection, who can’t see how Jesus can be alive again, when Peter had seen him crucified. Peter’s world must have crashed in on itself on that day…just as it is changed again, there by the Sea of Tiberius.
The world changed for us this week, too. It didn’t just change at Virginia Tech but in Houston and Iraq and Sudan and right here in Beaufort. It changed for us all. Life happened this week, and some weeks life happens to be pretty great and some weeks it turns out okay and other weeks, let’s face it, wind up being pretty lousy. For me, and for many, this was one of those lousy weeks. As the news unfolded on Monday, I watched and grieved for lost lives in Blacksburg and for a world that watched in shock and horror.
It feels like the world ought to stop for events like what happened at Virginia Tech, but it doesn’t. A look at the news shows that the stock market goes on, the war in Iraq goes on, a volcano erupted in Columbia, someone was eliminated from American Idol. People lived and died. We sleep, eat, work, talk and life goes on. Somehow, we go on.
Peter must have thought, too, that it was time for life to go on again. He must have somehow thought that making his world small again, going back to the safety and livelihood he had once known as a fisherman, might make him feel again safe and secure, that finding comfort in familiarity might help him be comfortable with himself again, might come to feel a little less like Jesus’ betrayer and a little more like an ordinary guy. But the power of God and the message of love and redemption in Jesus Christ is bigger than that…Peter tried to hide his head in the sand, metaphorically speaking, there by the sea of Tiberius. He wanted his world, his God, the demands on him to be manageably small…but Jesus’ love was bigger than Peter’s understanding, and he just wouldn’t let Peter off the hook. And so Jesus asked, “Peter, do you love me?”
In asking the question, “Do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter and us if we love God enough to see God past the tragedies that veil our eyes with tears and break our hearts. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” and in the words calls us to look not only past the cross to the Resurrection but past our own betrayal to grace and redemption. The question, “Do you love me?” asks what Easter, and resurrection, and Messiah mean in a world that lives by the cross and calls us to see that Easter changes everything. It asks us to see with the clarity of the Holy Spirit that nothing, nothing can separate us from God: not illness, not evil, not time nor space nor carelessness nor malice nor neglect, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not bombs, or planes, or wars, or guns, or famine, or global warning. No act of will, no accident, can separate us from the love of God. Not even a three-times repeated, compounded, shameful and shame-faced betrayal by Peter can separate Peter from the love of God. God is bigger than you think. And so we can’t hide…from God or from what goes on around us.
Our faith demands that we engage in the world…we cannot simply go about our own business, but we must be a part of what goes on in the world, good and bad. So we respond to this last week with sadness for the families of the Virginia Tech murder victims, for the others whose names will escape our notice because they’ve been crowded out by something more sensational, for the victims of terror and war all over the world, for those who die from hunger and AIDS and cancer and old age. And we should respond with joy, because we do have a resurrection faith that proclaims boldly that we must not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.
A pastor taught me years ago his formula for preaching funeral sermons. They all started with "Our Christian faith is made for times such as these, when we come together in our grief to celebrate a life of faith." They all celebrated the successes and good qualities of the deceased, and ended with the affirmation that he or she had "fought the fight, run the race, kept the faith." That was pretty much it. I hope the funerals this week have better sermons, but I also hope they acknowledge the terrible tension of the Christian faith: God existed for Peter when he denied Jesus, even as Jesus was tried and tortured. God exists in this place and time where lives can be snuffed out at random. The resurrection does not exempt us from fear, pain, and danger, but rather the Spirit of God accompanies us in our fear, pain, and danger, and redeems our suffering with eternal life.
I suspect this comes as paltry comfort to those who have lost loved ones this week. I wish I had something better to say, but the fault is in my words and ability to express the goodness of God, and not in God's guilt, vengeance, or absence. What makes sense out of the evils of this week and of this world is not that God did it, that God is mad at us, or that God is simply not there when we need him. Instead, we can find meaning as we live together in grief and bewilderment, knowing that God is present, and bigger than our pain, fear, and doubt, and as we struggle to understand what that means for us.
We can't live with our heads in the sand, hiding away in little protective enclaves, trying to keep the world from hurting us. Turning off the news or saying, "thank God it wasn't me or mine" is selfish and short-sighted. Instead the Christian community must come together and support one another, and find that we can be our truest and best and closest to God when we love each other in the hard times.
It's no kind of love that's not there in the rawest of times and places or in the sweetest and best of days. And it is love we are called to offer: the love and mercy of God, the hard love that we live because we believe it even when we can't feel it, because God loves through us when we can't love on our own.
That's our goodness: that God's at God's best even and perhaps especially when we aren't our best, and when we are. When we are weak, God is strong. And when we are strong, God is strong. And it is God's strength, God's presence, God's mercy and grace we must rely on when the world seems to turn against us. It is to heaven, and the unending presence of God, that we turn always and in all things to answer our questions and share our tears and our laughter.
Although I can't explain it, somehow God is affirmed, not challenged, when the worst happens. That's when we should come together and put hands and feet and hearts and voices and presence into sharing God's presence with those who suffer. And because we share in the suffering, we share too in the healing, and the mercy and grace of God takes our joy and pain and produces redemption and resurrection. Our God is big enough for that.
I believe the Virginia Tech community began to see resurrection in the life-giving love of students and professors who risked themselves for others. I think Nikki Giovanni preached resurrection when she rallied the community around the words, "We are Virginia Tech." And when the strains of "Amazing Grace" were shouted down by cries of "Hokies, Hokies," a community was resurrected in love for one another and a common determination to live and not die, to love and not surrender to grief and recrimination, to go on as a testament to life and faith and the goodness of God. The Hokies are modeling for us a world view that expands beyond ourselves, encompasses what they have suffered, and looks forward in hope to who they are and will be. This is what Christian community can be, and God is big enough to be with us in our suffering and in our joy.
This is the word of grace we have to offer Darfur and Baghdad and the people who are hurting just down the block: we are here, because God is here. We love you, because God loves you and us. We will share our lives with you, and together we will see resurrection, grace and love that conquers evil, are greater than sin, and replaces death with life and hope and peace. We are the people of God, the followers of Christ, accompanied by the Holy Spirit. We live in this world, we love in this world, and we demonstrate the presence of God in this world. We are the people of God, and God's love will prevail. We are the people of God, and our God is bigger than death, bigger than fear, bigger than our questions. With Peter we answer, Lord, we love you, and hear in reply: tend my lambs. May we have the vision to see with God’s sight, to love with God’s heart, to serve with God’s grace, and to know that of all the things we can think and do and know and experience in this world, God is bigger, and God is with us. Amen.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
One of these days
One of these days I'd like to finish a sermon before Saturday.
It's done. I'm pretty pleased. Most of Friday's post made it in, no surprise to me. Still wanting to add more, but I think it will be too long to make sense.
Will post it tomorrow morning.
It's done. I'm pretty pleased. Most of Friday's post made it in, no surprise to me. Still wanting to add more, but I think it will be too long to make sense.
Will post it tomorrow morning.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Not much to say
It seems that I haven't had much to say this week. I have been saddened by the VT tragedy and also by other news...the Johnson Space Center killing today again has eclipsed news we should probably take note of; a particularly violent week in Irag and a massacre in Chad (near Sudan and involved in the same conflict) don't seem to get the same attention as the rising Dow Jones index.
I've been sad, too because the VT killings struck a real nerve. That's my state, a school my friends went to, one of the victims was related to my home church and one of the earliest students interviewed also went to my home church and is the grandson of a good friend. College was for me a safe place, where my friends and I could sort of be incubated into adulthood in relative security. Was that partially naive? Sure it was; one of the places I felt safest in my time at William and Mary was the volunteer office from which my service fraternity ran the Campus Escort office, providing walks across campus for women alone at night. This was an incredibly busy project because at that time, there was a serial rapist preying on William and Mary sstudents and Colonial Williamsburg employees. We were not unaware of the danger, but we were a bit oblivious. We were together, we were the Tribe, and we felt we could not be harmed.
Students deserve to feel that way. In a world where, as Gene Nichol pointed out, the unthinkable has become almost expected, we need safe places. The Hokies are trying to reclaim their sense of security by reaffirming their identity and relationships. All day today I have read stories and heard interviews with students hurting in heart and body, who are staying on campus or returning for classes Monday so that they can be together, and together, find some meaning in the meaningless violence that could have torn them apart. Instead, acts of will and bravery and generosity are drawing them closer together. They will never be the same, but they will be stronger, and closer, and God willing, better in the years to come.
A pastor taught me years ago his formula for preaching funeral sermons. They all started with "Our Christian faith is made for times such as these, when we come together in our grief to celebrate a life of faith." They all celebrated the successes and good qualities of the deceased, and ended with the affirmation that he or she had "run the race, fought the fight, kept the faith." I hope the funerals this week have better sermons, but I also hope they acknowledge the terrible tension of the Christian faith: God exists in this place and time where lives can be snuffed out at random. The resurrection does not exempt us from fear, pain, and danger, but rather the Spirit of God accompanies us in our fear, pain,and danger, and redeems our suffering with eternal life.
I suspect this comes as paltry comfort to those who have lost loved ones this week. I wish I had something better to say, but the fault is in my words and ability to express the goodness of God, and not in God's guilt, vengeance, or absense. What makes sense out of the evils of this week is not that God did it, that God is mad at us, or that God is simply not there when we need him. Instead, we can find meaning as we live together in grief and bewilderment, knowing that God is present, and struggling to understand what that means for us.
We can't live with our heads in the sand, hiding away in little protective enclaves, trying to keep the world from hurting us. Turning off the news or saying, "thank God it wasn't me or mine" is selfish and short-sighted. Instead the Christian community must come together and support one another, and find that we can be our truest and best and closest to God when we love each other in the hard times. It's no kind of love that's not there in the rawest of times and places or in the sweetest and best of days. And it is love we are called to offer: the love and mercy of God, the hard love that we live because we believe it even when we can't feel it, because God loves through us when we can't love on our own. That's our goodness: that God's at God's best even and perhaps especially when we aren't our best, and when we are. When we are weak, God is strong. And when we are strong, God is strong. And it is God's strength, God's presence, God's mercy and grace we must rely on when the world seems to turn against us. It is to heaven, and the unending presence of God, that we turn always and in all things to answer our questions and share our tears and our laughter.
Although I can't explain it, somehow God is affirmed, not challenged, when the worst happens. That's when we should come together and put hands and feet and hearts and voices and presence into sharing God's presence with those who suffer. And because we share in the suffering, we share too in the healing, and the mercy and grace of God takes our joy and pain and produces redemption and resurrection.
I believe the VT community began to see resurrection in the life-giving love of students and professors who risked themselves for others. I think Nikki Giovanni preached resurrection when she rallied the community around the words, "we are Virginia Tech." And when the strains of "Amazing Grace" were shouted down by cries of "Hokies, Hokies," a community was resurrected in love for one another and a common determination to live and not die, to love and not surrender to grief and recrimination, to go on as a testament to life and faith and the goodness of God.
This is the word of grace we have to offer Darfur and Baghdad and the people who are jurting just down the block: we are here, because God is here. We love you, because God loves you and us. We will share our lives with you, and together we will see resurrection, grace and love that conquers evil, is greater than sin, and replaces death with life and hope and peace. We are the people of God, the followers of Christ, accompanied by the Holy Spirit. We live in this world, we love in this world, we demonstrate the presence of God in this world. We are the people of God, and God's love will prevail. We are the people of God.
I've been sad, too because the VT killings struck a real nerve. That's my state, a school my friends went to, one of the victims was related to my home church and one of the earliest students interviewed also went to my home church and is the grandson of a good friend. College was for me a safe place, where my friends and I could sort of be incubated into adulthood in relative security. Was that partially naive? Sure it was; one of the places I felt safest in my time at William and Mary was the volunteer office from which my service fraternity ran the Campus Escort office, providing walks across campus for women alone at night. This was an incredibly busy project because at that time, there was a serial rapist preying on William and Mary sstudents and Colonial Williamsburg employees. We were not unaware of the danger, but we were a bit oblivious. We were together, we were the Tribe, and we felt we could not be harmed.
Students deserve to feel that way. In a world where, as Gene Nichol pointed out, the unthinkable has become almost expected, we need safe places. The Hokies are trying to reclaim their sense of security by reaffirming their identity and relationships. All day today I have read stories and heard interviews with students hurting in heart and body, who are staying on campus or returning for classes Monday so that they can be together, and together, find some meaning in the meaningless violence that could have torn them apart. Instead, acts of will and bravery and generosity are drawing them closer together. They will never be the same, but they will be stronger, and closer, and God willing, better in the years to come.
A pastor taught me years ago his formula for preaching funeral sermons. They all started with "Our Christian faith is made for times such as these, when we come together in our grief to celebrate a life of faith." They all celebrated the successes and good qualities of the deceased, and ended with the affirmation that he or she had "run the race, fought the fight, kept the faith." I hope the funerals this week have better sermons, but I also hope they acknowledge the terrible tension of the Christian faith: God exists in this place and time where lives can be snuffed out at random. The resurrection does not exempt us from fear, pain, and danger, but rather the Spirit of God accompanies us in our fear, pain,and danger, and redeems our suffering with eternal life.
I suspect this comes as paltry comfort to those who have lost loved ones this week. I wish I had something better to say, but the fault is in my words and ability to express the goodness of God, and not in God's guilt, vengeance, or absense. What makes sense out of the evils of this week is not that God did it, that God is mad at us, or that God is simply not there when we need him. Instead, we can find meaning as we live together in grief and bewilderment, knowing that God is present, and struggling to understand what that means for us.
We can't live with our heads in the sand, hiding away in little protective enclaves, trying to keep the world from hurting us. Turning off the news or saying, "thank God it wasn't me or mine" is selfish and short-sighted. Instead the Christian community must come together and support one another, and find that we can be our truest and best and closest to God when we love each other in the hard times. It's no kind of love that's not there in the rawest of times and places or in the sweetest and best of days. And it is love we are called to offer: the love and mercy of God, the hard love that we live because we believe it even when we can't feel it, because God loves through us when we can't love on our own. That's our goodness: that God's at God's best even and perhaps especially when we aren't our best, and when we are. When we are weak, God is strong. And when we are strong, God is strong. And it is God's strength, God's presence, God's mercy and grace we must rely on when the world seems to turn against us. It is to heaven, and the unending presence of God, that we turn always and in all things to answer our questions and share our tears and our laughter.
Although I can't explain it, somehow God is affirmed, not challenged, when the worst happens. That's when we should come together and put hands and feet and hearts and voices and presence into sharing God's presence with those who suffer. And because we share in the suffering, we share too in the healing, and the mercy and grace of God takes our joy and pain and produces redemption and resurrection.
I believe the VT community began to see resurrection in the life-giving love of students and professors who risked themselves for others. I think Nikki Giovanni preached resurrection when she rallied the community around the words, "we are Virginia Tech." And when the strains of "Amazing Grace" were shouted down by cries of "Hokies, Hokies," a community was resurrected in love for one another and a common determination to live and not die, to love and not surrender to grief and recrimination, to go on as a testament to life and faith and the goodness of God.
This is the word of grace we have to offer Darfur and Baghdad and the people who are jurting just down the block: we are here, because God is here. We love you, because God loves you and us. We will share our lives with you, and together we will see resurrection, grace and love that conquers evil, is greater than sin, and replaces death with life and hope and peace. We are the people of God, the followers of Christ, accompanied by the Holy Spirit. We live in this world, we love in this world, we demonstrate the presence of God in this world. We are the people of God, and God's love will prevail. We are the people of God.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Proud of my alma mater
Remarks by William and Mary president Gene Nichol:
Gotta say I'm proud of that. Wish I thought I could be so eloquent when I preach on Sunday. I'm struggling, with both what to say and how to say it. As Eric pointed out today, our congregation doesn't so much need to be told how to think as to see that we are engaged and to be given tools for their own engagement. God help me do justice to the text and to God's presence in our lives.
“Truly it is in darkness that one finds the light.”
I am reluctant to add words—cheapened words—to touch the unspeakable tragedy that strikes our brothers and sisters in Blacksburg this day. All other questions pale when compared to the killing of innocent women and men—young and old—daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, lovers and friends, students and teachers, colleagues and competitors—born in hope, tempered by challenge, clothed in faith, anxious for a future yet unrevealed, now unrevealable—children of God, who more than any other thing, were loved and needed by others of God’s children. Fallen in violence and terror. Gone too soon. Gone brutally. Violence that in your young lives you have seen too much. Almost as if the shocking thing, the thing never to be anticipated, never to be borne, is expected. The thing never to be contemplated is foreseen. In New York, in Washington, in Pennsylvania, and now in Blacksburg; in our Commonwealth, amongst our family, in our home.
Aeschylus wrote that “In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, from the awful grace of God.”
No easy lesson joins this day. For our brothers at Virginia Tech, for our community at this College, for young women and men, filled with hope, and failing to approach, much less to comprehend, the injustice and the horror of such acts. No lesson except, perhaps, our faith, as Dr. King wrote, that “unearned suffering is redemptive.” As we believe—that love, not hate, is the strongest power on earth. That as the ancient Greeks claimed, we are charged “to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” And that “they who mourn are blessed, for they shall be comforted.” For they shall be comforted. For we shall offer comfort.
No lesson except that life, and each precious moment of it, is to be treasured. That we should hold tight to one another, hold fast to our dreams. That the world we inherit needs much. But nothing so much as our love, and commitment, to make steady the way before us; to lighten and enrich the lives of our fellows. To live each day as if its grace and its beauty were a gift—a gift to mark our souls, to open our eyes, to lift and to soothe our hearts. A gift to be received and, when received, regiven. To push back against hatred and violence, and their more subtle companions—companions that tear at the fabric of our common lives, on this small planet. That deny the sanctity of human existence. That cast aside the treasure and the dignity of what we rightly claim as our own. Recognizing that we are bound to one another—as the poet says—all men and women, in sister- and brotherhood, that we are bound and we are bound.
I ask you, as I know you will, to reach out to your brothers and sisters in Blacksburg, and in Williamsburg, and at the destinations that will soon unfold before you. Living each day with hope—hope not as a mere description of the world around you, or as a prediction of the future, but hope as Vaclav Havel described it—a predisposition of the spirit, a habit of the heart. A conscious choice to live in the belief that we can make a difference in the quality of our shared lives. The nobler of hypotheses. Honoring those unjustly taken. Casting our lot on the side of beauty and grace and forgiveness and courage and commitment and selflessness and hope, and, finally, love.
Gotta say I'm proud of that. Wish I thought I could be so eloquent when I preach on Sunday. I'm struggling, with both what to say and how to say it. As Eric pointed out today, our congregation doesn't so much need to be told how to think as to see that we are engaged and to be given tools for their own engagement. God help me do justice to the text and to God's presence in our lives.
She must know God
these are Nikki Giovanni's remarks from the VT convocation yesterday. I knew she was brilliant, but she knows God. Replace "Virginia Tech" and "Hokies" with "Christians" and/or "people of God," and this makes a pretty good response.
“We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. WE are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant in the killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokie Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. "
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Broken-hearted...
Yesterday, I was still thinking about how I wanted to blog my thoughts about last week's drama...the Duke Lacrosse team members and Imus. That was yesterday morning, and it seems like a lifetime ago.
Today, I'm struggling with a Christian and pastoral response to the shootings at Virginia Tech. What do we have to say at such a time as this? How can we give meaning and hope in the face of death, injury, fear, and confusion? What do we say tonight at our Communion service? What do I preach on Sunday?
I have more questions than answers, but the big one is "why?" It's too easy to blame God or the media or the university or liberals or whoever. It's too pat to lay blame at the President's feet, or anyone else's, for that matter. It is natural for us to want to do two things simultaneously: to find a point of contact with the victims or larger university community and to blame someone, anyone, so we can begin the business of putting it all behind us.
I'm not so sure that's an appropriate Christian response, although I do think it's a normal human one. What do we have to offer in the face of such a tragedy? I haven't been called to Blacksburg to help minister to the campus and community, nor do I expect any such thing (although I'd go). We have not, so far, heard of anyone close to this church who was killed or injured, although there is someone related to my home church who is dead. What do we do?
I think the first thing we do is feel. Feel sadness, feel grief, even feel anger. Feel lost, confused, even disconnected. Callousness is not an appropriate response, nor is willful blindness. We don't feel enough, not about all that is sad and hurtful, and hateful in the world. I think broken-heartedness is an appropriate, Christian response. And I frankly think we spend too little time looking beyond ourselves, to see all the evil that is done in the world, and let our hearts be broken.
And then I think we start to look for hope. Where do we find hope in a world where something like this could happen? Where is grace, mercy? What is our reason to hope, and for joy? Because there is a God who exists, who loves, who calls us. Because there is resurrection after the cross, and because good is stronger than evil. Because we cannot function without hope, and hope gives us strength to go on.
I think this is where we find our faith: not in laying blame so we can put it all behind us, not in accusing God or anyone else, but in living in the tension between this world and eternity. I believe that our strength comes from our willingness to ask the questions, that we believe despite our doubts and fears, that in the times when we are most vulnerable and afraid and calling out to God and asking, "Why?", we are somehow most closely in touch with the Spirit of God.
What kind of God could not withstand the questions? What kind of God could take death and bring new life? Only one that can sustain us as we question, can give hope as we struggle, can guide us as we wander, and can comfort us while we mourn.
Because of God's great love for us, I think God's very heart is broken today...not only because of the killings in Blacksburg but because of all the other ugliness that we are sometimes blind to: Darfur, Baghdad, all the stuff that makes the news but has ceased to be a crisis to us and to which we have somehow become almost accustomed. And I believe we are called to open our eyes and hearts to that ugliness and evil...and we are called to respond, to act, to work out in the darkness the light and love of God. How we do this, I think, is a matter between each of us and God and how we are moved to compassion and action. But we are called as children of God not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. May we find a way to overcome the evil that was done Monday with goodness, grace, and mercy.
Today, I'm struggling with a Christian and pastoral response to the shootings at Virginia Tech. What do we have to say at such a time as this? How can we give meaning and hope in the face of death, injury, fear, and confusion? What do we say tonight at our Communion service? What do I preach on Sunday?
I have more questions than answers, but the big one is "why?" It's too easy to blame God or the media or the university or liberals or whoever. It's too pat to lay blame at the President's feet, or anyone else's, for that matter. It is natural for us to want to do two things simultaneously: to find a point of contact with the victims or larger university community and to blame someone, anyone, so we can begin the business of putting it all behind us.
I'm not so sure that's an appropriate Christian response, although I do think it's a normal human one. What do we have to offer in the face of such a tragedy? I haven't been called to Blacksburg to help minister to the campus and community, nor do I expect any such thing (although I'd go). We have not, so far, heard of anyone close to this church who was killed or injured, although there is someone related to my home church who is dead. What do we do?
I think the first thing we do is feel. Feel sadness, feel grief, even feel anger. Feel lost, confused, even disconnected. Callousness is not an appropriate response, nor is willful blindness. We don't feel enough, not about all that is sad and hurtful, and hateful in the world. I think broken-heartedness is an appropriate, Christian response. And I frankly think we spend too little time looking beyond ourselves, to see all the evil that is done in the world, and let our hearts be broken.
And then I think we start to look for hope. Where do we find hope in a world where something like this could happen? Where is grace, mercy? What is our reason to hope, and for joy? Because there is a God who exists, who loves, who calls us. Because there is resurrection after the cross, and because good is stronger than evil. Because we cannot function without hope, and hope gives us strength to go on.
I think this is where we find our faith: not in laying blame so we can put it all behind us, not in accusing God or anyone else, but in living in the tension between this world and eternity. I believe that our strength comes from our willingness to ask the questions, that we believe despite our doubts and fears, that in the times when we are most vulnerable and afraid and calling out to God and asking, "Why?", we are somehow most closely in touch with the Spirit of God.
What kind of God could not withstand the questions? What kind of God could take death and bring new life? Only one that can sustain us as we question, can give hope as we struggle, can guide us as we wander, and can comfort us while we mourn.
Because of God's great love for us, I think God's very heart is broken today...not only because of the killings in Blacksburg but because of all the other ugliness that we are sometimes blind to: Darfur, Baghdad, all the stuff that makes the news but has ceased to be a crisis to us and to which we have somehow become almost accustomed. And I believe we are called to open our eyes and hearts to that ugliness and evil...and we are called to respond, to act, to work out in the darkness the light and love of God. How we do this, I think, is a matter between each of us and God and how we are moved to compassion and action. But we are called as children of God not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. May we find a way to overcome the evil that was done Monday with goodness, grace, and mercy.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
All right...time to cough up a little dough...
Yes, it's Relay for Life time. Don't know what the Relay is? It's a nationwide event to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. Teams of people get together to raise money and show their support by walking...all night. Fortunately, we take it in turns, so no one person has to walk the whole time.
How can you help? If you are in Carteret County, you can join Team Incredibles...call Ann Street UMC for more information.
Can't walk or too far away to join the team? There's plenty for you to do, too.
You can go online to my very own page(just click on the green text). There you can donate online or print off a form you can mail in with your donation.
Just so you know, here's my reason to Relay: I lost both of my maternal grandparents and a very special uncle to cancer, so it's personal. I want to help find a cure, and since I'm not a researcher, this is how I can help.
I've set a very low fundraising goal of $100. Please help me exceed it!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Trying not to overdo
Well, I was trying. It's a shame I like my job so much.
Saturday was okay...I stayed on the couch and slept, mostly. I tried to stay off the painkiller, and did okay most of the day. I knew Sunday would be a long day, and I really wanted to be able to be there the whole time. The whole time being Sunrise service at 6:30 am, both morning worship services, and preaching the evening service at 7 pm.
Well, any reasonable person would have known that this was a pretty ambitious plan, but I felt pretty good Sunday. Ben had to help me dress (he's gotten pretty good as a ladies' dresser in the last 10 days) and so I was ready early. I did fine during the Sunrise service, but I had to leave the early service, and then I made it fine during the 11 am service (with the help of the painkiller I took when I left the other service). I didn't have a lot of pain as long as I kept moving, so I went and visited the hospital before coming back for the evening service.
Somewhere in there was my big mistake. I felt pretty good the whole time, and even until I went to bed Sunday night I felt fine. Monday morning, though, was a whole other ballgame...lots of stiffness and pain. Felt like I was back to Thursday or Friday, which was not good.
I went to work today in the morning and kept a pretty regular morning schedule--taught Bible study and all, but came home and rested in the afternoon and then went back for the Communion service. I did go out to dinner with Ben to a local place, but I had to leave a little earlier than he did.
I am proud of me for coming home today, but it's hard. I have been out of the office so long...and out of the loop, too. I can't just sit at the desk for hours, at least not right now. I've got about an hour in me, and then I've got to move around some. I know that it will get better, but I've got so much to do, so much backed up, and it all feels important. Some things I've just had to let go of; I wanted to be on the leadership team for Summer Breakaway (youth camp in June) but I just couldn't get the application done with everything else going on, so I've had to let that go. I tend to be fairly driven, and I am not patient with myself, and I'm frustrated, but I'm trying. Better to take it easy the next few weeks than be in pain for months, I guess. But it's not natural for me to rest--it's more natural to me to push.
Saturday was okay...I stayed on the couch and slept, mostly. I tried to stay off the painkiller, and did okay most of the day. I knew Sunday would be a long day, and I really wanted to be able to be there the whole time. The whole time being Sunrise service at 6:30 am, both morning worship services, and preaching the evening service at 7 pm.
Well, any reasonable person would have known that this was a pretty ambitious plan, but I felt pretty good Sunday. Ben had to help me dress (he's gotten pretty good as a ladies' dresser in the last 10 days) and so I was ready early. I did fine during the Sunrise service, but I had to leave the early service, and then I made it fine during the 11 am service (with the help of the painkiller I took when I left the other service). I didn't have a lot of pain as long as I kept moving, so I went and visited the hospital before coming back for the evening service.
Somewhere in there was my big mistake. I felt pretty good the whole time, and even until I went to bed Sunday night I felt fine. Monday morning, though, was a whole other ballgame...lots of stiffness and pain. Felt like I was back to Thursday or Friday, which was not good.
I went to work today in the morning and kept a pretty regular morning schedule--taught Bible study and all, but came home and rested in the afternoon and then went back for the Communion service. I did go out to dinner with Ben to a local place, but I had to leave a little earlier than he did.
I am proud of me for coming home today, but it's hard. I have been out of the office so long...and out of the loop, too. I can't just sit at the desk for hours, at least not right now. I've got about an hour in me, and then I've got to move around some. I know that it will get better, but I've got so much to do, so much backed up, and it all feels important. Some things I've just had to let go of; I wanted to be on the leadership team for Summer Breakaway (youth camp in June) but I just couldn't get the application done with everything else going on, so I've had to let that go. I tend to be fairly driven, and I am not patient with myself, and I'm frustrated, but I'm trying. Better to take it easy the next few weeks than be in pain for months, I guess. But it's not natural for me to rest--it's more natural to me to push.
Friday, April 6, 2007
I did it!
I went to church last night, and it was good. Okay, I was really hurting by the time it was over, and I couldn't sit through the entire serice, but I did pretty well. Today I went in to the office for a little while just to do some little odds and ends. I don't think I spent more than an hour or so in there, and I did learn that driving is powerfully uncomfortable (gives credence to the doc's suggestion that all that driving to TN contributed). But the good news is that I'm starting to be ready to be up...not trapped on the couch all the time. This bodes well for Easter Sunday and the week to come.
Thanks to everyone who has sent calls/emails/etc...I really appreciate it. Someone even came by today to offer to work on the lawn. Folks have been wonderful to us, and I really am grateful.
Thanks to everyone who has sent calls/emails/etc...I really appreciate it. Someone even came by today to offer to work on the lawn. Folks have been wonderful to us, and I really am grateful.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
High hopes
It occurs to me that for many of us, the season of Lent is one of unrealistic expectations. We come to Lent making resolutions to give up something that we know we need to give up anyway: sweets, soda, french fries. We sort of treat this holy time as an opportunity to jump-start our diets and exercise programs, and assume that somehow God will sanction these efforts because it is, after all, a season of sacrifice. But all we're really doing is making Lent about us, what we want God to do for us.
These last few days, I've come to see Lent as something a little different. From my perspective here on the couch with my knees elevated, hoping each day for a little more mobility and a little less pain, I realize how selfish we can sometimes be in how we deal with Lent. Eric pointed out Sunday in his sermon that taking up our crosses may be the sacrifice we make so that someone else may benefit. I don't know who's benefiting from my failed efforts to give up fried potatoes--it's certainly not me (those "failed" efforts I mentioned above).
Since Sunday night, I've been forced to be very conservative in my expectations of myself. Monday, I couldn't even get up without help--which meant that in the middle of the night, I would call Ben on my cell phone to wake him up when I needed help. Tuesday, I could negotiate my way from the couch using Ben's cane and the wall to keep me from falling. Yesterday, I took a shower--o, blessed event--an act not to be underestimated when you can't move without pain.
Today's expectation is a little bigger, and maybe a little less realistic: I want to go to church tonight. It's Maundy Thursday and I have missed the church and my office and all the busy-ness of Holy Week. I didn't preach Sunday night and had to renege on an invite to preach a Lenten service Tuesday and to speak to a class about Easter today. I don't know that I'll have any role in tonight's service other than as a member of the congregation: I'm not ready to climb stairs, which keeps me out of the chancel area, and I'm not going to be able to serve communion--too much standing and leaning forward. But I want to go, to be there with the friends and church family that has sacrificed their time for me in prayer and phone calls and cards and meals so that I might benefit from what they give up.
So I'll try, and tomorrow I'll post an update on how I do.
These last few days, I've come to see Lent as something a little different. From my perspective here on the couch with my knees elevated, hoping each day for a little more mobility and a little less pain, I realize how selfish we can sometimes be in how we deal with Lent. Eric pointed out Sunday in his sermon that taking up our crosses may be the sacrifice we make so that someone else may benefit. I don't know who's benefiting from my failed efforts to give up fried potatoes--it's certainly not me (those "failed" efforts I mentioned above).
Since Sunday night, I've been forced to be very conservative in my expectations of myself. Monday, I couldn't even get up without help--which meant that in the middle of the night, I would call Ben on my cell phone to wake him up when I needed help. Tuesday, I could negotiate my way from the couch using Ben's cane and the wall to keep me from falling. Yesterday, I took a shower--o, blessed event--an act not to be underestimated when you can't move without pain.
Today's expectation is a little bigger, and maybe a little less realistic: I want to go to church tonight. It's Maundy Thursday and I have missed the church and my office and all the busy-ness of Holy Week. I didn't preach Sunday night and had to renege on an invite to preach a Lenten service Tuesday and to speak to a class about Easter today. I don't know that I'll have any role in tonight's service other than as a member of the congregation: I'm not ready to climb stairs, which keeps me out of the chancel area, and I'm not going to be able to serve communion--too much standing and leaning forward. But I want to go, to be there with the friends and church family that has sacrificed their time for me in prayer and phone calls and cards and meals so that I might benefit from what they give up.
So I'll try, and tomorrow I'll post an update on how I do.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
The best laid plans of mice and (wo)men
Here I was all excited about going back to work and catching up and how exciting Holy Week can be, and Easter's on Sunday, and it happened.
Sunday night during practice with the worship team, I was alternately slouching in a folding chair and hunching over the computer to update the powerpoint. Everything was going fine; they were looking at new music, and everything seemed to be going well. Then I got up.
My back seized up. Now I have had trouble with muscle spasms in my back before--I came back from the ski trip with back pain. And I knew not to be so lazy about my posture in that chair. But this has been the mother of all back spasms. I left the fellowship hall and went back to my office, intending to sit a few minutes, maybe get Ben to bring me some drugs, and get myself together to handle the rest of my evening.
Instead, after 30 minutes of not being able to reach Ben, I called a neighbor and asked for a ride home, because it was clear the pain would not just go away. I laid down on the couch and kept trying to call Ben, and he says (although I don't remember it) I was crying on the phone from the pain. He got home about the time I realized that I couldn't get off the couch by myself, and we went to the emergency room.
So here it is Tuesday night, and I haven't been back in my office yet. I am better this evening; I got up and walked a little by myself (with Ben as my faithful shadow, of course, but without the clutching at his arm). I have high hopes that I might be able to shower tomorrow, but that's about my only goal.
So I'm getting further and further behind, but the church has been wonderful: there was a prayer shawl on my doorstep this afternoon, our neighbors down the road brought over chicken salad and muffins and homemade soup, and we've had several phone calls.
This is my theodicy question of the day: I understand why bad things happen in the world, to people who are good, bad, and indifferent. But why do they all have to happen at once? At least I've got good friends, a great senior pastor, and Ben to look after me--and that's the gift that makes it all bearable.
Sunday night during practice with the worship team, I was alternately slouching in a folding chair and hunching over the computer to update the powerpoint. Everything was going fine; they were looking at new music, and everything seemed to be going well. Then I got up.
My back seized up. Now I have had trouble with muscle spasms in my back before--I came back from the ski trip with back pain. And I knew not to be so lazy about my posture in that chair. But this has been the mother of all back spasms. I left the fellowship hall and went back to my office, intending to sit a few minutes, maybe get Ben to bring me some drugs, and get myself together to handle the rest of my evening.
Instead, after 30 minutes of not being able to reach Ben, I called a neighbor and asked for a ride home, because it was clear the pain would not just go away. I laid down on the couch and kept trying to call Ben, and he says (although I don't remember it) I was crying on the phone from the pain. He got home about the time I realized that I couldn't get off the couch by myself, and we went to the emergency room.
So here it is Tuesday night, and I haven't been back in my office yet. I am better this evening; I got up and walked a little by myself (with Ben as my faithful shadow, of course, but without the clutching at his arm). I have high hopes that I might be able to shower tomorrow, but that's about my only goal.
So I'm getting further and further behind, but the church has been wonderful: there was a prayer shawl on my doorstep this afternoon, our neighbors down the road brought over chicken salad and muffins and homemade soup, and we've had several phone calls.
This is my theodicy question of the day: I understand why bad things happen in the world, to people who are good, bad, and indifferent. But why do they all have to happen at once? At least I've got good friends, a great senior pastor, and Ben to look after me--and that's the gift that makes it all bearable.
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