A Time to Mourn

Last Sunday afternoon I went to the memorial service for the husband of a long-time colleague and friend. He and she were and are self-professed atheists, having abandoned any faith practices of their youth, Jewish and Christian, respectively. They had been married for 40 years and had a wonderful loving relationship. I know her as a social worker with great compassion and integrity, and I saw him joyful and just beaming any time he came to work to pick her up—they were so close. He was an English teacher, who cared about his students—obvious from the number of them at this service, and a political junkie who cared about what was going on in the world. Because they have no religious affiliations and a small family, at this memorial service, she led the service, rather than a minister or rabbi. It had only been a week and a half since he died, and frankly it was very painful to see her, I don't mean her grief and tears, but to watch her try to hold it together in this public setting, leading the service.

One of their friends got up to talk, and the friend started by saying, "You know, we atheists have a harder time transmitting our values to our children than people who are religious." I thought then that another thing that atheists are missing is someone to lead community rituals. My friend's role should be only to mourn, not to lead a public service.

But it is not only atheists who are getting short shrift. I think perhaps as a society we are forgetting the communal nature of mourning, and the community's responsibility to those who mourn, while trying to speed up and expedite the period of grief. My agency gives five days for bereavement, but many workplaces allow two or three days or have no formal policy—you have to take vacation. And even those who are religious are beginning to blend the roles of the funeral and the memorial service and the roles of the mourners and the ritual leaders. Last fall I went to a graveside service for a colleague who had become ill and died within a month. Her son is an Orthodox rabbi, so the funeral was held the next day, and he led the service, while he was in shock and a mess. They were a small family and he had just moved back here in the last few years, so it wasn't clear to me that he had any other support system. But I came away thinking that he had done himself and us a disservice. As pastoral caregivers we need to know when to give and when to receive, when to hold on and when to let go, when to speak and when to be silent. It was his time to receive care, his time to let go and grieve, and he couldn't quite do it, and he couldn't really do the work of leading the community through the rituals of mourning either when he was the chief mourner.

This winter I went to a funeral that turned into an open mike memorial service. I would guess that those who were mourning would have loved to hear what people had to say, but I doubt if they could listen and take it in at that point in their numbness. But any kind of service is better than none, I believe, having listened to a friend whose controlling father died specifying no funeral service. She's wiser than that and created in the house a memorial space with the urn of ashes (he wanted his ashes spread at sea) and pictures, and they had a time together as a family, talking, and individually grieving in this space.

People need time to mourn, time to wail and cry if they need to, time to be held close by someone who cares. But, for most people, within the first week or two after death is not the time to be articulate in public about your own loss and grief. I think that the old Jewish rabbis were great students of human psychology (and sanitation) when they called for a funeral within a day or two. A funeral is a time to cry, to tear your clothing, and to have closure and know the finality of death. The mourners' job is to mourn. A community needs a ritual leader to guide the family and friends through a community time of mourning. Then those who grieve go home and in the ancient Jewish tradition, they sit shiva for seven days, while people come to the house and pay their respects, to bring comfort, and to bring them food and remind them to eat. After that, people are encouraged to begin everyday life again, and but to stand as a mourner with others who are mourning loved ones and say the Kaddish prayer each week at synagogue for the next year. Thereafter on each yahrzeit or anniversary the mourner stands to say Kaddish and the names of the dead are read aloud. What a sane rhythm this is for the community to maintain to honor both the dead and the grieving.

During my field education year, I wrote a series of lessons, and led an adult Sunday school class on the dark side of love, peace, joy and hope for those who needed to acknowledge their fear, anger, grief, and despair, during that season when all is not merry and light, and we also held a "blue Christmas" service to give space to those were mourning particular losses. As communities and pastoral caregivers we need to remember with those who grieve and mark those anniversaries—the week, the months, and the years, as well as celebrate what those lives have brought to our communities. At my workplace and home church I also wrote and led a series on spiritual exercises, including grieving, that I documented in this blog: Exercises for Spiritual, Mental, and Emotional Health.

As a chaplain in a continuing care retirement community this past year, I had occasion to participate in a number of memorial services as a leader and eulogist. The wise thing about these memorial services is that they were usually a month to six weeks after the person's death. This allowed people to be able to speak, to be able to listen, and for those in the community to hear about people's lives, and to mourn not only those whom we were remembering, but other grief and losses. As chaplains we made note of losses and made a point to check in with the surviving spouse—regularly at first, then at three months when they were coming out of numbness usually, and at six months when they were ready to become involved again with their regular activities. Grieving is not over with a service and neither is the community's responsibility.

As a friend, I can reach out to my colleague in her grieving. It was clear that she and her husband had loving friends and family. What remains to be seen is how that community takes up its responsibility for supporting her and her daughter in their grieving. Will people, including me, just get too busy? When time comes for dinner parties will they want to keep the numbers even? I think as ministers and friends we may need to use those reminder features on our calendars to better purpose, and to remember that grieving is not a one time event.

May those who mourn be comforted, and may our grief be acknowledged--or perhaps, as Emily Dickinson puts it, may our grief be measured.

I measure every Grief I meet
by Emily Dickinson

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long –
Or did it just begin –
I could not tell the Date of Mine –
It feels so old a pain –

I wonder if it hurts to live –
And if They have to try –
And whether – could They choose between –
It would not be – to die –

I note that Some – gone patient long –
At length, renew their smile –
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil –

I wonder if when Years have piled –
Some Thousands – on the Harm –
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve –
Enlightened to a larger Pain –
In Contrast with the Love –

The Grieved – are many – I am told –
There is the various Cause –
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes –

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call "Despair" –
There's Banishment from native Eyes –
In Sight of Native Air –

And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –

To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they're mostly worn –
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like My Own –

Travel Reading: Music, Madness, and God

I just came home from a week of travel and mostly the vacation part of the trip was in books. I recommend the following:

The Soloist by Steve Lopez
This is a powerful encounter by journalist Steve Lopez with homeless schizophrenic and Juilliard trained bass player Nathaniel Ayers. Lopez first sees Ayers on a corner in Los Angeles playing a two stringed violin. Lopez goes beyond journalism to friendship, using his newspaper column to campaign for better services for homeless people in general and for Mr. Ayers in particular. It's a bumpy road, and a fascinating read.

It's also a movie—I don't know if it does the book justice, but the website is promising. The movie tagline is "No one changes anything by playing it safe." The soundtrack to the movie by Dario Marianelli is Beethoven inspired and at least the snippets I found on iTunes are lovely and moving. Music and madness come together and come apart.

As I leave his apartment one day shortly after he moved in, he calls me back and holds out his hand. It's a long, firm handshake, followed by a smile. I look into his eyes and see the man he's always been behind the racing, spinning madness. The son who lost a father. The musician who lost a chance. No, we don't have too many so-called normal conversations. But what's normal? I hold his hand in mine, and neither of us needs to say a thing.

By Heresies Distressed by David Weber
This is the third in this series by Weber, just released in hardcover. Teaser available from Baen Publishing. If you like thoughtful examinations of the consequences of the combination of religion and power, read this whole series, starting with Off Armageddon Reef, continuing with By Schism Rent Asunder. Can religious fundamentalism keep humanity safe? Can one person change the course of a world's history? Can creativity and innovation be controlled by religious hierarchy? Can religion not be corrupted by power? The quest for power is assuredly one road to madness, and Weber offers several portraits of those who succumb to power's madness vs. those who do not. If you liked Sharon Shinn's Archangel series, you'll like this series by David Weber too. If you haven't read Shinn's series, read it as well!

Song of the Beast by Carol Berg
"How much is required of a man chosen by a god?" One man hears the gods through music, and must be silenced by those in power, because what the gods want is to be set free. After seventeen years of torture, including seven years of silence, the protagonist leaves his prison to find out what his crime was. This book was a find in a small town Colorado library, by a Colorado author.

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
This is a love story, about the passion, madness and disappointments in love and music. Beautifully written. Here's the final paragraph:

Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music – not too much, or the soul could not sustain it – from time to time.

The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell
This Swedish crime novel is a true psychological thriller—not much in the way of music or God, but much of madness.

I was going to read Speaking of Faith by Krista Tippett on the flight home, but instead my daughter finished reading and laughing, then handed me Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar, required summer reading as she enters high school. This is a story of how one high school freshman keeps his sanity by maintaining his sense of humor. As we returned from the annual pilgrimage to the town where I went to high school—a place that is no longer my home, I think I might be able to add to narrator Scott Hudson's list of

Things That Happen So Far Apart That you Forget How Bad They Are:
School dances
Dentist appointments
Hernia tests
Award shows
Chicken goulash in the cafeteria

My additions:
Middle seats on airplanes
Airport security lines
Continental breakfast in most motels
Conversational attempts with some relatives

Nonetheless, my reading and travels reminded me that music can be glorious, madness is relative, God is evident in all creation, and most people in the western United States tend to be 1) more friendly than most easterners, and 2) more afraid of coming east than easterners are of going west.

This afternoon I went to a memorial service for the beloved husband of a long-time colleague. He loved to read and was quite a joyful and special person. This poem by Emily Dickinson was printed on the memorial service program leaflet. It seems an appropriate cap for my week's worth of reading.

He ate and drank the precious Words—
His spirit grew robust—
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust –

He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book—What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings -

Back to work tomorrow, preaching this coming Sunday—we'll see how the books and travel will loosen my spirit and inform the week ahead.

A Couch, a Sofa, or a Daven-port?

I sing the sofa! It had stood for years,
An invitation to benign repose,
A foe to all the fretful brood of fears,
Bidding the weary eye-lid sink and close.
Massive and deep and broad it was and bland—
In short the noblest sofa in the land. …

See the rest of The Last Straw by R. C. Lehmann

Like the subject of this poem, my old sofa had stood for years. So the big news at my house this week is that, after 28 years, I got a new couch. I am marveling at the possibilities that a new couch might bring, prompted by a little bit of internet searching:
Poetry on the Couch: Depressed? Try beating the blues by writing a poem.
Could a new couch lead to poetic flights, freedom from stress?

But then I began to wonder whether it's a couch or a sofa, or maybe even a davenport. And why do we have all of these different words?

Couch comes from Middle English, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories, "as a noun denoting something to sleep on, and as a verb in the sense 'lay something down.' Couch is from Old French couche (noun), coucher (verb), from Latin collocare, 'place together.'" Fans of seventies pop music will remember what may have been your first naughty French language lesson, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?" When I heard that song when I was young, I certainly did not realize that the couch in our living room and coucher were related. I spare all of our blushes.

Sofa, according to my Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary, comes from the Arabic, suffah, meaning long bench. It is a long upholstered seat usually with arms and a back and often convertible into a bed. That is why we can buy sofabeds, but not couchbeds, I guess.

My grandparents referred to this same object of furniture as a davenport, although few people call it that these days. The Free Dictionary online told me that Davenport might refer to "A city of eastern Iowa on the Mississippi River opposite Moline and Rock Island, Illinois. It grew rapidly after the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi was completed in 1856. Population: 99,500,"
or to Davenport, John 1597-1670: English Puritan who fled to America in 1637 and helped found a colony at New Haven, Connecticut.
Or it could be either
1. A large sofa, often convertible into a bed.
2. A small desk. [From obsolete davenport, a small writing desk, probably from the name of the manufacturer.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved, clarified that davenport is a noun and 1. Chiefly British, a writing desk with drawers at the side but
2. in Australia, US & Canada a large sofa [sense 1 supposedly after Captain Davenport, who commissioned the first ones]

and the Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006 third definition for davenport is a large sofa usually convertible into a bed, and gives synonyms:
chesterfield - an overstuffed davenport with upright armrests
sofa bed, convertible - a sofa that can be converted into a bed

But then I wondered if daven-port might be a useful name at times. Daven (with an "ah" sound for the first syllable rather than the flat "eh") comes from the Yiddish meaning to recite the Jewish liturgy of prayers. A port is a safe harbor. So then would a daven-port be a safe place to say one's prayers?

One of the Jewish liturgies of prayer comes with the ceremony for ending the Sabbath called Havdallah, meaning distinction. It marks the return to the week. While this would occur on Saturday evening for Jews, I think that this prayer from The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness by Rabbi Rami Shapiro (p.47-48) is a wonderful prayer as we begin any new week, and perhaps I can infuse and support these prayers on my new daven-port or couch, where I lay down my burdens, and rise up refreshed.

Blessed is the Source of Bliss who offers me a path to bliss. May this be a week for setting aside expectations and surrendering to the simple truth of what is, that I may find my way to what may be.

Blessed is the Source of Wisdom who offers me a path to wisdom. May this be a week for heeding the intuitive voice that whispers within. May I be open to what comes my way, trusting in Life and the One who manifests it.

Blessed is the Source of Understanding who offers me a path to understanding. May this be a week for cooling my desires and seeing things more objectively. May I seek first to understand and only then to be understood.

Blessed is the Source of Restraint who offers me a path to restraint. May this be a week for holding back and making room. May I uplift others and find in their success a bit of my own.

Blessed is the Source of Grace who offers me a path to grace. May this be a week for reaching out to help and reaching out to be helped, for offering love and opening to it when it is offered.

Blessed is the Source of Balance who offers me a path to balance. May this be a week of self-correction, listening to my needs and fulfilling them.

Blessed is the Source of Receptivity who offers me a path to receptivity. May this be a week for patience. May I resist the desire to change what is that I might first come to know what is.

Blessed is the Source of Victory who offers me a path to victory. May this be a week for overcoming obstacles, remembering that some walls need not be toppled, only walked around.

Blessed is the Source of Transformation who offers me a path to transformation. May this be a week for doing things differently. May I seek out new ways of encouraging mutual fulfillment, joy, purpose, and growth.

Blessed is the Source of Grounding who offers me a path to grounding. May this be a week for slowing down and settling in. May I attend to what needs doing and do it with fullness of body, mind, heart, and soul.

May we all be so blessed this week.

Healing and the Image of God: 3 things to do

I was blessed early in the week with a phone call from one of my mentoring pastors, and it turns out that she needs someone for pulpit supply this Sunday, so I'm preaching on Mark 5:21-43, the healings of the woman who is hemorrhaging and of Jairus' daughter.

Three pieces inspired me in sermon preparation this week. You may not hear my sermon, but perhaps these pieces will also inspire you to three actions.

A) This fact: an estimated 18,000 people a year die because they don't have health insurance, so they can't afford and don't get treatment for preventable or treatable illnesses. "Uninsured adults have a higher risk of dying before age 65 than do insured adults, resulting in roughly 18,000 excess deaths annually." See the pdf brief from the Institute of Medicine report, Insuring America's Health.

1) Write, call, email your representative in Congress and in the U.S. Senate and say, now is the time for universal health care coverage.

B) Inspired by an excerpt from a poem "The Daughter of Jairus," from Soul Sisters: Women in Scripture Speak to Women Today, by Edwina Gateley.

The miracle was surely
as much in your father
as in Jesus
who was moved and struck
by such blind and naked faith.
It is the kind of faith
which leaves respectability and convention
curled up
like a small irrelevant ball
in the face of mystery.
It is a faith
for which we deeply hunger,
yet shun.
For it requires a fall
into the grace of God within us—
and we are afraid to fall.
Nor do we, unlike Jairus,
weep and cry in public,
allowing ourselves to acknowledge
how broken up we are—
and daring to reach for deep healing. …

Ah, we need you, Jairus!
We need the passion that burned in you
for the health and life of your little one.
We need the desperate determination
which sent you running and humbled
to the feet of Jesus
begging for new life!
We need the kind of unselfish love
that will topple us from high places
of righteousness and political strategies,
of retaliation and sanctions
and lead us, instead,
to look with compassion
into the eyes of children in pain
who know nothing of sanctions—
but only of the hurt
and the ache in their bellies.
It is the children who must drive us,
like you, Jairus,
into public places,
weeping for mercy and
stretching out for healing.
Miracles will come about only
when we fall from arrogance and power
to a place of deep conversion.
It is our tears, then,
which will bring about
the healing of our world.
And maybe then,
when we come to honor and love
all the little ones,
putting them first and before all else,
our lives will shine, splendid and pure,
in the light of God—
as brilliant as that
which must have shone
in your father's eyes,
daughter of Jairus,
when you were raised from death.

2) Have faith and fall into God's grace.

C) And this story from Rabbi Rami Shapiro found in his book, The Sacred Art Of Lovingkindness: Rabbi Shapiro was speaking at a benefit for 2004 tsunami victims, and he said,

"There is one thing rabbis are trained to do, and that is to teach Torah. So let's study the Bible together for a few minutes. The book of Genesis tells us that we are created in the image and likeness of God. Yet when God actually creates us, Torah refers to us only as the image of God and not the likeness. Let's take a look at what these terms mean, and why the difference in wording matters.

"What does it mean to be the image of God? Being the image of God means that we are God manifest. Just as a wave is the ocean extended in time and space, so each one of us is God extended in time and space.

"What does it mean to be the likeness of God? Being the likeness of God means that we have the potential to act in a godly manner. It means that we can, regardless of our ideology, theology, and politics, engage each moment and each other with loving kindness.

"According to Genesis, God intends for us to be godly, to honor the image by living out the likeness. This is not a metaphor. The Hebrew Name of God, the four-letter Name Y-H-V-H, yod-hey-vav-hey, when written vertically takes on the shape of a human being. Each one of us is the Name of God incarnate."

If you can, do this with a friend and in a group, otherwise go to a full length mirror.

"The letter yod is like a seven. Starting on the right side of your neighbor's forehead, run your finger across the forehead, then down the nose, over the lips to the chin. That is the letter yod, the first letter of God's Holy Name. Draw it, feel it on the body.

The second letter of God's name is hey. This letter is the shape of the shoulders and arms. Start with both hands on your partner's sternum and then draw a line outward across the shoulders and down both arms, leaving a slight space between the shoulder and elbow of the right arm.

The third letter is vav. It runs down your torso or spinal column. Use your finger to draw a line from just below the sternum to the pelvis. Don't linger at the pelvis.

The fourth and final letter of God's Name is another hey. Draw a line across your neighbor's hips and down both legs to the feet.

Now step back from your neighbor and visualize the Name of God as their body. Don't imagine it is written on the body, or that it is glowing through from inside the body. The body itself is the Name of God. Now close your eyes and sense the same thing regarding your body. You are the Name of God. You are the image of God. Now open your eyes and tap as many people as you can easily reach on the forehead, saying, 'Image of God!'"

The rest of the story and the book is well worth reading too.

3) I invite you to take this practice with you and visualize the Name of God on each person you meet, starting with yourself in the morning as you look into the mirror. If we truly see God in the other, won't we be bringing healing and wholeness to them and to ourselves and to the world? Jesus surely understood this as he did his healing work. You can think of this as an active prayer, a way to pray without ceasing with each person that you meet.

In the Name of God, yod-hey-vav-hey, amen.

Moral Documents in Everyday Life

It is an odd confluence of events. In my current day job (as a chief financial officer of a nonprofit social services agency) we just finished reviewing our budget for the next fiscal year. Given the issues with the economy and state funding and on-going legislative processes, it has large portions of crystal ball gazing associated with it. One thing I try to emphasize is that the budget is not an independent document but one that is associated with agency and departmental plans and goals, so that, despite having to make educated guesses about what funding sources are going to do, the document has some basis in and bearing on reality. We use a story-telling technique (coming from a discernment exercise by Charles Olsen that I learned in seminary: "once upon a time; and then; but before that") as a way of presenting the story behind the budget to the board.

In the past several years religious leaders have made the case when the President was presenting his budget to Congress, that the budget is a moral document. I think that's true, yet from my point of view, it is somewhat optimistic. I'd like for our agency budget to be at least a reality based document that does reflect our values and goals, but I often feel that it is good for about 5 minutes after it's completed until it has lost touch with reality, or perhaps before people just begin to ignore the plans that we've spent weeks making. If there is no linkage to every day plans and values, then the budget just deserves to be confetti next week, because no one really will pay attention to it. If moral principles are our guides in everyday actions, then we've been either immoral or missing the mark in our translation of these documents to an every day life.

This week in Sojourners Jim Wallis makes the comment that a calendar is a moral document. While Wallis was making this point relative to his own travel and work schedule as a father, I happened to have been reading The NaNny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (also a movie) about parents who really have no time at all for their children or each other, and who hire a nanny to take care of the children. It's a sad commentary when parents' calendars have no time for the flow time of children. For that matter, it's sad when adults have no flow time of their own.

But, it made me wonder what other things might be considered "moral documents" in our everyday lives. My daughter is on Facebook now and thinks I should join. I suspect that the Facebook wall might definitely be considered a moral document, and I wonder about what that says about our moral compass.

Would our email inbox or sent mail folder be considered a moral document? Even disregarding the spam about drugs and sex, the emails that I have signed up for make a statement about what is important to me. Certainly the twenty emails about the appropriate dress for the eighth grade recognition and celebration/party afterwards were moral documents, but if parents really thought that some of the dresses and shoes that I saw the other night were appropriate for a 13-14 year old girl (call me a prude), then we have need for more self-reflection about our moral standards and messages to our children. And that, of course, is Jim Wallis' point. Our lives, in our spending of time and money, in what we say and convey to our children in private and public media, define our morality. But do we, or how do we, ever stop to examine what those documents say about us and what we value? How do we learn and how do we teach discernment?

I confess I never "took" to ethics classes in seminary, with the debates on the virtues and philosophical constructs, although I did like the professional ethics seminar where we discussed real life and the gray of some situations and the slippery slope of others. That is the difficulty with moral documents, knowing when and where to draw the line, because much of life is/has become less black and white. Where do we cross over that line in our budget, in our personal spending, in our calendar, in our email, in our blog?

I was reminded of the following poem from the wonderful anthology Good Poems for Hard Times edited by Garrison Keillor:

"For a Five-Year-Old" by Fleur Adcock

A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.

So how do we end up at only kindness to snails? When and how do we review and correct our actions reflected in our moral documents, so that our kindnesses and our relationships really reflect the values that we want to convey to others, especially to our children? In financial terms, you have an audit. That shares the same root as audio--to listen. Do we make time to listen, to examine, to understand?

As summer comes, may we each have time for flow, for listening to ourselves and to others--especially our children, and may we look carefully at our moral documents and make sure they reflect the values we want to have and share.

Resonating with other

Preaching this morning using the text on the anointing of David by Samuel from 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, I said, in part:

We are all David.

How many of you have ever said or done anything you've regretted?
How many of you have ever done anything you weren't very proud that you'd done?
How many of you have ever had someone do something amazing for you completely unexpectedly?
How many of you are loved by God?

We are all David. …

Up until the point where the oil gets poured on your head, where you are chosen, singled out, marked as other, you really don't have to do much. Once you are chosen, once you are singled out as different, then, then you start having to figure out what this means for you. Now people are paying attention, now you have to do something with what God has given you. …

So the second lesson is that, like David, we are all being called out to be other. …

What is your reason or excuse to come out and share with someone outside of these walls what this faith community means to you, or what our prayer time means to you, or what God is doing in your life or how you hear a story from the Bible reflected in your own everyday life? When you do the work of social justice that so many of you are called to do, do you tell people about the faith that motivates you to do so, and if not, why not? It's one thing to be called to be different, to be other; it's quite another to figure out how you really need to live that out and speak out about our difference. When we are called out, how do we live faithfully as other, as different? …

God is calling us out. We are all called to be ourselves as people of faith, both in and not in the world, to be contemplative and activists, to be do-ers and be-ings. We need to come out to live on the thresholds, in the boundaries.

But how?

For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. The One who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident—even if one of us is not in the moment, like last week when I asked for your prayers, we as a community are a container for faith—we are always confident, even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight.

Have faith to be other. Like God called David, God is yet calling us. Come running in from the fields, and see what God has in store for you. It is through that faith in showing up and coming out that we will find God, and be about doing God's work, here, on the boundaries, on the thresholds. The love of God will meet us there.

What struck me then in the time of community prayers is how much people variously resonated with otherness. One person asked for prayers for faith to be other while she begins to do ground breaking research—no one has done preliminary research in what she is trying to do. One person asked for prayers as he travels with a group of formerly homeless veterans who've formed a rock band—talk about knowing about otherness, he said. I am reminded that we all have fears and feelings of being other and thus outcast, and I was trying to reframe otherness as a gift that we each bring to the world in/as our faith journey.

The chorus of a song I've just been listening to by the Talley Trio, Orphans of God, has this key phrase: "There are no strangers, there are no outcasts, there are no orphans of God." What does it take for us to know that? And to know that being other, not being the same, is why God created us in our glorious diversity, and that being different is not to be feared?

In my meeting with the committee on ministerial preparation, which, give thanks and praise, has affirmed me in my call to ministry and so I move onto the next step, I said in response to the question, "What is my learning edge?" that I was reminded by my recent CPE experience of the blessing it is when we learn ways to get people to see us outside of the boxes that they put us in and when we remember to see other people outside of the boxes that we have put them in, and that is what we most need to do. If it were a bumper sticker, would it be "Question assumptions," rather than the 1970's "question authority?"

Rejoice today in your otherness, for it brings you close to the holy mystery and Otherness that is God. That perhaps is what loving the neighbor as ourselves really does. Then, I was reminded of this poem about neighbors and prayer and finding ourselves going places we don't expect to go.

(from Claiming the Spirit Within, edited by Marilyn Sewell):
Answered Prayers by Kathleen Norris

I came to your door
with soup and bread.
I didn't know you
but you were a neighbor
in pain: and a little soup and bread,
I reasoned, never hurt anyone.

I shouldn't reason.
I appeared the day
your divorce was final:
a woman, flushed with cooking
and talk, and you watched,
fascinated,
coiled like a spring.

You seemed so brave and lonely
I wanted to comfort you like a child
I couldn't, of course.
You wanted to ask me too far in.

It was then I knew
it had to be like prayer.
We can't ask
for what we know we want:
we have to ask to be led
someplace we never dreamed of going,
a place we don't want to be.

We'll find ourselves there
one morning,
opened like leaves,
and it will be all right.

Lawn mowing, or not, as theological exercise

Yesterday I went early to the garden center to get potting soil, edging for the new flower beds I'm creating and a replacement for the clematis that was a victim to some overzealous weed whacking early in the season. I confess that I hadn't mown my lawn yet this week. I will also say that I don't use weed killer on my lawn and I have really splendid crop of dandelions (not the usual dandelion greens kind, but a more tenacious, spreading/take over the lawn kind) that looked quite sprightly and yellow as I left the house.

I ran into one of my neighbors buying cosmos and she looked at my cart and asked, "so, did you mow your lawn?" The tone of voice implied that I was single-handedly responsible for the diminution in property values on our block otherwise caused by the recession in other parts of the country.

There are two theological questions that arise in response to this. One is a mental review of the conversation between Jesus and the young man about the great commandments: "love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." What I want to know is exactly how I am supposed to love someone who asks me that question in that tone of voice? The great commandment is, well, great, but the tactical implementation leaves me baffled sometimes. I smiled politely and said that I would be mowing the lawn when I got home. This neighbor has two four feet by eight feet patches of lawn on either side of her front walk, which I suspect that she trims with nail clippers. I have a corner lot, and a lot of yard that I would like to turn into something besides lawn, but that hasn't happened yet.

The second theological question, or perhaps it's a midrash question, is when did weeds happen in the scheme of creation? Did weeds happen when Adam and Eve got locked out of the Garden of Eden? Or did they happen as an American experiment in landscape democracy went wrong when lawns took over our gardens? See page four-five of the history of landscape design. I imagine that before that dandelion greens were harbingers of spring, and a tonic for the winter blues.

This Thursday I'm meeting with the committee on ministerial preparation as a part of the ordination process. I'm wondering whether my lawn mowing theological questions are perhaps part of God's preparing me for this meeting. These people are gatekeepers for my call to ministry, at least in this denomination. I will confess to some angst. While I have faith in God, I have experience and knowledge of human evil, stupidity, and/or fear of change. It's a similar tactical implementation question. Yes, we walk by faith, not by sight; yes, if God is for us, who can be against us; yes, and how do I do that as I walk into that room?

Your prayers are always welcome, because I also have knowledge and experience of human kindness, compassion and support.

This coming Sunday I'm preaching using the text on the anointing of David by Samuel from 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 and incorporating the lectionary texts from Mark 4:26-34 and 2 Corinthians 5:1-17 on faith, with the sermon title, Having Faith to Be Other. When in doubt, preach about it.
I'll keep you posted.

Does anyone have an appropriate poem about dandelions for this spot?
Maybe I should just plant a pot of mustard seeds...