This week I am in New Jersey for another class. This one is on Collaborative Leadership, for which I had very high hopes. The final assignment is to form small collaborative groups and to write what may become chapters in a book. Of course, we will eventually have our names out there as contributors, which is cool (and assumes that it ever gets published. And you know what they say about that!).
But: it's a seminar with 22 students in it. We're hot (no AC) and crowded, and we don't know each other well (except that smaller groups of us do). And it's a little frustrating.
So here are five graces, to help me shift my attitude:
I'm with (most of) my classmates, and they make it worth my time.
The weather is cooler here than at home.
I'm using the new netbook, and really liking traveling with the baby computer.
I'm in a classroom partially filled with people who understand multi-tasking, so I can blog, and read news, and google things I'm hearing. And maybe work on the new blog.
Soon, it will be time for lunch and an extended break.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sermon: When God fails to meet our expectations
on the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter from Mark 5
What a story Mark brings us today: the faith of a loving father, the healing power of the son of God, and the miraculous restoration of a little girl. It would make a great hallmark movie, wouldn’t it? Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, one of the religious aristocracy, is forced to leave the synagogue and seek out an itinerant teacher named Jesus when his little girl falls desperately ill. On the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus stops along the way to investigate the healing of a sick woman, until some mourners from Jairus’ house arrive to say, “don’t bother; she’s already dead.” Jesus reassures the grieving father, “do not fear, only believe,” and when they arrive at Jairus’ home, Jesus calls the little girl to wake up, and she did. And Jesus told them all to keep it a secret.
We don’t know how long this story was kept a secret. Who could stop themselves from sharing news like this? And certainly we know that the gospel of Mark was written relatively soon after Jesus’ death. Matthew and Luke tell this story, too, which helps give it power…but it also creates an unrealistic expectation of who Jesus is and how God interacts with us. And sometimes, one might even say more often than not, God fails to meet those expectations.
It’s a shocking thing to say, I know. But I think the problem is less with God, and more with us. Maybe another story will help flesh this out. But first, a disclaimer: this is someone else’s story, and I’m telling it to you as I’ve come to understand it over the years. I’m sure there are factual errors, and that some of the details will be wrong. Bear with me: it may not be entirely accurate, but it is a true story of a child and a family struggling with what happens when God does not meet our expectations.
Nearly 42 years ago in Alabama, a woman named Mary gave birth to her fourth child, who would be her third son. This had been a risky pregnancy for her; she was almost forty herself, and five years before, her only daughter was still-born. Mary and her husband had learned about the cause, Rh incompatibility or Rh disease: her blood was not compatible with that of her daughter, and potentially any future children. The hospital said it was prepared to treat her son, and so when he was born, they gave him a transfusion to counteract the effect of the disease. All should have been well, but her little boy’s body rejected some of the new blood, and they told Mary and her husband that their baby would probably not live. They named his condition cerebral palsy.
Mary prayed, and asked her friends and her church to pray, and they asked others to pray, and their little boy survived. The doctors told her that her child would likely be severely physically and mentally handicapped, and tried to prepare her for what this might mean. And Mary and her friends and her church continued to pray, and the little boy continued to live. He grew, but he did not progress like other babies. He crawled, but did not walk, and cried in pain when they held him up by the hands to help him walk between them. He began to talk, and they saw no signs of the mental deficits the doctors anticipated, and so then the doctors told Mary and her husband their little boy would never walk.
When he was three, Mary’s child had the first of several surgeries on his legs. This was the first, but it would be far from the last. In this first surgery, his Achilles’ tendon was lengthened to allow him to put his heel down when he stood. In the second, muscle was taken from one part of his leg and wrapped around his left foot, which was turned inward towards his body. They fitted him with braces to try to help his bones grow normally and to strengthen his legs to help him walk, but it wasn’t enough, and as he grew he continued to wear heavy braces on his left leg to help him walk. And Mary and her friends and her church kept praying, and thanked God for how far her little son had come.
When the little boy was in elementary school, his mother started going to a new church, one which believed in faith healings. They taught Mary that if she asked with a pure heart, and believed enough, and was free of sin, then when she asked in faith, Jesus would heal her son: would even lengthen his left leg, now shorter than the other, and make it perfect and normal. And this new church began to pray with her, and to hold healing services, and to lay hands on the little boy and pray for his healing. For years they prayed, as the little boy played Little League baseball and won the Sportsmanship award, as he began to develop into a great student and a good friend. And he learned to sing, and traveled with the Montgomery Boy’s Choir.
But his leg didn’t get better. He worked hard, and his parents worked with him, to develop some flexibility and stability in that leg. He gradually grew out of needing a brace…but his leg was never what you’d call normal. He ran an 8 minute mile in high school after years of working at it, and he went off to college and worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. But his leg never got better…it began to get worse.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m talking about my husband, Ben. He eventually left his mother’s church, not because of all the healing lines and all the unrealized hopes, but because when he moved to a new town, the Methodists were friendliest. He eventually went to seminary at Duke, where we met, and so the story goes. By the time we came to Ann Street to visit for the first time, Ben was temporarily in a wheelchair, recovering from surgery on his left leg, trying to compensate for some of the damage done over the years by his cerebral palsy. That’s how the SPRC first saw him. And we still pray for healing, although not so much for the complete healing and restoration of his body, because by now we know that the damage done by the cerebral palsy affects more than just his leg, but for the strength to do the work he’s called to, and for the doctors and therapies and medicines to be available when he needs them. But it’s rare that we talk to Mary that we aren’t reminded in some way that God didn’t meet her expectations when Ben didn’t get a complete, spectacular, undeniably divine healing of that leg.
But Jairus got his daughter back…what does that mean for people like Ben? Or like me? I had my own birth defect, leaving me with lots of arthritis. I’m so near-sighted that I started wearing contact lenses not to avoid my glasses, but in hopes that having that little piece of plastic on my eyeball would slow down the changes to the shape and function of my eyes. I’ve prayed for complete healing before, and I believed that God could do it, and Ben and I have both witnessed people’s health being restored in ways that were nothing short of miraculous. I’m inclined to think now that Jairus’ story is more valuable to us as a parable than it is as a historical account, that there is more depth to it than simply using faith as a kind of magic wand, that there is more to healing than fixing physical ailments, that miracles are more common—and more commonplace—than we think, and that there is more to grace than we can imagine.
When we look closely at the language used to for words like healing, wholeness, and salvation, we find that they are all connected together. The word salvation shares a root with “salve” or healing ointment, and to save is to heal. There is a connection with forgiveness as well; we remember some of the other healing stories of Jesus, where forgiveness of sins is connected to healing and to restoration of community: the stories of the healing of the man who was blind from birth, the crippled man by the pool of Siloam, and of the ten lepers make this To heal, then, is to make whole, and adds some real richness to this story of Jairus’ daughter, who is healed—resurrected—restored to Jairus by Jesus. Jesus was his last hope: Jairus was a leader of the synagogue, and thus had some authority and some pull in the community. He had access to doctors and priests and all the help available to someone in that time and place. But all his efforts to save his daughter were in vain. His status let him down. His connections let him down. His money, even, let him down, when he had done all that could be done, and still his daughter lay at the point of death. His last hope was to find that itinerant teacher, Jesus, that he had heard so much about, and see if there really was any truth to the rumors about what he could do. When his daughter was restored to him, he was restored to his places in the community.
We get an even more powerful image of healing as restoration in the story-within-a-story from this passage. The verses I didn’t read tell the story of a woman who had been bleeding—hemorrhaging—for twelve years. All this time she had been ill, and there had been no one that could cure her. Even worse, the blood made her ritually unclean, and so much of the time, she could not be around others in the community. Her family probably made the decision to risk her company from time to time, but no one else would. She wouldn’t be welcome in the temple or in the marketplace, or in others’ homes, because they would have to then purify themselves to remove the taint from associating with her. When she touched Jesus’ clothes, immediately her bleeding stopped and Jesus looked for her and spoke to her, reassuring her that her faith had made her well. Wellness was not only that her physical condition was cured, but also that she was restored to the comforts of family and home, to work and to worship, to go to the marketplace and to enjoy her friends again. And in the phrase, “your faith has made you well,” we should hear echoes: “ your sins are forgiven”…“your faith has made you whole”… “your faith has saved you”.
Restoration and healing, forgiveness and salvation and wholeness, then, mean more than a physical condition. For Jesus, to be healed or restored or forgiven or saved or made whole means that you have entered fellowship with a community that loves you and supports you. This is what is so important about moments like the one we share today with Evan Williams and his family, for baptism is more than a rite of passage; it is a sign of the healing and wholeness and salvation that comes from Christ. Evan is a part of us now. He is our brother, and we are his sisters and brothers. He has our love and our support, whatever he may go through.
For many, this love and support is ultimately more important than physical healing. Here is the faith community where we pray that our friends and loved ones will be blessed with healing, and where we acknowledge that sometimes that healing comes from the efforts of doctors and surgeries and therapies and medication—and I’m convinced we should acknowledge that as miraculous! And we must acknowledge as well that sometimes we don’t see the healing we expect. Sometimes God does not meet our expectations, just as he did not meet Mary’s expectations for Ben. She wanted a son, who, like his brothers, was athletic, a football player, a young man who might enroll at West Point or enlist in the Army like his father. She expected God to restore Ben’s body so that he could do these things. Instead, God gave him something more—and Ben counts each day as a gift from God.
There is a difference between what we expect of God and what God expects of us. We sometimes expect magic: dramatic healing, direct interventions in our lives. We share email stories about little children found yards away from a devastating car crash who say Jesus helped them out of the car. We say it’s miraculous when a hurricane passes us by, forgetting that it isn’t a miracle for those who aren’t so fortunate. And we sometimes feel that by the sheer force of our own will we can make God do what we want: free a loved one from addiction, make us wealthy, order the world after our own intentions. After all, doesn’t the Bible say that if we are persistent in prayer, that God will give us whatever we ask?
But there’s a loophole there, that we will align our prayers with God’s expectations: that we will hold fast to our faith, that we will persist in prayer, that we will try to line up what we want with what God wants, that we will trust that God is with us. Part of that expectation is that we live the best we can with what we’ve got, and to share and show our faith as we do it. And that’s where Mary’s expectations kind of fall down. She’s looked for Ben’s whole life for the miracle, the one that would show God’s power, and never seen the everyday miracles that make his life special: he was never expected to live, and yet here he is. He was expected to be profoundly mentally and physically impaired, and yet he’s earned two Master’s degrees. He was never expected to walk, but he cut the grass at our house this weekend.
And in turn, Ben’s done his best to meet God’s expectations. The grace of God and some really great doctors (also sent by God, we’re convinced) has given him the ability to live and love and work. While he never played high school football or made it into the Army, he has become a pastor, and a good one, if I say so myself. And I do. And Ben’s done his part to learn from his life: he’s learned how to care for himself and others, and he’s particularly good at talking to people who are hurting and whose lives are falling apart. He’s able to tell them what he’s learned from his life: God’s grace enables us day by day to be the people we are called to be; we learn from our struggles how to relate to others, and that Ben is who he is now because of what he’s been through.
We’ve learned over the years we’ve been married that it doesn’t pay to dictate to God how things must be. Instead, we’ve learned to pray sometimes to change who we are, not to change who God is—to help us meet God’s expectations, rather than try to force God to meet ours. That’s the lesson I want us to learn today from the healing of Jairus’ daughter. Jairus did not go to Jesus to order God to heal his daughter. He’d prayed in the synagogue, he’d sent for the physicians and healers, he’d done everything there was to do. Jairus went to Jesus because he was at the end of his rope, and thought that Jesus was his only hope for a miracle, his only chance to save his little girl. Jesus’ response was simple: “Do not fear, only believe.”
We could translate that as “do not fear, only trust,” and that is the crux of the matter. That is God’s expectation of us: do not fear, only trust. And God is always worthy of our trust. Whether Jairus’ daughter had been restored to life or to eternal life, Jairus was asked to trust. When our lives seem to find us far from health and happiness, we are asked to trust. And we know that when we trust God, we will find forgiveness, and restoration, and healing, and wholeness, and salvation. Thanks be to God.
What a story Mark brings us today: the faith of a loving father, the healing power of the son of God, and the miraculous restoration of a little girl. It would make a great hallmark movie, wouldn’t it? Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, one of the religious aristocracy, is forced to leave the synagogue and seek out an itinerant teacher named Jesus when his little girl falls desperately ill. On the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus stops along the way to investigate the healing of a sick woman, until some mourners from Jairus’ house arrive to say, “don’t bother; she’s already dead.” Jesus reassures the grieving father, “do not fear, only believe,” and when they arrive at Jairus’ home, Jesus calls the little girl to wake up, and she did. And Jesus told them all to keep it a secret.
We don’t know how long this story was kept a secret. Who could stop themselves from sharing news like this? And certainly we know that the gospel of Mark was written relatively soon after Jesus’ death. Matthew and Luke tell this story, too, which helps give it power…but it also creates an unrealistic expectation of who Jesus is and how God interacts with us. And sometimes, one might even say more often than not, God fails to meet those expectations.
It’s a shocking thing to say, I know. But I think the problem is less with God, and more with us. Maybe another story will help flesh this out. But first, a disclaimer: this is someone else’s story, and I’m telling it to you as I’ve come to understand it over the years. I’m sure there are factual errors, and that some of the details will be wrong. Bear with me: it may not be entirely accurate, but it is a true story of a child and a family struggling with what happens when God does not meet our expectations.
Nearly 42 years ago in Alabama, a woman named Mary gave birth to her fourth child, who would be her third son. This had been a risky pregnancy for her; she was almost forty herself, and five years before, her only daughter was still-born. Mary and her husband had learned about the cause, Rh incompatibility or Rh disease: her blood was not compatible with that of her daughter, and potentially any future children. The hospital said it was prepared to treat her son, and so when he was born, they gave him a transfusion to counteract the effect of the disease. All should have been well, but her little boy’s body rejected some of the new blood, and they told Mary and her husband that their baby would probably not live. They named his condition cerebral palsy.
Mary prayed, and asked her friends and her church to pray, and they asked others to pray, and their little boy survived. The doctors told her that her child would likely be severely physically and mentally handicapped, and tried to prepare her for what this might mean. And Mary and her friends and her church continued to pray, and the little boy continued to live. He grew, but he did not progress like other babies. He crawled, but did not walk, and cried in pain when they held him up by the hands to help him walk between them. He began to talk, and they saw no signs of the mental deficits the doctors anticipated, and so then the doctors told Mary and her husband their little boy would never walk.
When he was three, Mary’s child had the first of several surgeries on his legs. This was the first, but it would be far from the last. In this first surgery, his Achilles’ tendon was lengthened to allow him to put his heel down when he stood. In the second, muscle was taken from one part of his leg and wrapped around his left foot, which was turned inward towards his body. They fitted him with braces to try to help his bones grow normally and to strengthen his legs to help him walk, but it wasn’t enough, and as he grew he continued to wear heavy braces on his left leg to help him walk. And Mary and her friends and her church kept praying, and thanked God for how far her little son had come.
When the little boy was in elementary school, his mother started going to a new church, one which believed in faith healings. They taught Mary that if she asked with a pure heart, and believed enough, and was free of sin, then when she asked in faith, Jesus would heal her son: would even lengthen his left leg, now shorter than the other, and make it perfect and normal. And this new church began to pray with her, and to hold healing services, and to lay hands on the little boy and pray for his healing. For years they prayed, as the little boy played Little League baseball and won the Sportsmanship award, as he began to develop into a great student and a good friend. And he learned to sing, and traveled with the Montgomery Boy’s Choir.
But his leg didn’t get better. He worked hard, and his parents worked with him, to develop some flexibility and stability in that leg. He gradually grew out of needing a brace…but his leg was never what you’d call normal. He ran an 8 minute mile in high school after years of working at it, and he went off to college and worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. But his leg never got better…it began to get worse.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m talking about my husband, Ben. He eventually left his mother’s church, not because of all the healing lines and all the unrealized hopes, but because when he moved to a new town, the Methodists were friendliest. He eventually went to seminary at Duke, where we met, and so the story goes. By the time we came to Ann Street to visit for the first time, Ben was temporarily in a wheelchair, recovering from surgery on his left leg, trying to compensate for some of the damage done over the years by his cerebral palsy. That’s how the SPRC first saw him. And we still pray for healing, although not so much for the complete healing and restoration of his body, because by now we know that the damage done by the cerebral palsy affects more than just his leg, but for the strength to do the work he’s called to, and for the doctors and therapies and medicines to be available when he needs them. But it’s rare that we talk to Mary that we aren’t reminded in some way that God didn’t meet her expectations when Ben didn’t get a complete, spectacular, undeniably divine healing of that leg.
But Jairus got his daughter back…what does that mean for people like Ben? Or like me? I had my own birth defect, leaving me with lots of arthritis. I’m so near-sighted that I started wearing contact lenses not to avoid my glasses, but in hopes that having that little piece of plastic on my eyeball would slow down the changes to the shape and function of my eyes. I’ve prayed for complete healing before, and I believed that God could do it, and Ben and I have both witnessed people’s health being restored in ways that were nothing short of miraculous. I’m inclined to think now that Jairus’ story is more valuable to us as a parable than it is as a historical account, that there is more depth to it than simply using faith as a kind of magic wand, that there is more to healing than fixing physical ailments, that miracles are more common—and more commonplace—than we think, and that there is more to grace than we can imagine.
When we look closely at the language used to for words like healing, wholeness, and salvation, we find that they are all connected together. The word salvation shares a root with “salve” or healing ointment, and to save is to heal. There is a connection with forgiveness as well; we remember some of the other healing stories of Jesus, where forgiveness of sins is connected to healing and to restoration of community: the stories of the healing of the man who was blind from birth, the crippled man by the pool of Siloam, and of the ten lepers make this To heal, then, is to make whole, and adds some real richness to this story of Jairus’ daughter, who is healed—resurrected—restored to Jairus by Jesus. Jesus was his last hope: Jairus was a leader of the synagogue, and thus had some authority and some pull in the community. He had access to doctors and priests and all the help available to someone in that time and place. But all his efforts to save his daughter were in vain. His status let him down. His connections let him down. His money, even, let him down, when he had done all that could be done, and still his daughter lay at the point of death. His last hope was to find that itinerant teacher, Jesus, that he had heard so much about, and see if there really was any truth to the rumors about what he could do. When his daughter was restored to him, he was restored to his places in the community.
We get an even more powerful image of healing as restoration in the story-within-a-story from this passage. The verses I didn’t read tell the story of a woman who had been bleeding—hemorrhaging—for twelve years. All this time she had been ill, and there had been no one that could cure her. Even worse, the blood made her ritually unclean, and so much of the time, she could not be around others in the community. Her family probably made the decision to risk her company from time to time, but no one else would. She wouldn’t be welcome in the temple or in the marketplace, or in others’ homes, because they would have to then purify themselves to remove the taint from associating with her. When she touched Jesus’ clothes, immediately her bleeding stopped and Jesus looked for her and spoke to her, reassuring her that her faith had made her well. Wellness was not only that her physical condition was cured, but also that she was restored to the comforts of family and home, to work and to worship, to go to the marketplace and to enjoy her friends again. And in the phrase, “your faith has made you well,” we should hear echoes: “ your sins are forgiven”…“your faith has made you whole”… “your faith has saved you”.
Restoration and healing, forgiveness and salvation and wholeness, then, mean more than a physical condition. For Jesus, to be healed or restored or forgiven or saved or made whole means that you have entered fellowship with a community that loves you and supports you. This is what is so important about moments like the one we share today with Evan Williams and his family, for baptism is more than a rite of passage; it is a sign of the healing and wholeness and salvation that comes from Christ. Evan is a part of us now. He is our brother, and we are his sisters and brothers. He has our love and our support, whatever he may go through.
For many, this love and support is ultimately more important than physical healing. Here is the faith community where we pray that our friends and loved ones will be blessed with healing, and where we acknowledge that sometimes that healing comes from the efforts of doctors and surgeries and therapies and medication—and I’m convinced we should acknowledge that as miraculous! And we must acknowledge as well that sometimes we don’t see the healing we expect. Sometimes God does not meet our expectations, just as he did not meet Mary’s expectations for Ben. She wanted a son, who, like his brothers, was athletic, a football player, a young man who might enroll at West Point or enlist in the Army like his father. She expected God to restore Ben’s body so that he could do these things. Instead, God gave him something more—and Ben counts each day as a gift from God.
There is a difference between what we expect of God and what God expects of us. We sometimes expect magic: dramatic healing, direct interventions in our lives. We share email stories about little children found yards away from a devastating car crash who say Jesus helped them out of the car. We say it’s miraculous when a hurricane passes us by, forgetting that it isn’t a miracle for those who aren’t so fortunate. And we sometimes feel that by the sheer force of our own will we can make God do what we want: free a loved one from addiction, make us wealthy, order the world after our own intentions. After all, doesn’t the Bible say that if we are persistent in prayer, that God will give us whatever we ask?
But there’s a loophole there, that we will align our prayers with God’s expectations: that we will hold fast to our faith, that we will persist in prayer, that we will try to line up what we want with what God wants, that we will trust that God is with us. Part of that expectation is that we live the best we can with what we’ve got, and to share and show our faith as we do it. And that’s where Mary’s expectations kind of fall down. She’s looked for Ben’s whole life for the miracle, the one that would show God’s power, and never seen the everyday miracles that make his life special: he was never expected to live, and yet here he is. He was expected to be profoundly mentally and physically impaired, and yet he’s earned two Master’s degrees. He was never expected to walk, but he cut the grass at our house this weekend.
And in turn, Ben’s done his best to meet God’s expectations. The grace of God and some really great doctors (also sent by God, we’re convinced) has given him the ability to live and love and work. While he never played high school football or made it into the Army, he has become a pastor, and a good one, if I say so myself. And I do. And Ben’s done his part to learn from his life: he’s learned how to care for himself and others, and he’s particularly good at talking to people who are hurting and whose lives are falling apart. He’s able to tell them what he’s learned from his life: God’s grace enables us day by day to be the people we are called to be; we learn from our struggles how to relate to others, and that Ben is who he is now because of what he’s been through.
We’ve learned over the years we’ve been married that it doesn’t pay to dictate to God how things must be. Instead, we’ve learned to pray sometimes to change who we are, not to change who God is—to help us meet God’s expectations, rather than try to force God to meet ours. That’s the lesson I want us to learn today from the healing of Jairus’ daughter. Jairus did not go to Jesus to order God to heal his daughter. He’d prayed in the synagogue, he’d sent for the physicians and healers, he’d done everything there was to do. Jairus went to Jesus because he was at the end of his rope, and thought that Jesus was his only hope for a miracle, his only chance to save his little girl. Jesus’ response was simple: “Do not fear, only believe.”
We could translate that as “do not fear, only trust,” and that is the crux of the matter. That is God’s expectation of us: do not fear, only trust. And God is always worthy of our trust. Whether Jairus’ daughter had been restored to life or to eternal life, Jairus was asked to trust. When our lives seem to find us far from health and happiness, we are asked to trust. And we know that when we trust God, we will find forgiveness, and restoration, and healing, and wholeness, and salvation. Thanks be to God.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Friday 5: Pop Music edition
Mary Beth's got the duty today:
1) What sort of music did you listen to as a child - this would likely have been determined or influenced by your parents? Or perhaps your family wasn't musical...was the news the background? the radio? Singing around the piano?
2) Going ahead to teenage years, is there a song that says "high school" (or whatever it might've been called where you lived") to you?
3) What is your favorite music for a lift on a down day? (hint: go to www.pandora.com and type in a performer/composer...see what you come up with!)
4) Who is your favorite performer of all time?
5) What is your favorite style of music for worship?
I love a lot of different music, but especially the Celtic-influenced pieces like "Be Thou My Vision" and "When It's All Been Said and Done."
Bonus if you include a video of any of the above!
Herman's Hermits:
REM:
The Smiths "Unhappy Birthday"...a favorite teen angst song
The Monkees:
Okay, that's it for videos for now...got to get back to work!
Happy Friday to you all!
The sad news of Michael Jackson's untimely death has me thinking about music and its effects on us - individually, as cultures, as generations. Let's think about the soundtracks of our lives...
1) What sort of music did you listen to as a child - this would likely have been determined or influenced by your parents? Or perhaps your family wasn't musical...was the news the background? the radio? Singing around the piano?
What is now classic rock and soft rock mostly formed my musical tastes. The Beatles, the Turtles...I can pick Herman's Hermits songs out of elevator muzak within just a few bars.
2) Going ahead to teenage years, is there a song that says "high school" (or whatever it might've been called where you lived") to you?
REM's "The End of the World as We Know It" or anything by the Smiths and Smithereens. oh, and U2.
3) What is your favorite music for a lift on a down day? (hint: go to www.pandora.com and type in a performer/composer...see what you come up with!)
I'm embarrassed to admit to a fondness for the "Aladdin" soundtrack (the first one), and to Van Morrison and Jimmy Buffet songs. And the Monkees (cringe). Also some contemporary Christian songs--the ones that sound like real life, and not what we call 7-11 songs (7 words, repeated 11 times).
4) Who is your favorite performer of all time?
My favorite not because I've seen him a lot or because he's well-known, but because I knew him personally, is Dave Pollard. Dave performs on his own and in a group called "Patchwork" and could be relied upon to sing "Puff the Magic Dragon" when I was a child if I was in the audience.
5) What is your favorite style of music for worship?
I love a lot of different music, but especially the Celtic-influenced pieces like "Be Thou My Vision" and "When It's All Been Said and Done."
Bonus if you include a video of any of the above!
Herman's Hermits:
REM:
The Smiths "Unhappy Birthday"...a favorite teen angst song
The Monkees:
Okay, that's it for videos for now...got to get back to work!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A garden update and 5 graces
I've been at a loss for something to blog; going to NJ for a class on collaborative leadership next week and have had a lot to do to get ready.
Not that I've done most of it.
So now it's crunch time...plane leaves Sunday afternoon, and I've still got to do laundry and pack and try to figure out how to prep for 5 nights in a dorm room and still only take carry-on luggage. It's a puzzle I'll be figuring out on Saturday.
So the garden continues to grow. Found another stealth cuke...I still have not seen a single flower on that plant, only veggies. The first of the yellow tomatoes cropped up in a hurry, too...they were green one day, and the next, one of them was perfectly, beautifully yellow. Someone told me how to ripen tomatoes once I'd picked them (yes, on a window sill, but upside down), but I prefer to ripen mine on the vine. I think our turtle has developed stealth mode: the WonderMutt, now with the new invisible fence transmitter and no longer tied to a tree, has not found her, but some of the cherry tomatoes on the lowest branches have bites taken out of the bottoms...I suspect it's her handiwork.
So, five graces:
1: the community yard sale, a fundraiser to support the new ecumenical ministry we're trying to get started, is shaping up to be impressive. I dropped off several boxes of "extras" from our house today, and there was a lot of stuff! So if you're in Beaufort on Saturday and need anything at all, make Grace Presbyterian on 70 your first stop.
2: The garden makes me happy. I may not be so happy when everything comes ripe at once, but for now, I love looking out at it. I'm thinking about fall crops already.
3: my experiment in cooking, blackberres & dumplings, turned out very well. I might sweeten the dumplings a little to offset the tartness of the blackberries, but I know it was good because I only got to eat one serving...Ben ate the rest!
4: I get to spend next week with most of my classmates. One will not be with us, and she will be sorely missed, but the rest of the crowd will be there. Hope we have as much fun as we did last summer.
5: I get to see Exceptional One and Two in a couple of weeks. Finally, we worked the schedule out!
Not that I've done most of it.
So now it's crunch time...plane leaves Sunday afternoon, and I've still got to do laundry and pack and try to figure out how to prep for 5 nights in a dorm room and still only take carry-on luggage. It's a puzzle I'll be figuring out on Saturday.
So the garden continues to grow. Found another stealth cuke...I still have not seen a single flower on that plant, only veggies. The first of the yellow tomatoes cropped up in a hurry, too...they were green one day, and the next, one of them was perfectly, beautifully yellow. Someone told me how to ripen tomatoes once I'd picked them (yes, on a window sill, but upside down), but I prefer to ripen mine on the vine. I think our turtle has developed stealth mode: the WonderMutt, now with the new invisible fence transmitter and no longer tied to a tree, has not found her, but some of the cherry tomatoes on the lowest branches have bites taken out of the bottoms...I suspect it's her handiwork.
So, five graces:
1: the community yard sale, a fundraiser to support the new ecumenical ministry we're trying to get started, is shaping up to be impressive. I dropped off several boxes of "extras" from our house today, and there was a lot of stuff! So if you're in Beaufort on Saturday and need anything at all, make Grace Presbyterian on 70 your first stop.
2: The garden makes me happy. I may not be so happy when everything comes ripe at once, but for now, I love looking out at it. I'm thinking about fall crops already.
3: my experiment in cooking, blackberres & dumplings, turned out very well. I might sweeten the dumplings a little to offset the tartness of the blackberries, but I know it was good because I only got to eat one serving...Ben ate the rest!
4: I get to spend next week with most of my classmates. One will not be with us, and she will be sorely missed, but the rest of the crowd will be there. Hope we have as much fun as we did last summer.
5: I get to see Exceptional One and Two in a couple of weeks. Finally, we worked the schedule out!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Don't read this...
...if you don't care anything about vampire stories. Or you don't like the thought of your pastor liking them.
I do.
I love them...when they're well done, or have some compelling hook.
Which got me through 3 of the 4 Twilight books before I gave up in disgust.
But I love a good Slayer, I think, even better than the vamps, which makes this little clip so much fun for me:
I do.
I love them...when they're well done, or have some compelling hook.
Which got me through 3 of the 4 Twilight books before I gave up in disgust.
But I love a good Slayer, I think, even better than the vamps, which makes this little clip so much fun for me:
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Domesticity
Apparently the gardening is translating into other areas of my life.
I have a pretty little pile of cherry tomatoes in the kitchen, but today we're making stewed blackberries and dumplings, adapting a recipe found at Smitten Kitchen. It smells wonderful--I'll let you know how it turns out.
I have some more pictures, as well...I've been stalking the back yard with the camera, since there's no real opportunities to kayak. I've been tired, sleeping like crazy lately, but that's beside the point. Photos:
Turtle, including her golden eyes...Blogger's stepped down the resolution, so you'll have to take my word for it.
Ladybug, ladybug...she flew away home when she saw the camera.
Flower in the neighbor's hedge. Also proof that I need a macro lens.
Fun with sun, leaf, and shadow.
I have a pretty little pile of cherry tomatoes in the kitchen, but today we're making stewed blackberries and dumplings, adapting a recipe found at Smitten Kitchen. It smells wonderful--I'll let you know how it turns out.
I have some more pictures, as well...I've been stalking the back yard with the camera, since there's no real opportunities to kayak. I've been tired, sleeping like crazy lately, but that's beside the point. Photos:
Turtle, including her golden eyes...Blogger's stepped down the resolution, so you'll have to take my word for it.
Ladybug, ladybug...she flew away home when she saw the camera.
Flower in the neighbor's hedge. Also proof that I need a macro lens.
Fun with sun, leaf, and shadow.
Friday, June 19, 2009
A quick update
I checked the garden today and found a stealth cucumber. I hadn't had much confidence in our cucumber crop because one of the two plants was stripped by a rabbit or something the first night it was in the ground--and the squashes have totally taken over. So I was deeply surprised to find tonight's treasure. Could not find the baby squash again, and I think the WonderMutt has killed the red pepper plant by napping on it.
Speaking of WonderMutts, our gets monster good-dog points this week, despite the pepper-plant nappage. At some point during the recent spell of stormy weather, our invisible fence was apparently hit, and now the transmitter doesn't work. We discovered this little tidbit tonight, but neither of us can remember when we last heard the collar beep...so the dog has not taken the opportunity to wander freely through the neighborhood, something he used to do every chance he got. Perhaps it's because he's older now but I'm still giving him lots of bonus points. And some extra chicken jerky.
Speaking of WonderMutts, our gets monster good-dog points this week, despite the pepper-plant nappage. At some point during the recent spell of stormy weather, our invisible fence was apparently hit, and now the transmitter doesn't work. We discovered this little tidbit tonight, but neither of us can remember when we last heard the collar beep...so the dog has not taken the opportunity to wander freely through the neighborhood, something he used to do every chance he got. Perhaps it's because he's older now but I'm still giving him lots of bonus points. And some extra chicken jerky.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Five graces and a confession
Well, maybe the confession first: I've been too busy to blog. There's lots going on; Ben's mother is moving to a new place, I still haven't seen my new nephew, I have a paper due Monday for a class for which I'm still wading through the reading, I have 3 new book groups starting tomorrow, Annual Conference was last week, and on and on and one. But the truth is I've been cheating on Blogger with Wordpress. I don't have anything up yet because I don't know what I want...to migrate this blog, to start something new, I don't know. When I know, I'll blog about it.
But in the meantime, here are five long overdue graces:
1: Annual Conference is over :)
2: I have officially eaten the first tomatoes from my garden
3: Today I went to the Chocolate exhibit at the NC Natural Sciences museum. God bless 'em.
4: There are baby squashes growing in my garden, just as cute as can be
5: There may be a lot going on in my life, but it's a lot of good (mostly...more than enough, anyway!)
But in the meantime, here are five long overdue graces:
1: Annual Conference is over :)
2: I have officially eaten the first tomatoes from my garden
3: Today I went to the Chocolate exhibit at the NC Natural Sciences museum. God bless 'em.
4: There are baby squashes growing in my garden, just as cute as can be
5: There may be a lot going on in my life, but it's a lot of good (mostly...more than enough, anyway!)
Friday, June 12, 2009
F5: Trader Joe's edition (whoo-hoo!)
This week it's Sophia's turn to ask the questions, and here's her lead in:
1. Grocery shopping--love it or hate it?
2. Who is the primary food shopper in your household?
3. Do you have a beloved store like TJ's which is unique to your location or family?
4. How about a farmer's market, or CSA share, as we move into summer? Or do you grow your own fruits/veggies/herbs?
5. What's the favorite thing you buy at the grocery store?
Gals and pals on the West and East coasts, and a few spots in between, may know of Trader Joe's--a quirky, well-stocked, well priced semi-gourmet store that attains near cult status among some. I discovered it through my Aunt Judy, who always brought a couple of their desserts to holiday parties....The best was a chocolate ganache torte that had my four year olds begging for it (and among the only four year olds on the planet to know what ganache is, presumably).
My family has happily Trader Joe'd in southernmost California, up to the Northwest, and back down to southern Cal. And now we're really excited because today a brand new Trader Joe is opening up across the street from our apartment. Wahoo! There are sure to be lots of tasty free samples on opening day and from now on we can just walk across the street to get a lot of our shopping done. I have a new spiritual directee coming tomorrow and she has already mentioned that she'll be stopping in on the way here, leaving me to be jealous cause I'll be spending that noon hour like, praying and preparing and study-vacuuming and everything, and won't be able to stop in till the afternoon.
So in honor of the new Trader Joe's, this week's Friday Five is all about food shopping.
1. Grocery shopping--love it or hate it?
Generally I'm running in for just a couple of things...but I love to have time for a real shop. The nearest Trader Joe's is 3 hours or so away, and so I have to plan ahead for that...and I do really enjoy it. There's always something new and good there, and most of it's pretty healthy.
2. Who is the primary food shopper in your household?
Definitely me. Ben buys snack food, and I'm in charge of making sure there's actual nutrition available in the pantry and fridge.
3. Do you have a beloved store like TJ's which is unique to your location or family?
Oh, TJ's is definitely my favorite. I also miss some of the larger chain stores we had in Virginia Beach, but I wouldn't trade living in Beaufort for a better store. Yet.
4. How about a farmer's market, or CSA share, as we move into summer? Or do you grow your own fruits/veggies/herbs?
There is a local CSA share program, but I opted to grow my own tomatoes, yellow squash and zuchinni (suddenly I can't spell), red and green peppers, and eggplant. The WonderMutt has taken to napping in the peppers, so my confidence there is diminishing, but all the rest is doing well...scroll down to my next post to see!
5. What's the favorite thing you buy at the grocery store?
Produce of all varieties. This week, cherries were on sale at the local chain store...yummy!
Friday, June 5, 2009
I promised these a while back
The machine at Walgreen's was broken. Someday I do want to live where I have better options for film processing than Walgreens. In the meantime, they do a pretty good job.
Garden pics:
The long view. At the front of the picture you can see where the WonderMutt has made himself a spot, squishing my peppers.
Baby tomatoes
Soon-to-be squashes
A baby pepper. They are slow to develop; I think they're waiting for warmer weather.
What I saw when I looked up instead of down...
Dog and Turtle pics:
The dog and turtle saga got a little mention earlier. Our weed-trimmer is broken and in our wisdom, we located the garden about 2" too close to the shed. That little mishap created what is presently referred to as turtle heaven.
A female box turtle (I know this because she has golden eyes; boys' eyes are orange to red) has colonized the 8' stretch of weeds and scrub, which provides lots of amusement for the WonderMutt. It took him about 15 minutes Monday night, and about the same Thursday morning, to find her and start the incessant barking. When I went out to see what was going on, I found a tightly-shut turtle shell covered in dog drool being pawed at madly. He just wants to play with her, I know, but I feel sorry for her and hope she hasn't laid eggs in there somewhere. This weekend we're buying a new trimmer and I'm cleaning that area out...but in the meantime, here is what she looks like:
Closed up turtle, right after I rescued her. She did try to pee on me, but I knew enough to hold her at arm's length.
She begins to come out of her shell. Unfortunately, the ac cut on right then and scared her. I went in the house a few minutes to rest my ankles (I'll never make a catcher) and when I came back out she was gone. Of course, this was Monday evening...by Thursday morning she was back.
Garden pics:
The long view. At the front of the picture you can see where the WonderMutt has made himself a spot, squishing my peppers.
Baby tomatoes
Soon-to-be squashes
A baby pepper. They are slow to develop; I think they're waiting for warmer weather.
What I saw when I looked up instead of down...
Dog and Turtle pics:
The dog and turtle saga got a little mention earlier. Our weed-trimmer is broken and in our wisdom, we located the garden about 2" too close to the shed. That little mishap created what is presently referred to as turtle heaven.
A female box turtle (I know this because she has golden eyes; boys' eyes are orange to red) has colonized the 8' stretch of weeds and scrub, which provides lots of amusement for the WonderMutt. It took him about 15 minutes Monday night, and about the same Thursday morning, to find her and start the incessant barking. When I went out to see what was going on, I found a tightly-shut turtle shell covered in dog drool being pawed at madly. He just wants to play with her, I know, but I feel sorry for her and hope she hasn't laid eggs in there somewhere. This weekend we're buying a new trimmer and I'm cleaning that area out...but in the meantime, here is what she looks like:
Closed up turtle, right after I rescued her. She did try to pee on me, but I knew enough to hold her at arm's length.
She begins to come out of her shell. Unfortunately, the ac cut on right then and scared her. I went in the house a few minutes to rest my ankles (I'll never make a catcher) and when I came back out she was gone. Of course, this was Monday evening...by Thursday morning she was back.
Friday Five Moving and Changing
There's a lot going on in Sally's life. Here's her post from the RevGals website:
1. A big move is looming, name one thing that you could not possibly part with, it must be packed ?
2. Name one thing that you would gladly leave behind...
3. How do you prepare for a move
a. practically?
b. spiritually/ emotionally?
4. What is the first thing you look for in a new place?
5. Do you settle in easily, or does it take time for you to find your feet in a new location?
The bonus for today; a new opportunity has come up for you to spend 5 years in a new area, where would you go and why?
The theme of change is dominating my thinking at the moment, this morning my husband Tim has headed off for an interview in Sheffield. The West Sheffield Methodist Circuit are looking for an Evangelism/ Mission Enabler, in may ways this would be Tim's ideal job, but we wait on God... ( if you can spare a prayer today we'd be grateful)
...Sheffield is a commutable distance from my new post as Minister in Sherburn-in Elmet and some of the surrounding villages, before Tim gets home I will have left to join the Leadership team there for an away day on Saturday, I'll be staying the night with the current Minister in Sherburn to talk over some of the practicalities of the post.
ALL IS CHANGE.... and although I am looking forward to it, it is not without a sense of trepidation, as change always brings challenges.
Changing location also means packing, so next month will be a month of clearing and sorting, deciding what comes and what gets left behind...
So with change in mind I offer you this Friday five; ( if you've never moved here's a chance to use your imagination)
1. A big move is looming, name one thing that you could not possibly part with, it must be packed ?
My furniture. I could give up a lot, but not my bed or my chair. Mine!
2. Name one thing that you would gladly leave behind...
The lousy plumbing in my rental house (yet we've signed a lease for another year) and high water bills. I know someone's got to pay for the sewer work, I just wish it didn't have to be me.
3. How do you prepare for a move
a. practically?
Give away or throw away a lot, and buy lots of boxes and markers. I mark every box clearly as to what room it goes into. I also pack a box of essentials: sheets, towels, toiletries, paper plates and towels, etc. and also a suitccase with clothes for a few days, just to give us a little extra time to find things. The essentials box and the suitcase stay with me--they don't go in the moving truck.
b. spiritually/ emotionally?
I try to do every fun thing I can as a break, which is difficult. And I spend some time in prayer for both the church I'm leaving and the one I'm going to. I also spend time with shut-in church members and tell them what I can about the new pastor--this schools me in my feelings/responses about the move, and cares for them pastorally.
4. What is the first thing you look for in a new place?
The grocery store and a new veterinarian.
5. Do you settle in easily, or does it take time for you to find your feet in a new location?
It takes a little while, but settling in is not too bad. Because we're both pastors, we have to hit the ground running...
The bonus for today; a new opportunity has come up for you to spend 5 years in a new area, where would you go and why?
A couple miles down the road to start a satellite ministry, maybe--I don't want to leave here! But we'd both like to be in the country again.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
But they're not related...
We think Exceptional Two
looks like his uncle Ben
to whom he is only related by blood.
Funny, isn't it?
In other news, I've been resting and sleeping a lot. Had no idea how tired I was, and I've got annual conference next week. More chances for tired. But the garden is coming along well--should have some photos later today--and we have a resident box turtle.
I would be delighted to have the turtle except for one minor issue: the WonderMutt. Twice now I have relocated our turtle, covered in dog drool and with her shell scratched up, out of harm's way. Harm's way, incidentally, is defined as anywhere Cletus can get to her. I hope she doesn't have a nest in the garden or too close to Cletus--he's always been such a hunter, and I think turtles are so cute.
looks like his uncle Ben
to whom he is only related by blood.
Funny, isn't it?
In other news, I've been resting and sleeping a lot. Had no idea how tired I was, and I've got annual conference next week. More chances for tired. But the garden is coming along well--should have some photos later today--and we have a resident box turtle.
I would be delighted to have the turtle except for one minor issue: the WonderMutt. Twice now I have relocated our turtle, covered in dog drool and with her shell scratched up, out of harm's way. Harm's way, incidentally, is defined as anywhere Cletus can get to her. I hope she doesn't have a nest in the garden or too close to Cletus--he's always been such a hunter, and I think turtles are so cute.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Poetry Party: Light and Shadow
Christine at Abbey of the Arts offers this image for poetic contemplation. Since it's been so long since I played, I thought I'd give this one a shot.
In each of us are
light and shadow
hope and fear
joy and pain
We live as paradox
holding in tension
conflicting truths
and opposing emotions
What glue holds us
keeps us from flying apart
gives us strength in weakness
and humility with our pride?
What makes us whole
instead of two halves
brings us into the light
paints us with joyous color?
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