Light and Shifting Shadows

Moving...

2012-02-09T17:11:00.000-06:00

... over to Wordpress!

On the suggestion of a friend, this blog is migrating to a new home:

lightandshiftingshadows.wordpress.com

I'm planning to post more often, with more variety. Hope to see you over at Wordpress!

Recent readings

2012-02-08T11:14:00.001-06:00

I haven't posted since last October -- yikes! It's a whole new year!

The main reason it's been so long is because Les Miserables took me a reeeeaaaaallllly long time to get through. I'm glad I read it, but it definitely wasn't one of those books I could fly through quickly.

My favorite parts in the book: the beginning -- particularly the life-altering encounter between Valjean and the Bishop; and the ending -- the way Hugo ties everything together. My least favorite part: the lengthy descriptions of Waterlook, Napoleon, etc. Maybe my knowledge of French history is lacking -- or maybe I'm just not that interested in reading about war tactics. On the other hand, I found myself fascinated by the lengthy description of the sewers and the sewer system! What does that say about me... ?

Victor Hugo was remarkably insightful in matter of faith, character, and spirituality -- I'd like to go back sometime and glean some quotes for future sermons.

After I finished Les Mis (which, by the way, I read entirely on my iPhone, and during the months I read it, I constantly had the soundtrack from the musical playing in my head because, yes, I can pretty much sing the entire thing verbatim), I was ready for something a bit less "thick". I turned to...

Dune! I didn't use to consider myself much of a science fiction person, but lately I've realized... I actually am. I loved reading Dune! I went through it very quickly, fascinated by the characters and world Frank Herbert creates. I thought about reading the sequels to it rather than continuing with my BBC list, but I decided to plug along. I'm sure I'll pick up the sequels at some point.

So now, I'm enthralled by Bram Stoker's Dracula! Again, probably not a book I would want to read if it weren't on my list, since I'm not a fan of the horror genre -- but I am LOVING it! I didn't expect for it to be told through first hand accounts (particularly journal entries) -- and for me, that makes it more interesting. I suppose that given my liking for Dr. Who, I shouldn't be surprised to find myself enjoying Dracula.

65 read, 35 to go!

In other news, I really want a piano. It's been far too long since I've lived without one. And by the way, I'm accepting donations. :)

Something like this would be nice...

Updates

2011-10-05T15:08:00.000-05:00

Summer is at an end; Fall is here. Or so they say. But this week's weather is absolutely perfect, almost too perfect for Chicagoland in early October. And once again, I have been neglecting this blog. I figure it's time for a few updates...

BBC Book Challenge
I've read several book from the BBC list since my last post:

The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro, is a fabulous book -- a deceptively peaceful bit of prose. Taking place in England post-world-wars, narrated by an aging butler who is reflecting on his career and the changes he has seen, as well as struggling to belief in the worth of his lived profession, this is a perfect book for those who enjoy films such as Gosford Park and the recent BBC series Downton Abbey.

Jude the Obscure wasn't as depressing as the other Thomas Hardy novel I had read, Tess. It was an interesting novel -- an interesting commentary on marriage and relationships. I imagine it was quite scandalous in its day, though in this era of Jerry Springer and Grey's Anatomy, not so much.

After Thomas Hardy, I needed something lighter -- and The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Graham) was the perfect something!

I may have read these stories when I was little, and I have CERTAINLY experienced Mr. Toad's Wild Ride multiple times at Disneyland... but the stories were charming and kept me captivated despite my "background knowledge". One disadvantage of reading on my iPhone: I missed out on the book illustrations which were probably just as much a part of the original story as the words.

After that, I decided to tick the last Thomas Hardy novel off the list: Far from the Madding Crowd. I really enjoyed this one, the most of the Thomas Hardy novels I've read. Probably that's because it's one of his earlier novels, and thus much more cheerful. It even has a fairly happy ending!

I'm still not sure why in the world any parents would name their daughter Bathsheba, but apparently Hardy didn't think it was too crazy.

On a side note, there are some pretty funny Google images that pop up when you search for "Far from the Madding Crowd" -- they must have made a movie about it in the 60s or something.

And currently, I am enthralled with a series of books that are NOT on the BBC list -- The Hunger Games and its two sequels. I have this problem where I can carry around the mood I absorb from the books I read for days and days... and these books have particularly affected me! But I love them just the same. Although we'll see how much I love them once I actually finish the last book, which Erik told me doesn't end the way I want it to end...

Other Things
I've been thinking a lot about things like:

- Sustainable patterns of living and eating. I joined a CSA, found the iPhone app and website "Better World Shopper," and am in general trying to be more conscious of what I eat and buy. More about that later, I hope...

- Living with an "outward" focus, and helping my church develop more of an outward focus as well. Social justice, reconciliation, the CCDA conference, tutoring at the Nuestro Center in Highwood (and using my rusty Spanish too!), exploring books like Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger -- these are new developments and mental preoccupations for me. And I like it!

- Ways to use the vegetables we receive in our CSA box. Last night I ate Roasted Beets with Swiss Chard, toasted almonds, and goat cheese. It was yummy! I'm so weird.

So there you go. Now if I don't post again for another couple of months, at least I'll have slightly less to fill in!

Reflections Upon Losing My iPhone

2011-07-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, recently I lost my iPhone -- or had it stolen. Or both. I think dropped it (or set it down) in the courtyard (or the foyer) of the condo building where we live, and when I went back to look for it, it was gone. So, either: 1) the phone is somewhere in our condo where neither my husband nor I have been able to find it, or 2) somebody took it and doesn't intend to give it back (I called and texted the phone multiple times in an attempt to retrieve it).

Yes, I've now suspended the AT&T account and changed all the passwords I could think to change.
No, I did not have the "find my iPhone" application installed.
Yes, I've searched the grounds, foyer, and condo multiple times.
Yes, I've posted signs and contacted the condo board.
Yes, I've done my share of Craigslist stalking to see if someone puts my phone up for sale.
No, I'm not yet "over" the loss of the phone.

Which brings me to the point of my post -- I'm conflicted about my reaction to the loss of my phone (which I had named Alice McNess, by the way -- Alice because the case was "Alice blue" and McNess for my husband's middle name because he surprised me with the phone in the first place).

When I was first looking for the phone and realized it was nowhere to be found, I burst into tears -- and cried for a long, long time. Now, I'm not someone who enjoys crying. In fact, I normally resist it with all my might. But losing my iPhone made me lose my emotional control. Why?

When I woke up the next day, I still felt upset and on the verge of tears, and I continued to feel upset for the rest of the day. I kept going back over my actions, desperately checking my email and looking outside our front door to see if someone had responded to the posted signs and/or returned the phone. I felt depressed, and I continued to feel upset and depressed off and on for most of this week -- even though my husband and I are in vacation this week!

When the internet connection at the lake house where we're staying was spotty, I kept thinking, "if only I had my iPhone, I could connect to this website in no time." When I went on a run/walk and ended up a lot further away than I anticipated, I couldn't help but think, "I don't even have my phone with me in case I get lost or mugged!" When Erik and I were in the car and needed to Google something, I would blurt out, "if I had my iPhone I could look it up!" Pathetic, right?

Why do I feel so upset about losing that phone? After all, it's just a THING, right? Is it... ok that losing that phone made me go through all the phases of grief (except for acceptance - still waiting on that one)?

Does this mean that I've grown too attached to "earthly, material pleasures"? Did God "cause" me to lose my phone in order to show me that my priorities are skewed away from the things of His kingdom? In fact, would it be wrong for me to replace my phone because that money could be better spent as a donation to compassion ministries, etc.?

What about the other ministers I know who have iPhones, and even iPads? Are these things luxuries that an unselfish, responsible Christian should forgo, or are they more... neutral items?

I don't have a lot of nice things, and I didn't grow up having the latest, greatest technological marvels. When I was little, my brother and I got excited when we went to the doctor because they would give us coupons for McDonalds hamburgers -- and that was the only time we got to eat at McDonalds because of the expense (that was before dollar menus). I drooled over iPhones from when they first came out, but I didn't think I'd ever be able to have one. So, when my husband surprised me with an iPhone before I had surgery last January, I was ECSTATIC!!! I love surprises anyway, and this one was SO FUN!!! The iPhone quickly integrated itself into my life, enabling me to check email wherever I was, browse Twitter while walking the dog, get discounts through "checking in" on Yelp, etc. Did I mention that I loved it?

Having an iPhone always felt like a privilege, one that I don't think I ever took for granted. And then all of a sudden, just when I was happy and energized from spending a few days with my parents in California, it was gone. Not just lost at an airport or in a taxi cab -- lost on my home turf, and snatched out from under my nose.

So I feel terribly disappointed -- something I valued a lot, something that brought me a lot of enjoyment, is gone, and we can't afford to replace it right now. And I feel angry, angry that someone would keep my one indulgent toy. And I feel helpless, helpless because there's nothing I can do to turn back the clock and get it back. And I feel guilty -- guilty that I feel so upset about losing a silly phone! And I want to pray that it will be returned, but isn't that prayer... shallow at best, materialistic and selfish at worst? I don't know. I only know that I miss my phone, and I still hope that when I return from vacation, it will magically be waiting for me.

A Mixed Start

2011-07-25T20:37:00.000-05:00

Well, I am midway through my two weeks of vacation, and so far the highlights have been:

Visiting my parents in California for a few days
Eating at my favorite seafood restaurant in CA, "The Crab Cooker"
Spending a day at the beach (the real, ocean-rimming beach -- not the pathetic thing that lake-goers call the beach)
A monstrous sunburn on certain parts of my formerly pasty Midwest body
Visiting my brother in Santa Barbara and meeting his girlfriend (thankfully, I liked her -- unlike his ex!)
Being the 6th person to hear and see the score for a new choral/orchestral work that one of my dad's friends wrote -- based on the 1st chapter of Job!! Fascinating and moving.

Unfortunately, immediately after I returned to Illinois, my vacation took a turn for the worst -- my iPhone disappeared. I think I dropped it somewhere in the courtyard or foyer of our apartment complex, and someone picked it up... and decided not to return it. I'm still holding onto a little bit of hope that it will still be returned, but in the meantime I am grieving this little loss.

However, I've been making good progress on my book quest, and since I still have a week left of vacation (at my in-laws' lake house), there might be more progress to come!

In my last post, I mentioned that I was not impressed, thus far, with Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Well, I ended up really enjoying the book! During the first part of the book, I thought it was going to be a bunch of sentimental nonsense, but it turned out to be a bit of a mystery story, with wonderful twists and turns! I can imagine that in its day it would have been an on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller. I loved the way Wilkie Collins experimented with different narrative voices, and I especially loved the way he took his time unfolding the "answers" to the many mysteries raised in the plot. It's still a bit melodramatic in parts for my taste, but all-in-all a very enjoyable read. I *think* I understand why it's on the list -- if Wilkie Collins had lived to see movies, he would have written a darn good thriller flick.

I finished another book too (The Remains of the Day), but I'll save my reflections on that for tomorrow.

David Copperfield

2011-07-12T08:48:00.000-05:00

And once again, the iPhone Kindle format comes through -- I finished a major Dickens novel without any major difficulties! I'm not sure whether I just found David Copperfield more readable than Bleak House, or my tastes have improved, or the iPhone format really does help me focus and feel like I'm making progress in the novel.

[Side note: I keep forgetting that a Google search of "David Copperfield images" tends to pull up pictures of the magician.]

One way or another, I actually enjoyed David Copperfield. Other than the fact that I hated Dora. HATED that character. Part of my ambivalence over Dickens in general is due to his sentimentality -- it really gets to me. And Dora has to be one of his most sentimentalized (and inane) characters! I realize that that's the point -- David doesn't end up calling her his "child-wife" for no reason -- but she drove me crazy! And I just plain hate having my heartstrings yanked by Dickens in saccharine sentences like,

"I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring silence at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss -- once, twice, three times -- and went out of the room."

I guess that isn't SO bad... but it's the best/worst example I could find quickly on my iPhone [one disadvantage of the Kindle thing -- you can't "flip through" the pages].

After prose that cloying, I feel like I should go read some Hemingway.

On the other hand, I loved David's aunt, Betsy Trotwood -- what a character! I especially love how that tough old bird has such a tender, compassionate heart -- it was quite a relief when David (I keep wanting to call him Pip!) ends up in her care after all the travails of his miserable childhood.

Now I'm on to The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Honestly, it's not my favorite so far. I'd better read something non-Victorian after this one...

Miscellany

2011-06-28T22:05:00.000-05:00

1) If you are at all an Anglophile or at least a fan of BBC productions and British authors (Jane Austen comes to mind), the series "Downton Abbey" is a must see

2) I am reading David Copperfield, and I hate Dora. I hope Dickens kills her off soon, or makes her elope or something.

3) I am currently thinking through some ways in which my congregation might get more involved in serving the poor and "needy" in the Greater Chicago area. Anyone out there have some suggestions about what sort of things have worked for you (or not), people to talk to, organizations to investigate, etc,?

Crime and Punishment

2011-06-21T18:30:00.000-05:00

I did it! I finished a really really long Russian novel without major glitches!!

Some background: I have tried (and failed) to finish The Brothers Karamazov at least four different times. One time, I was really making progress... and then my grad school classes resumed. Try focusing on Brothers K while your mind is trying to juggle 10 different theological texts at once... yeah, didn't happen. The only other Russian novel that I remember reading is Demons (also by Dostoevsky) in my senior seminar with Dr. Roger Lundin (Wheaton College). It was a great class, but I still had a hard time connecting with that particular novel. I had assumed that enjoyment of the great Russian classics would simply not come naturally to me.

Crime and Punishment changed all of that. I loved it! I genuinely loved it and loved the experience of reading it. I'd like to read some critical essays on the novel so that I can delve deeper into some of the major themes of the novel -- I don't think this is a novel that you read once and say, "Ok, I've mastered that one."

I found myself mesmerized by the characters in the book, particularly the protagonist, Raskolnikov, and the magistrate, Porfiry Petrovitch. (Side note -- one advantage of my undergraduate foray into Dostoevsky is that I was prepared for each character to have a zillion names and nicknames that would be difficult to remember...). I also found it brilliant the way D. crafted the relationship between Sonya, a young girl who is forced into prostitution to support her family, and Raskolnikov. And to make Sonya the most "Christian" of the characters -- also brilliant. The ending of the novel was perfect -- if you haven't read it, I'm not going to spoil it for you here. Just read it. (But don't read it first -- allow the book to build as D. intended!)

On a separate note, I read this entire book on my iPhone, using the Kindle app. I actually found it easier to read the book this way -- I'm not sure why. Perhaps the fact that the text was broken up into shorter pages because of the small size of the iPhone screen helped encourage me that I was making progress -- helped make it seem to go faster. Perhaps it was the fact that I could read the book in bed while my husband falls asleep without needing a light on...

So my next project is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, another author whose works I sometimes struggle to finish. I am also reading this one on my iPhone, since I found I could download a free copy! So far I'm loving this book too -- I'm on a roll!

Catching up (again...)

2011-05-19T10:20:00.000-05:00

And once again, it's time to catch up. This is why I will never be an excellent blogger. :)

1) I finished The Grapes of Wrath and really liked it, even though I didn't really enjoy reading it (does that make sense? I think I just wasn't in the reading mood). I can see why it's a classic, and I especially enjoyed the style in which Steinbeck wrote the book -- particularly the intermediary chapters that were more abstract and poetic than the actual storyline. The book is sad, that's for sure. I hate that the dog got killed. And I hate the system Steinbeck describes, where the ginormous farms exploit the workers. It made me understand the importance of unions, at least in a situation like that! It also made me think about how far removed most Americans are from "the land" today, and how hard it is to make a living as a farmer -- and it seems to me that it just shouldn't be that way. Should it?

On a lighter note, the name Rosasharn (the way the Joad family pronounces "Rose of Sharon") never fails to crack me up! For all of you currently in the "family way," I recommend that you seriously consider naming your baby girl Rose of Sharon. Come on, it's unique, right?

2) I am currently reading Crime and Punishment, and, much to my surprise, loving it! I usually have a hard time connecting with Russian literature, but this time around I actually look forward to reading it. I started out reading a hard copy of the book, but as an experiment I downloaded a free copy into the Kindle app on my iPhone, and now I'm reading the book on my iPhone exclusively. This is my first foray into the world of e-reading. So far, I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. Maybe it's due to the fact that with my iPhone I can read in bed while Erik is sleeping without using a flashlight...

3) On a non-literary note, a few weeks ago I was ordained as a deacon in the Anglican Mission! Woohoo! Here I am in my new duds with my bishop, my rector, a fellow deacon, and Erik:

Here I am with my parents, who came out from SoCal for the event:

And here is Melvin, my MIL's party flamingo, dressed up for the occasion:

And now, back to what I am actually supposed to be doing with my day...

A Confession

2011-04-18T11:21:00.000-05:00

I'm going to begin this Holy Week with a confession: I really, really enjoy watching TV. Or more specifically, TV shows on Netflix and/or Hulu, without all the annoyance of commercials and with all the convenience of being able to choose what and when I want to watch. For example, I am currently really into Doctor Who (the updated BBC version). I like having the TV on during my day off, when I relax by messing around on my computer, or when I'm putting away the dishes, cleaning, etc. TV is enjoyable to me -- I love a good story, and it allows me to disengage my mind (which is surprisingly helpful sometimes).

But is it really ok to enjoy watching these shows so much? I've known Christians who feel strongly that TV is a big waste of time, that Christians would be much better off reading and not owning a TV. There are a very limited number of things I truly enjoy right now: spending time with my husband at home, watching TV while multitasking, eating... those are the main things I enjoy. I do enjoy time with friends, but most often (if I'm honest) I would rather be home than out with friends. I worry that I'm turning into a hermit... and a lazy hermit at that! I do enjoy reading, but not as much (right now) as watching "Doctor Who."

As I approach ordination (two weeks!), I'm wrestling with this issue more and more, and I wish that I found "nourishing" activities as enjoyable and relaxing as the combination of internet + Netflix. So I don't know... I don't know how to evaluate the fact that I truly enjoy watching TV shows. I don't know how to evaluate the fact that there aren't a lot of things I truly enjoy right now -- and several of the things I truly enjoy make me feel guilty (eating being a prime example).

I'm sure it's not as simple as a matter of what's "right" and what's "wrong". Lord, give me wisdom about how to spend my time. Release me from false guilt and fill me with hunger for GOOD things.

Catching up

2011-04-02T20:44:00.000-05:00

Ok, it's been awhile... So here's a bit of catch-up since my last post.

I read and finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I didn't like it very much. Not at all. But I think that if I had studied this book in school, I might have liked it better. There were moments in the book where the eloquence of the writing swept me away, even in translation. However, the story is just too sordid and depressing! I think that's part of the point -- this particular family spirals down and down -- but still, it seemed senseless to me. I would not have wanted to live in this book, that's for sure!

So after that depressing story, I decided I needed to find something a bit lighter from the BBC list. So I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was a lot of fun -- although I was reading out of a collection of the whole series (by Douglas Adams), and all of a sudden, the first book was over! And I wasn't prepared for it. My husband is a big fan of the book, and I enjoyed it too -- although not enough to join the fan cult or anything. Adams is clever, no doubt! And there are some awesome quotes -- my husband's favorite is, "Curiously the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias, as it fell, was, 'Oh no, not again.' " I also have the tiniest bit of insight into the mind of a friend of mine who alludes to this book in his email address -- via the number 42. Read the book if you don't get that.

I'm now in the throes of The Grapes of Wrath, and I'm really enjoying it -- although I'm not really enjoying reading as much right now as I did a couple of months back. I'm "slightly" addicted to Grey's Anatomy... But anyway, I totally get why The Grapes of Wrath is a classic. But more on that to come...

In other news, I have given up alcohol for Lent... well, mostly. I've indulged a few times here and there -- like tonight (Saturday night almost counts as Sunday, right?) -- but mostly in the company of other people. Tonight I'm sipping ~~bliss~~ Yellow Tail Cabernet -- cheap but delicious. Wine can truly be salve for the soul! The other thing I'm *trying* to give up (with the Lord's help) is self-hatred. Slightly more difficult.

But in a month, I'm going to be ordained as a deacon in the Anglican Mission!! Crazy! I would never have guessed that this would be the path I'd end up walking -- but I'm excited. I ordered my first clerical collars the other day -- weird! But I can't wait to try them on!

So that's the latest, I think. My copy of The Grapes of Wrath is already overdue at the library, so I guess I have incentive to finish it soon!

2011-02-24T09:10:00.000-06:00

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the LORD has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his suffering ones.

But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me."

Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

Isaiah 49:13-16a

2011-02-22T09:00:00.000-06:00

... Power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.

~ Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, 77.

"The Secret History"

2011-02-21T09:21:00.000-06:00

I probably would never have read The Secret History if it weren't on the BBC list. In fact, the only reason I read it at this stage in my quest is because the library didn't have some of the other books I was looking for, and I didn't want to have to add more time to my parking meter.

But I'm glad I had the chance to read this novel by Donna Tartt (yes, that really is the correct spelling of her last name). The Secret History is part mystery novel, part thriller, set in the world of a small East coast college. The main characters are all members of an exclusive classical Greek class, and much of the novel reads like a Greek tragedy -- which made me realize that a working knowledge of Koine Greek still leaves one lacking in knowledge of the classical world.

In the Prologue to the book, the reader learns that one of the main characters is murdered by the others in his group of friends. The rest of the book unravels the mystery of how this murder came about, and what effects that act had on this group of people. Fascinating characters, interesting plot, engagingly told -- that's my summary of The Secret History. Now if only I had time to brush up my knowledge of the Aeneid...

Thank Heaven for Border Collies

2011-01-24T12:13:00.001-06:00

"Chewy" is ready to play!

I finished Atonement this morning. It was very, very sad... After I finished, I lay on the couch for a few minutes with my arm draped over the edge, petting our border collie, Chewy. Dogs are great comfort sometimes, although Chewy is much better at accepting attention than administering comfort. I was still glad to have a cuddly, furry animal close by when I finished the book.

My experience reading Atonement was heavily colored by my experience seeing the movie -- which is one of the reasons I generally don't like seeing a movie version until after I've read the book. I enjoyed the movie -- but I'm not sure whether or not I "liked" the book. It is certainly well-written and beautifully evocative, even powerful at times. It definitely evoked strong emotions in me as I read it, particularly at the very end.

My favorite part of the book was Part I, which is the part that occurs before the tragic event for which Briony, one of the main characters, later tries to atone. The first part of the novel is set in a British estate in the 1930s, and the description drips with sunshine and sultry days. Much of this part is spent developing characters -- which helped me understand the story much better than I understood it after watching the movie.

Side note: it bothers me when someone tries to make a movie out of a book that relies heavily on psychology and description of inner thoughts and motivations. I think that usually in these cases the movie fails to convey aspects of character and "action" that are crucial to the storyline -- it just doesn't work! That's my opinion about movies made from Henry James or Edith Wharton novels, and to some extent about the movie version of Atonement. I didn't really understand why Briony acts the way she does towards Robbie until I read the book. Ok, rant over.

I got a bit bored in the second part of the book, which focuses on Robbie and the infantry's retreat in France. Maybe I just don't like reading about war. Maybe I just get tired of reading about atrocities, or feel a bit emotionally manipulated. I don't know. But after finishing the book, I understand why the author spends so much time on this section -- and it breaks my heart.

Ok, SPOILER alert in this paragraph. You have now been warned. I think the main reason I'm not sure if I "liked" this book is because I found it so heartbreaking. Basically, in the very last chapter, the narrator (whom we discover is an elderly Briony) reveals that the "happy ending" to Robbie and Cecelia's relationship, which we read about in the previous chapter, was her own narrative invention. Robbie died in France. Cecelia died, heartbroken, in a bombing. And Briony lacked the courage to go see her sister. And so, at the end of the book we discover that everything we've read up to that point is actually Briony's own narrative, her attempt to atone for the wrong she caused. Even as I write that summary, I'm tearing up -- it's so tragic. Tragic to think of Cecelia and Robbie, their lives ruined just when their hopes were highest, just when they had found each other. Tragic to think of Briony carrying the weight of her error/lies with her for the rest of her life, with no real hope for atonement, only an endless attempt through her writing. This tragedy is too heavy for me.

Perhaps that's why I cannot say that I "like" Atonement -- reading it hurts too much. There is too much tragedy here -- and, paradoxically, too much beauty.

When you're recovering from surgery...

2011-01-13T17:04:00.000-06:00

... you finish books quickly!

Image from a movie adaptation of George Orwell's 1984

I feel a bit like I flew through 1984 -- which surprised me, since I didn't really expect to like it. But I loved it. And I hated it, at the same time. As you can probably tell, 1984 provoked strong emotions in me. I got caught up into Winston's life as he struggled to control his every flicker of emotion and thought so as not to be found out by Big Brother, and went about his job of basically changing the past all the while struggling to conceal his knowledge that he knew on some level the whole thing was a fraud. I loved the opening to the novel -- Winston's purchase of the journal with creamy white pages, an act of treason.

I was captivated by the middle part of the novel, Winston's relationship with Julia. Few books have evoked for me such a sense of paradise in the midst of ugliness and danger. I, like Winston, wished that period could have lasted forever.

But why, Winston! Why couldn't you have just let well enough alone and kept on hiding your vibrant life with Julia from Big Brother for as long as you could! It was inevitable, I suppose -- that in this world of 1984, no true human happiness -- no true humanness -- is allowed to last for long.

The last part of the book, I hated. I hated it because I was meant to hate it -- it was ugly and painful and dehumanizing. And yet, it was the right ending for this disutopia. And the ending of the book -- absolutely brilliant! If you haven't read the book yet, I won't spoil it for you.

One thing that struck me as I read the book was the concept of being able to change the past by changing all historical documents. In 1984, the party is able to make it as if a person had never existed, simply by going back and erasing any written record of them having existed. One of the running motifs of the book is that Oceania (the country in which Winston lives) is always at war with either Eastasia or Eurasia, and an ally with the other superpower. However, every few years, they switch -- if they had been at war with Eastasia, now they're at war with Eurasia. AND they're supposed to have always been at war with so-and-so, because the party cannot admit of change or mistake. That would be weakness. So, every few years they literally go back and reprint newspapers, books, etc. that refer to the war in order to reflect the current state of things. They destroy all the old copies and print new copies. In such a world, it's hard to know what is "true" and what is "historical."

Imagine if George Orwell had been writing these days, after the rise of the internet! Talk about easy to eradicate the past! It makes me really, really glad that 1984 is fictional...

On a side note, apparently my subconscious was quite taken with this book as well: a few nights ago I had a dream in which I was trying to maintain a relationship with someone without Big Brother finding out!

Surgery and Cold Comfort Farm

2011-01-10T11:39:00.000-06:00

A few days ago, I had surgery: nasal septoplasty and turbinate resection, to be exact. I know, very glamorous. It went well -- I ended up not even having to stay in the hospital overnight -- although I am definitely feeling wiped out! Too wiped out to do much other than watch TV, sleep, and read a bit.

Photo courtesy of Erik Rosengren

I did, however, finish another book on the List: Cold Comfort Farm. I'd been looking forward to this one, having seen the movie with some good friends. It's one of their favorite movies, and I liked it too.

The upstanding citizens of Cold Comfort Farm...

I enjoyed the book even more than the movie (surprise, surprise). It is hilarious! It's intended as a parody of some popular books at the time (1930s), as well as classics such as Wuthering Heights.

Stella Gibbons' style is not exactly subtle -- which is part of the book's charm. A character named Aunt Ada Doom? The Starkadder clan in general? Cattle named Graceless, Feckless, Aimless, and Pointless, and a bull named Big Business? Hilarious.

So in case you couldn't tell, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of Cold Comfort Farm, every overwrought metaphor, every paragraph dripping with cloying prose... Get the picture?

Next up: 1984 by George Orwell. Apparently Big Brother is watching...

Back from vacation with another book in the can...

2011-01-05T09:27:00.000-06:00

Erik and I joined my family for a post-Christmas vacation in Arizona. Now if you're like most people, hearing "Arizona" conjures up images of cactus, desert, rattlesnakes, etc. Well, where we go in Arizona is in the mountains, with pine forest, creeks, and elk -- Christopher Creek, Arizona, to be exact. Population approximately 100. Elevation around 6000 ft.

The first full day we were at our cabin, it started snowing... and it kept snowing. And kept snowing. And two feet of snow later, we were officially snowed in! Unlike Chicago, queen of snow-plowed cities, Christopher Creek is not exactly equipped to handle massive amounts of snow. So, our plans for hiking were foiled for a few days, replaced by some sledding, raiding my grandparents' house for proper snow gear, and lots of reading by the fire.

As a result, I finished another book from my list: A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. It was an interesting book, and I'm glad I read it -- although I feel no urgent need to read it again. I ended up almost hating the title character by the time I was half-way through the book. I'm not entirely sure why it's considered a classic -- although there are definitely some unforgettable characters. I also found the running theological themes interesting... although I'm not sure Irving actually broke new ground in that area.

I ran out of reading material up at the cabin, so I mooched from Erik (read and finished Gang Leader for a Day -- very interesting read) and from the cabin stock (reread part of Wuthering Heights). Yesterday, I went to the library and got three books from the list. I'm starting with Cold Comfort Farm, and so far I'm loving it!

One in the can...

2010-12-27T10:32:00.000-06:00

Well, I finished Catch 22! And I'm glad I did -- it turned out to be a much better (and different) book than I anticipated. When I began to read it, I thought it was basically just going to be a funny book. I also found it incredibly confusing, keeping track of Major this and General that and who the heck is ex-PFC Wintergreen again? However, as I continued to read and got deeper into the book, I discovered that this is anything but a superficially funny book. There are characters who seemed funny at first, whom I came to hate by the end of the book (Milo Minderbender especially). There are scenes so horrible that they practically made me sick, particularly because they are so shockingly juxtaposed to some of the humorous scenes in the book.

Catch 22 is a book that caught me off guard -- and I think that's exactly what Joseph Heller intended.

Next up: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

Be ready

2010-12-14T08:46:00.000-06:00

It's Advent. Not Christmas yet -- Advent first. This year, I've not been very good at entering into the spirit of Advent -- the waiting, preparing, anticipating the birth of Christ. I've been too caught up in the "churchy" things I've had to do, the things I do so that others in my congregation might enter into Advent more fully: a Lessons and Carols service, Sunday morning worship, teaching on spiritual practices that can be helpful in deepening our faith as we "prepare the way of the Lord."

Today, I was reading the passages assigned to today in the Daily Office lectionary, and one of the passages hit me -- Revelation 3:14-22. Specifically, these verses struck me: "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me" (vv. 19-20). For perhaps the first time this season, I asked myself the question, "Would I be ready... if He came today?"

The answer is simple: nope. It's so easy for me to get caught up in the daily churchy things I do as part of my job, to the detriment of my own devotion. So today, I take in the words of our Lord, "Be zealous and repent." Lord, may I be ready for you.

BBC Book Challenge

2010-12-11T11:39:00.003-06:00

I have always loved to read. In fact, I won my very first trophy when I was still homeschooled -- kindergarden or first grade, maybe -- for reading over 10,000 pages in a certain amount of time. My parents often read to my brother and me before bed, classics such as "Robert the Rose Horse" and "Goodnight Moon," along with the Bernstein bears and my personal favorite, "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" ("Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum!"). When I got a little older, my mom still made the effort to read with me. I remember reading through the Chronicles of Narnia together, Tuck Everlasting, a Wrinkle in Time, the Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. I also remember that I got so caught up in the Hobbit (while still in elementary school), that I "cheated" and read ahead without her... I just couldn't wait to find out what happened!

Eventually, of course, I got too old to be read to -- but my love of reading remained. Literature classes were always my favorite classes, and I relished the opportunity to read fun books as part of class! I fell in love with Cry, the Beloved Country, Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, All Quiet on the Western Front, Lord of the Flies, Great Expectations, even The Old Man and the Sea. And, of course, outside of class I read for fun: Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys stories, a lot of Agatha Christie novels, the Babysitters Club books, later Dorothy Sayers, other mysteries, plus reading my favorites over and over and over... (yes, I wore out my copy of The Lord of the Rings).

Now some of you Facebook fiends might remember the BBC Book Challenge that appeared in many people's notes a few weeks ago. The notes listed 100 books of which the BBC thinks most people will only have read about 6, and it asked people to look through the list and highlight which ones they'd read (discussions appeared other places too: check out this link as an example). When I first saw the notes, I'd read a little over 40 of the books -- woohoo!

However, I was captivated by this list of books I haven't yet read. In fact, since the lists were first published, I've read two more of the listed books (The Handmaid's Tale and Brave New World). So, I've been thinking... why not just work my way through the rest of the books? I love fiction -- no non-fiction to deal with here, thankfully -- and I love finding new things to read, so why not go for it?

So I'm going to go for it. Today, I begin my quest to finish all 100 books on the list. My next project: Catch 22. I've started it, but never gotten into it. So here goes nothing!

In case you're curious, here's the complete list -- the ones I've not read are in black, the ones I've read are in grey:

Pride and Prejudice
The Lord of the Rings
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Bible -
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurie
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Gone With The Wind - Margaet Mitchell
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Inferno – Dante
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web - EB
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Roald Dahl
Les Miserables — Victor Hugo

Think positive

2010-11-20T18:31:00.003-06:00

So in my counseling session the other day, I managed to come up with an analogy that really blew away my counselor (C.B.). We've been talking off and on about how I tend to dwell on the negative aspects of my life so much that the positive elements are almost disqualified from "counting." So, in describing the effects this can have on my outlook, I came up with this analogy:

Imagine you were to take a movie and fast-forward through all the happy/positive parts. You'd be left with a very different movie! And your interpretation of that movie would be completely different -- and, in fact, distorted.

That's what it's like to dwell on the negative in life and skim over the positive -- distorted. Somehow, coming up with this image has helped me describe an imbalance I'm trying to correct.

It's true -- life will always have its downsides. However, as I'm learning, the goods/positives are just as real as the negatives, and just as worthy of lingering. So, I'm trying to learn to linger in the beautiful moments too, rather than taking them for granted. I can already tell: it's a worthwhile exercise!

I'm back... I think...

2010-11-16T09:19:00.000-06:00

So.... it's been awhile since I've posted, eh? Life has been full -- in a good way. I'm hoping to get back to blogging (I know, every blogger says that... and then many of us disappear for a year again). But really, I'm hopeful.

The wedding was amazing -- one of the best days of my life! Here's one of our many pictures from the day:

Lately, I've been ~~thinking through~~ wrestling with some big questions. I suppose they're abstract questions, but they have very concrete implications. Questions like...

What does it mean that God is the Healer? How is it that we can pray, and pray, and pray for healing and not seem to see "results" -- or at least, the results we're looking for. Does God desire to heal instantaneously, or does he heal primarily through non-miraculous means such as doctors, counselors, etc.? This particular question has struck me over and over lately, particularly as I walk alongside several people who have chronic health problems. "Lord, I know that you are the healer -- so why does it seem like you're not actually healing?"
Why is life so hard, and why doesn't God make it better? Maybe I'm losing my youthful idealism, I don't know -- but I'm certainly coming face to face with the fact that some things in life just stay hard, and some people seem to have a harder time than most. Why have I been blessed with a wonderful relationship when others who long for it more than I did remain alone? Why do terrible things keep happening to the same dear people? Why doesn't God cut them a break?
What difference does faith make in life? Faith obviously doesn't make all our problems go away, guarantee that we won't get cancer, ensure that our loved ones will be protected from pain, etc. I know the "right" answers here -- faith gives us hope, God sustains us, God provides, God delivers us -- but I'm wrestling with to what extent those truths I "know" correspond with what I see in the world.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of things about God and about life that I've been taught through the years, and which I believe -- but there's a way in which I want these truths to become more real to me. I want to believe with my whole heart that God is who I say he is, and who I've been taught he is. It's a scary thing, to open up oneself to real questions like this -- but I trust that God will bring me through the questions into greater trust, and maybe even greater clarity.

It doesn't scare God when we wrestle with questions -- particularly when we include him in the dialogue.

"God All-Sufficient"

2010-05-25T08:56:00.000-05:00

This is a prayer from a wonderful little book of Puritan prayers (The Valley of Vision).

"God All -Sufficient"

O Lord of Grace,
The world is before me this day,
   and I am weak and fearful,
   but I look to thee for strength;
If I venture forth alone I stumble and fall,
   but on the Beloved's arms I am firm
   as the eternal hills;
If left to the treachery of my heart
   I shall shame thy Name,
   but if enlightened, guided, upheld by thy Spirit,
   I shall bring thee glory.
Be thou my arm to support,
   my strength to stand,
   my light to see,
   my feet to run,
   my shield to protect,
   my sword to repel,
   my sun to warm.
To enrich me will not diminish thy fullness;
All thy lovingkindness is in thy Son,
I bring him to thee in the arms of faith,
I urge his saving name as the One who died for me.
I plead his blood to pay my debts of wrong.
Accept his worthiness for my unworthiness,
   his sinlessness for my transgressions,
   his purity for my uncleanness,
   his sincerity for my guile,
   his truth for my deceits,
   his meekness for my pride,
   his constancy for my backslidings,
   his love for my enmity,
   his fullness for my emptiness,
   his faithfulness for my treachery,
   his obedience for my lawlessness,
   his glory for my shame,
   his devotedness for my waywardness,
   his holy life for my unchaste ways,
   his righteousness for my dead works,
   his death for my life.

Amen.

Psalm 145

2010-05-21T09:03:00.000-05:00

Not my poetry, for a change. :) I've italicized a couple of the verses that are particularly meaningful to me.

Psalm 145:8-9, 13b-18

The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
   slow to anger and rich in love.

The Lord is good to all;
   he has compassion on all he has made.
...
(13b) The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises,
   and faithful in all he does.

The Lord upholds all who fall,
   and lifts up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you,
   and you give them their food at the proper time.

You open your hand
   and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all his ways
   and faithful in all he does.

The Lord is near to all who call on him,
   to all who call on him in truth.

Another angsty poem

2010-05-18T08:32:00.000-05:00

I walk along the narrow way--
border stones straight, even--
until I clear the intersection
temptation, broad and dreary--
but the narrow road leaves no doubt.
Beyond the intersection
the borders begin to fade,
the road becomes a lane,
then a path,
then an overgrown rut,
then grass.
Narrow road now open field,
flowered with shoulds
and expectations
and desires
and somewhere a right way?
Where the anxiety over choice
dissipates to trust
and secure footing.
Does the narrow path still exist
somewhere beneath the weeds?
Or in this fallen field,
do we just do the best we can
to wander toward the sun?

9/21/09

Two old poems

2010-05-10T10:15:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it's fun to look back at what I've written and realize that some of my big questions now have answers. In perusing an old journal, I found two poems: one wrestling with the idea of vocation, the other wrestling with my then-single state. I now feel that I know my vocation, and I am engaged... but I still enjoy reading the old poems. So, selfishly (as befits a blogger), I am going to post them here.

1. "Vocation"

Life would be easier without vocation.
Simpler.
Like slip-on pumps
for eye-hooks on patent leather
or velcro on your tennis shoes.
Life would be easier without that inward force,
Passion,
earnest knowledge that I am made for something--
For something.
Not anything.
A single key
jagged edges purposefully carved
does not open every door,
but some doors.
And maybe only one door.
Somewhere.
That key -- does it know?
the purpose of its edges,
significance of its grooves,
does it dream of that blissful moment of niche-dom --
ultimate fulfillment,
joy?

Yes, life would be easier without vocation.
I could watch old reruns
and eat bon-bons
and go to culinary school
and travel to Greece, and Paris, and South Africa,
and work so I could travel again.
I could try everything once--
a professional dabbler--
poetry, piano, chef, photography,
wife, mother, flirt, scholar,
missionary, pastor, cantor, priest,
Pour out this passion abundantly,
freely, lacking purpose--
A rainstorm and not a garden hose--
in every direction, like a storm
sweeping down over the Rim,
I could be free to fling passion
like buckets of paint at an immense canvas,
and energy at one pursuit at a time
or three or ten or twenty
or none if I didn't feel like it.

But

I am not my own.
Funny--
I seem to have the control of limb and tongue and mind
Divine illusion?
I am suited for something.
Not just anything,
I think.

2. "Paul's Gift"

Will my time come?
My time to squeal like a toddler
meeting her first wriggly puppy,
My time to look at a cloud, a bush, a rake,
and think of him
and know he thinks of me.
Time to live the oldest story of all
before the Fall,
for the trite to become the truest true.

Will I be sappy?
Saccharin?
Susceptible?
Will I know from the start? Will we part
reluctantly, lingering in dusk
as the heavens expand and we grow small?
Will I resonate with radio tunes,
relish chick-flicks without skepticism?
Will my inner clock tick louder
than my ambition?
Will it strangle my call?

That call -- clear as vodka,
triply intoxicating--
will he store it in a cabinet
for a rainy day,
or for his own amusement,
or to bring out at parties?
Will I suffocate in someone else's dream?
Or
is Paul's gift bewitchingly,
perplexingly,
my own?

The prodigal, retold

2010-04-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

Imagine how different the story would be if the prodigal son refused to accept his father's grace...

"The Prodigal Retold"

My father
Looks at me across the table--
which groans from the weight of so much meat
and bread and cake and wine--
past the laughing faces of
the other servants, who revel
in the wonder of my return
and the impromptu feast.

His eyes are sad.
They ask why I choke down bread crusts and
sip at stale water and
pass over the richer treats.
Is my meat not good?
Is my wine not to your liking?
I offer you my bounty--
why do you not receive?
This is my body, given for you--
take and eat!

I cannot.
I must not.
It is too painful to receive that which
I do not deserve, that which
I have not earned.
So here I sit--
hungry
guilty
mourning
fearing
rejecting the feast
as I reject
my self.

2010-04-02T08:58:00.002-05:00

I am preaching tonight. I just printed off the hard copy of my sermon, which is always a relief!

This is the first sermon I've preached in church that is completely new material -- the only other sermon I've given so far (last Thanksgiving) drew heavily from a sermon I wrote for a seminary class. So I'm excited -- but also nervous.

You see, this sermon will not be a "textbook" sermon. I was trained in an (über-) evangelical seminary that has VERY strong opinions/beliefs about what makes a good sermon -- or even what makes a "real" sermon. In two words: consecutive exposition. Line-by-line exegesis of the biblical text. A clear outline, with a clear "proposition" offered, preferably at the beginning of the sermon. Each main point anchored in the text, backed up with illustrations and explanation. Highly linear.

Well, I just couldn't force my sermon into that kind of rhetorical corset this time around. Part of me wanted to -- the part that says, "People will judge you if you don't give a technically excellent sermon -- especially since you're a girl." I'm still a bit scared that I will be dismissed tonight because my sermon is more fluid than linear.

But I just couldn't do it. My sense is that what God wants to do tonight, through the texts, music, liturgy, and sermon, is to move the congregation -- for the significance of good Friday to sink into hearts, not just enter into minds. You see, sometimes exegesis keeps us at a distance, comfortably removed from the text, under the illusion that we can approach God objectively and cognitively. But God wants more than (though not less than) our minds.

My congregation is well educated and well churched. And that's good! But it can also numb us to the impact events like Good Friday ought to have on our hearts. So tonight, I'm taking a risk -- and I pray that God will use it.

Yes, I'm alive...

2010-03-31T11:51:00.001-05:00

Apparently I unofficially decided to take a sabbatical from ye olde blog. I've been juggling a lot of different things in the past few months, and frankly feeling overwhelmed much of the time! I'm thankful for what I have on my plate right now, but I'm also struggling to break free of old, old patterns that drag me down and hold me back. Freedom is coming, I think -- but it comes at a the price of hard work, intentionality, and tears.

I wrote this poem (yes, it's angsty, as my poems are wont to be) a few months back. It expresses a bit of my grief at realizing the damage I've done to myself through some of the mental habits I've held onto for so long, as well as my sense that the time is coming when those habits will no longer keep me in their stranglehold.

And the pain floods in again from my very core.
These tears are Real, an expression
of a very real part of me
A child I have carried inside for so long
and fed with guilt
and nourished with abuse
and coddled with half truths
about who I am.
It sits like an iron ball on my stomach
and the time to shed this weight draws near.
The labor pains are upon me
I must learn to live life without
this parasite masquerading as my child--

for I am the child--
terrified
lonely
vulnerable
fragile
weak
ashamed
desperate
insecure
cowering at projected
rejection.

Yes, I am the child here.

2009-12-24T08:33:00.002-06:00

Great, great article by Mark Galli at Christianity Today:

How to Have a Merry Christmas: And It Doesn't Require You Doing Another Blessed Thing

Galli points out how religion becomes oppressive when it is about "doing, doing, doing" (more manageable) rather than about love for God (more mysterious). Enjoy!

Ordination Application Station

2009-12-18T14:16:00.002-06:00

I'm finally picking up my ordination application again. Three out of eight "discussion" questions done. I really, really hate writing applications.

Keeping the end goal in mind, keeping the end goal in mind...

The Prophet's Woe

2009-12-08T14:57:00.002-06:00

Wrote this recently -- not sure exactly when. It reflects part of my own struggle to trust God and love people in the midst of doing "ministry."

I know the prophet's woe--
frustration that God's people
do not, cannot, will not see
their blindness,
will not quench
their thirst except with cola,
their hunger but with chips and candy;
they wonder why they grow obese
but waste away inside.

The prophet's tears--
frustration that the people blame
God's servants, clamor
More More More
when all God's gifts are in their midst
and in their power--
petulant, they sneer
"You're not enough for us"
when they are God's provision.

The prophet's brethren--
God's own servants-- lose the will
to stand upright, to fight
the people's clamor and resist
demands of consumption
subsuming worship--
then the prophet stands alone.

Link to my sermon

2009-12-07T09:42:00.002-06:00

In case anyone is interested, here's a link to the sermon I recently gave:

Thanksgiving Day sermon

2009-11-26T07:54:00.008-06:00

Will this be me in 40 years?

So I'm preaching today -- T-minus 2 hours and counting.

This will be the first time I have ever preached for a church, preached for anyone outside of an artificial "preaching lab" setting. In some ways, I'm less nervous since I'm not preaching for a grade! Seminarians are often the harshest critics when it comes to sermons...

That being said, I'm still nervous -- especially because I'm supposed to limit the sermon to 15 minutes, tops. Since I hate practicing sermons, I haven't read it out loud, so I actually have no idea how long it will turn out to be... I suspect it's too long. That probably means I will end up talking too fast, as I usually do. :)

However, fundamentally I'm excited! I get to preach! Plus, my family's here to celebrate Thanksgiving with me and the in-laws to be (!), so my family will be in the congregation to hear my very first sermon. I've already decided that my sermon won't be "perfect," and it's certainly not your typical "three points and poem" sermon (since I'm NOT a linear thinking type of person...), but I'm still excited.

The process of writing the sermon has been quite freeing, actually. A lot of the ground work for my sermon was handed to me, because it "just so happens" that the lectionary passages for the day include TWO -- that's right, not just one, but TWO -- passages that I have already studied in depth recently. I taught on the Gospel passage in our Sunday School a few weeks ago, and the Psalm for the day is the exact Psalm on which I preached last Spring for a seminary class. Oh that God... It feels like He's smiling on me in this process.

In fact, this sermon is part and parcel with much of what God is teaching me right now: trust in Him and not in myself. I've had the strangest sense of peace (well, most of the time) as I've prepared for this sermon, and it's not because I've spent billions of hours preparing (I haven't). But for some reason, I have been able to trust God with this sermon. And that's pretty darn cool.

On my own, I'm not capable of this type of trust. So.... thanks be to God for His care for me!

He must increase; I must decrease

2009-11-21T12:03:00.001-06:00

Ministry has quite a learning curve. We can read books about ministry, talk about ministry, think we know how to "do" ministry, but when we enter into ministry, sometimes the reality is much different than we expected. We learn that what pleases God is often different than what would please us. We learn that God often moves much more slowly than we wish He would (and think He should).

For me, one of the biggest battles in the first months of my ministry has been an internal battle, the battle between "being" a minister and "doing" ministry. I tend to be a "doer," someone who measure my success in terms of what I do: keeping up with emails, taking the initiative to meet with people, going to the prayer services, leading the small group, supporting my fellow staff members, etc., etc.

However, ministry is about more than just doing: ministry is about being. It's easy to "do" out of our own strength and talents, but it is impossible to fully "be" without reliance on the Spirit. And "being" requires taking time to not "do" -- to engage in contemplation rather than action, to rest and spend time with others, and above all, to recognize that GOD is the one who truly "does" His work, not me. If I can't take time to simply be because I am afraid to cease my doing, I have a problem: I'm putting myself in the place of God.

Consider John 3:27-30 (which is a great passage for lectio divina, by the way). In the context of this passage, the disciples of John the Baptist come to him, alarmed at the way the crowds have transferred their attention from John to Jesus. In response, John says:

A person can receive only what is given from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, "I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him." The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.

John recognizes that his role is much, much different than that of Jesus. He could have chosen to be jealous of Jesus and to act as Jesus' rival. But John knows that the "bride" -- the people of God -- belongs to the "bridegroom," to Jesus Himself.

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The Church belongs to Christ. Not to me. I have a responsibility to serve the church, but ultimately I must remember that God is the one who brings about His kingdom. THAT is why I can rest without fear. THAT is why I can choose to "be," rather than "do," humbly accepting my human limitations and trusting that God works even when I do not. My "doing" far too easily becomes a way to try to make myself greater, but in resting, in simply "being," I learn to trust in God's power to accomplish His own purposes, and to listen and discern my place in the midst of His plan rather than assuming that I already know what I ought to do.

He must increase; I must decrease. Simple. Difficult. Essential in ministry. I suspect that as I learn to be a minister of the Lord, I will experience more of the joy John mentions -- the joy of hearing God's voice and seeing Him at work. May it be.

"Prayer when words won't come"

2009-11-13T11:19:00.003-06:00

Wow... I just ran across this quote, and it really resonated with me -- particularly the last sentence:

Oh my Father, I have moments of deep unrest--moments when I know not what to ask by reason of the very excess of my wants. I have in these hours no words for Thee, no conscious prayers for Thee. My cry seems purely worldly; I want only the wings of a dove that I may flee away. Yet all the time Thou hast accepted my unrest as a prayer. Thou hast interpreted its cry for a dove's wings as a cry for Thee. Thou hast received the nameless longings of my heart as the intercessions of Thy Spirit. They are not yet the intercessions of my spirit; I know not what to ask. But Thou knowest what I ask, O my God. Thou knowest the name of that need which lies beneath my speechless groan. . . . Thou knowest that because I am made in Thine image I can find rest only in what gives rest to Thee; therefore Thou hast counted my unrest unto me for righteousness, and has called my groaning Thy Spirit's prayer.

~ George Matheson, in Mosaic Holy Bible, 179 ~

I am a person who has trouble resting, who indeed fears resting lest I fail to "keep up" with my relationships and responsibilities. I love the thought that because I am made in the image of God, I can find true rest only in the things that please God. This gives me hope that in seeking rest, I am not lazy or irresponsible, for in seeking rest, I am seeking God and His righteousness. In seeking rest, I am seeking godly being.

Scary, but worth it (or so I am told...).

2009-10-26T11:46:00.004-05:00

The number one enemy of Christian spiritual formation today is exhaustion. We are living beyond our means, both financially and physically... According to numerous studies, the average person needs approximately eight hours of sleep in order to maintain health. This tells me that God has designed humanity to spend nearly one-third of our lives sleeping. This is a stunning thought. We were made to spend a large portion of our existence essentially doing nothing...

Sleep is a perfect example of the combination of discipline and grace. You cannot make yourself sleep. You cannot force your body to sleep. Sleep is an act of surrender. It is a declaration of trust. It is admitting that we are not God (who never sleeps), and that is good news.

~The Good and Beautiful God, 32 & 34~

2009-10-14T10:02:00.000-05:00

What do you say when words are not enough?

I imagine all of us have been in situations where the answers we've been given to life's tough questions simply aren't sufficient. Sometimes the truths we know, the truths we cling to -- like the fact that God is completely good, and faithful, and loving, the fact that He provides for our every need -- seem ludicrous.

I spent some time yesterday sitting with a couple who are facing a really, really difficult scenario -- the type of scenario that could completely destroy their hopes and plans. When I received the woman's phone call and decided to drop what I was doing and go be with her and her husband, I realized that I would be walking into a situation for which I was ill-prepared -- at least, for which I didn't have answers. Being in ministry, I suspect that this won't be the last time that happens...

So what do you do when you don't have answers? You sit. You listen. You encourage people to talk, you encourage them to be honest with themselves and with God. If needed, you ask hard questions. If not, you just... sit and be present with them. And you pray -- silently and aloud, for them and with them. Sometimes, answers aren't what people need. Sometimes, people just need you to be with them and to have faith FOR them. That's a huge part of ministry, whether formal or informal: believing for one another when we can't manage to believe on our own. Upholding one another when we need it most. Faith is the act of a community, not just an individual.

Last night, the woman faced an overwhelming situation, one that seemed to have the potential to crush her utterly, with honesty about her own lack of faith -- the disparity between what she knows about God (God is good) and what the situation seems to say about God (God is cruel). But even in the midst of her despair, anger, and confusion, she responded in faith: she desperately sought to turn TO God rather than away from him. And that's why she called me -- because she knew she didn't have the strength to turn to God on her own.

We often think that faith has to be unshakeable in order to "count" as faith -- we think that faith means that we ALWAYS have to believe whole-heartedly that God is who He says He is, who we've been taught that He is. But sometimes, a response of faith is simply wanting and trying to turn to God rather than away from Him.

Her response was honest: "I cannot believe."
Her response was faith-filled: "I desperately long to believe!"

And I had the privilege of being the one called to believe for her.

2009-10-10T09:22:00.003-05:00

Sooo... I've been pretty busy in the past few weeks. And, as you can infer from this picture (slightly weird b/c I took it on my computer), I'm not likely to be any less busy in the coming weeks and months!

2009-09-20T07:13:00.003-05:00

Ok, I couldn't resist posting this link:

Why Men Shouldn't Be Ordained.

Very tongue-in-cheek, good parody of the type of silly arguments used in debates about ordination.

2009-09-02T08:12:00.002-05:00

Love it:

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(Collect for this coming Sunday, September 6th. One of my favorite parts of getting to plan worship is getting a sneak peak at how the Scripture passages and the Collect work hand in hand.)

A Case of the Shoulds

2009-08-30T07:22:00.007-05:00

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the number of things I'm NOT doing: making appointments that need to be made, cleaning my room, checking in on friends who I know have been having a hard time, reading books that have been loaned to me, etc. Sounds silly, right?

But life is always full of "shoulds," both from the surrounding culture:

I should go 'green' in every aspect of my life
I should exercise every day
I should buy this or that product so that my life will be complete
I should pay attention to all the scientific research as the benefits of this or that food (açai berry, anyone?)
I should read multiple news sources every day so as to stay up on what's going on in the world
I should know what's going on in the financial world so that I can invest my money appropriately
should, should, should

And also from the Christian subculture:

I should read my Bible more
I should pray more
I should care more about God
I should volunteer somewhere where I can help the poor
I should be constantly growing in faith

Should, should; more, more!

Not everyone is as hypertuned to the shoulds of the world as I am -- and paying attention to should isn't all bad. However, if I get overwhelmed by shoulds to the point of paralysis, that's a problem. And slavery to shoulds is antithetical to grace.

So what's the solution? For now, maybe just a prayer of release:
Lord, I feel worthless because I cannot keep up with the shoulds of my life. Thank you that you've got me anyway, and that your grace is greater than my false guilt as well as my true guilt.

I guess the shoulds "should" point me to grace -- and that ain't a bad thing.

2009-08-22T10:00:00.004-05:00

As much as I disagree with him on certain points, I try to respect John Piper as a faithful servant of God -- really I do. But things like this make me very nervous and a more than slightly sad. I've been thinking a lot about how difficult it is to challenge things in our culture that we think are wrong without completely turning people off to the church and Christianity, and even to the core message of the gospel. I don't have a lot of answers at this point -- just questions, theories, and an underlying sadness.

At times like this, all I can think to do is to pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." But Lord... let me see it here on earth too.

Check out Scot McKnight's post and discussion on Piper's comments: "The Minneapolis Tornado and John Piper".

2009-08-15T10:55:00.006-05:00

Another quote from Ruthless Trust - I've posted part of this quote already, but today the sentences after the part I quoted particularly hit me, so here goes:

The heart converted from mistrust to trust in the irreversible forgiveness of Jesus Christ is redeemed from the corrosive power of fear. The existential dread that salvation is reserved solely for the proper and pious, the nameless fear that we are predestined to backslide, the brooding pessimism that the good news of God's love is simply wishful thinking--all these combine to weave a thin membrane of distrust that keeps us in a chronic state of anxiety.

The decisive ... conversion from mistrust to trust--a conversion that must be renewed daily--is the moment of sovereign deliverance from the warehouse of worry. ~Manning, 7~

The phrase, "the nameless fear that we are predestined to backslide," particularly resonated with me today. I often experience that undercurrent of fear, hear whispers that say "I'm not following God well enough," "I'm not doing enough to cultivate my relationship with Him," "I used to be more faithful and more spiritual," "God is going to give up on me if I don't start working harder"... Those terrifying whispers haunt many of us, I suspect, creeping into the depths of our souls and instilling a chill where once there was warmth.

But these whispers are not the whispers of the Holy Spirit. God does not desire His children to live in constant anxiety that they will be cast out of His kingdom, un-adopted former heirs. When I think I am mistrusting myself, saying, "I'm not able to do this spiritual thing! I'm going to fail!" I am actually mistrusting the Lord, implying that my ability to go wrong trumps His ability "to keep [me] from stumbling and to present [me] before his glorious presence blameless and with great joy" (Jude 24).

It's a long road, this way of trust... but well worth the journey.

A poem I wish I'd written

2009-08-12T11:17:00.007-05:00

"The Avowal"

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest on air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall and float
in Creator Spirit's deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

~Denise Levertov (in The Stream and the Sapphire)

Image found here.

Asking the Wrong Question

2009-08-11T07:55:00.002-05:00

A lot of my close female friends are single -- and many of them are not extremely happy about that fact. As we get older, we've talked a lot about how hard it is for young Christian women to find the "right" guy, and we've ranted and lamented for hours on end.

I can't count how many times I've had girl friends ask the question, "What if God makes me be single forever!!" Or, putting it in a theological framework, "What if I'm called to singleness? Oh no, what if I have the GIFT OF SINGLENESS?!!" You'll have to imagine the horror with which Christian women often ask this question...

Putting aside the theological question about whether or not singleness is a spiritual gift (I'm not convinced), I read an interesting blog posting today on one of the few über-complementarian sites I follow. The woman makes a great point: when we ask, "Does God have singleness or marriage for me?" we are most likely asking the wrong question. Rather than agonize about this aspect of our futures, perhaps it is better "to just assume that God will give me the best wherever I am."

Now that's a gift we can count on.

STOP working on your relationship with God

2009-08-10T13:17:00.004-05:00

Bet that title caught your attention, eh?

Today I read an excellent blog posting by Richard Beck, a professor at Abilene Christian University. Beck's article, titled, "The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity", argues that contemporary Christians often substitute certain spiritual activities, such as having a daily quiet time, going to church, and reading religious books (things we consider "working on our relationship with God") in place of actually trying to live as a "decent human being." In other words, a lot of us Christians work on our relationship with God on our own through certain accepted spiritual methods but fail to actually be transformed inwardly by God through these methods.

I think Beck is scarily accurate. In fact, I highly recommend that you read his article in full (see above link). I have met Christians who are borderline obsessed with working harder at praying, reading Scripture, practicing spiritual disciplines - at practicing personal devotional piety - yet who are more concerned about themselves than about their neighbors. Yet in Scripture, active love for God and active love for neighbor are intricately connected! And in my experience, both kinds of love, while ultimately inspired in us by the Holy Spirit, must be worked at -- practiced -- just as we have to practice playing the piano or throwing a football.

Most likely, no Christian would deny that we are called to love other people. However, sometimes we have a blind spot when it comes to which is more important, "working on our relationship with God" or working on our relationships with our fellow human beings. God desires BOTH, and I truly believe that sometimes it is more pleasing to God for me to go spend time with another human being -- or even, as Beck suggests, to tip restaurant servers well -- than to pound out my relationship with God on my own, alone in my rooms. Remember Jesus' words (yes, I know they are out of context, but I think they still apply):

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23-24).

Relating with human beings does not replace our personal devotion, but neither does personal devotion replace our relationships with our fellow human beings!

Image found at http://wordincarnate.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/13-pharisee.jpg.

2009-07-25T23:28:00.002-05:00

I recently got out the old stack of memory verses I learned back in undergrad, when my faith was really taking off for the first time. The stack of 3x5 cards is pretty beaten up now, having traveled with me from Wheaton to California to Trinity's campus (and multiple moves on-campus) to Deerfield to my current apartment. At one point in my life I was pretty faithful to memorize Scripture on a regular basis, but I hadn't had my cards out for quite some time.

Tonight, I craved those familiar verses, so I went through a couple of them. Here's a passage that hit me as just the right description of where I'm at right now:

Psalm 66:16-20
Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what He has done for me. I cried out to Him with my mouth, His praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened, but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Thanks be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld His love from me!

Trust and Discipleship

2009-07-13T13:50:00.010-05:00

In looking through some church-related material that had magically piled up over the last few years, I ran across a photocopy out of a book by Brennan Manning called Ruthless Trust. My pastor probably handed out copies to our staff at one point and asked us to read it, but I had filed it away unread [sheepish grin], just one more casualty of the time-management wars.

But today, I had the time. So I read it. And now I want to buy the entire book and read it.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the chapter:

...childlike surrender in trust is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. And I would add that the supreme need in most of our lives is often the most overlooked--namely, the need for an uncompromising trust in the love of God. (4)

[Ethicist John Kavanaugh asks Mother Theresa to pray for him that he might have clarity.] She said firmly, "No, I will not do that." When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of." When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, "I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God." (5)

We often presume that trust will dispel the confusion, illuminate the darkness, vanquish the uncertainty, and redeem the times. But the crowd of witnesses in Hebrews 11 testifies that this is not the case. Our trust does not bring final clarity on this earth. It does not still the chaos or dull the pain or provide a crutch. When all else is unclear, the heart of trust says, as Jesus did on the cross, "Into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46). (6)

Though we often disregard our need for an unfaltering trust in the love of God, that need is the most urgent we have. It is the remedy for much of our sickness, melancholy, and self-hatred. The heart converted from mistrust to trust in the irreversible forgiveness of Jesus Christ is redeemed from the corrosive power of fear. (7)

Wallowing in shame, remorse, self-hatred, and guilt over real or imagined failings in our past [or present?] lives betrays a distrust in the love of God. (15)

I could go on. Granted, sometimes Manning is a bit saccharine for me, but this message of trust is exactly what I need to hear. And I suspect I'm not the only one...

Bearing Witness to the Good Shepherd

2009-07-11T10:45:00.009-05:00

God is good. He is the Shepherd, the one who provides good things for His sheep over and above what they even imagine. Yes, we know this is true. But like any deep truth, it's easy to doubt God's goodness and care when He "feels" far away, or when our circumstances leave us desperate and needy and it seems like no one can help us. So often in this past year when I've been in that place of desperate need, I've known that God IS able to help, rescue, and provide, but it has seemed like He just... doesn't. Like He was just watching me thrash but not intervening.

In those moments, sometimes I would get angry at Him. "Why aren't you helping me?! I know I'm not able to help myself, but it feels like I have to just keep trying to pull myself up out of this pit, because You obviously are just going to keep watching me, motionless, and I can't just lay here waiting for You to act." In those moments, the tension between what I knew in my head about God (His goodness, His power, His provision) seemed to directly conflict with my experience of helplessness, of powerlessness, of desperation, of unmet need.

But my frustration and doubt dissolved into wonder and gratitude when God answered my deepest prayers more abundantly than I even dared to believe was possible. Specifically, I had been praying to be able to stay in ministry at my church. Now that I've graduated from seminary, student loan payments loom in the near future, and a part-time music minister can't quite survive on the North Shore without finding another job. I longed to be full-time at my church, but it seemed impossible - these are difficult times for everyone, and we are a small congregation.

But God was working behind the scenes, even when it seemed like He was motionless. A couple good friends stepped in to be advocates for me in a time when I could not be an advocate for myself. Thanks to them, the leaders of my church found the money and the need for a new position, a position basically tailor-made for me. A full-time position that allows me to stay where I feel called and actually DO what I long to do and what I've been preparing for in seminary for four years. I never thought it possible, but I am now the Pastor for Worship and Congregational Care at my church. It still feels like a miracle!

I am so, so, grateful - for the friends that stood up for me, for the church that has affirmed me, but most of all for God's lavish provision for me. When I first found out about my new position, I had this incredible sense of how ungrateful I have been in these last few months, of the extent of my lack of faith. I felt like God was probably sitting in heaven, shaking his head in gentle amusement and saying, "See? What were you so worried about? Didn't you know I'd take care of You?"

I wish I could say that receiving this provision has finally cured my lack of faith, but it hasn't. I still get frustrated with God, but now I get frustrated with Him over some of my own friends who are still in the "desert." I long to see them restored, and I don't understand why God seems to work so slowly.

But He does work. He works in His own time, but He works powerfully and lavishly. He IS the God who restores, and for His children the experience of the wilderness is never wasted. I don't always understand His timing, but I am slowly learning to trust that He knows what is best. And He is always good.

I don't deserve the richness of this new blessing - and perhaps that's why receiving this grace makes me so, so grateful.

Everything You [n]Ever Wanted to Know About the Anglican Provincial Assembly

2009-07-01T23:35:00.013-05:00

Well, I promised I would post my reflections on the Anglican Provincial Assembly, so here goes nothing. Some of you might find this incredibly boring... but I'll try to make it informative AND at least slightly opinionated in order to keep it interesting.

First, a couple basic facts about the Assembly:

Over 800 attendees from all over North America, as well as some representatives from the global Anglican Communion. 234 of these attendees (including me!) were voting delegates, representing 28 dioceses or dioceses-in-formation.
Purpose of the Assembly: formally launch the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), by ratifying the Constitution and Canons and installing Bishop Bob Duncan as Archbishop and Primate of the ACNA.
Leaders of the various Anglican groups represented at the Assembly had worked on the proposed documents for many months, following up from last summer's GAFCON conference, and with the blessing of the GAFCON Primates. In other words, this was not an Assembly that just popped up out of nowhere - it's been a long time coming.
Outcome of the Assembly: Constitution and Canons passed without a hitch. Archbishop installed in a beautiful service. Many attendees ecstatic that they finally have a new Province, a church of their own for orthodox Anglicans in North America.

I'm actually in this picture if you look reaaaaal closely...

Ok, enough with being "objective." If you want to read a more complete "objective" synopsis of the Assembly, check out this week's e-update from Church of the Redeemer [link to be posted soon].

I went to the Assembly with a lot of questions about the ACNA, the primary question being, "Is this movement something GOD is doing or something HUMANS are doing?" Granted, on this earth it's never completely one or the other, but I think the balance usually falls to one side more than the other. For example, when I attend AMiA Winter Conferences, I come home absolutely convinced that God is working through AMiA. I hoped that in attending the Provincial Assembly, I would get a better sense of how to evaluate the ACNA.

However, I left asking that same question - which surprised me a bit, considering the fact that during most of my time in Texas I was surrounded by people who are completely sold on the idea of the ACNA, who really believe that this Assembly marked a turning point for Anglicanism in the West, and who believe that God is bringing about a great reformation of the Western church in part through the efforts of North American Anglicans to stand for orthdoxy.

Maybe.

May it be.

But I have some concerns, which make me thankful that AMiA is staying AMiA, even as we are part of the ACNA (yeah, it's complicated... check out Bishop Murphy's statement).

One of my biggest concerns is that the ACNA is emphasizing unity so strongly that honest discussion about differences is not occurring at this point... and that frightens me. There is a lot of history among the people ACNA is bringing together, and not all of it is Christ-like. In particular, some of the people who are now part of ACNA were highly critical toward AMiA when our leaders first turned to the global primates for "refuge" almost ten years ago. From what I gather, some of these old hurts have not been fully addressed; in fact, while I was at the assembly I sensed some general negativity toward AMiA from the other delegates. And we're not talking about it... That can be dangerous. Without some honest dialogue, confession, and forgiveness, there will be no true unity. Will ACNA foster dialogue or just say "forgive and forget" without doing the hard work the has to precede forgiveness? In my book, the jury is still out...
Related to that, ACNA encompasses a variety of opinions about some hot-button issues, of which the most volatile is undoubtably women's ordination. Duncan's approach (written into the ACNA Constitution itself) is to say that as of right now this new Province will pass no law altering what individual groups and dioceses already allow concerning the ordination of women (particularly to the priesthood). To paraphrase ++Duncan, "we'll let God sort that issue out in His own time." I like this approach, but I can already tell that it bothers some people, particularly those who are most against women's ordination. My fear is that our enemy will get hold of these differences and tear the ACNA apart before it even gets off the ground... I fear that without much prayer, ACNA could become just another Christian group torn apart by anger, malice, and every other sin that threatens true unity. Pray, pray, pray...
Finally, I have a sense that some, and perhaps even many, of those joining the ACNA are what I sometimes call "hard-core" Anglicans. To me, hard-core Anglicans are people who place high value on the nitty-gritty details of the Anglican tradition -- they can be snobby about things like which prayer book a group uses and whether the service music was dignified enough. Now, I'm all for the importance of tradition, BUT at the same time, I think there's an approach to liturgy and tradition that crystallizes it as "THE way" and actually deadens it, rather than letting it live and breathe and flex a bit. Anyway, all that to say that I fear the ACNA will be more focused on building church structure and continuing "right" tradition (in reaction against the Episcopal Church) that it neglects mission. In the words of an excellent article I read on this subject, I am worried that in ACNA, like in TEC, "causes replace gospel and self-authentication replaces mission."

It doesn't have to be this way. It could be that ACNA will prove to be more than a reactionary movement, more than just one more Christian splinter group that breaks away and then just keeps on splintering. But I am concerned, and concerned enough that I am thankful that AMiA is staying AMiA and continuing its attempts to be faithful to the calling we have received in North America and in partnership with Rwanda.

Forming a new Province is not as simple as ratifying a couple of documents. Forming a new Province, a new body of united Anglicans in North America, is a long process that requires a great deal of prayer and honest dialogue about past hurts and current differences. Unity cannot emerge simple by saying “we are united.” The hardest work of the ACNA might just be yet to come…

And in the meantime, let us pray.

Newly installed ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan, a.k.a. "Crazy Eyebrows"

Where I've Been for the Past Month

2009-06-25T10:44:00.014-05:00

I know, I know, it's been awhile since I last posted. A lot has happened in my life since May 6:

I graduated from TEDS with my MDiv. Four (intense) years of my life have finally been rewarded with a diploma, a handshake, and a bunch of school loans.

I fell in love with Montana, thanks to an awesome trip out West for a friend's wedding. I also fell in love with the rental car, a Honda Civic (Shhhh! Don't tell the Red Rocket!).

I traveled to Atlanta for an AMiA Worship Leaders' Conference with Matt Redman. I would say it was "awesome," but according to Matt that's a word that we should reserve exclusively for God Himself. This conference sparked my creativity and got me thinking about the importance of developing leaders intentionally - which requires sacrifice and humility, because it means surrendering the notion that any of us are indispensable.

I performed some music at a church-sponsored Coffee House, meant to raise awareness and moolah for the Rwanda trip. It was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed performing in this type of venue.

The Rwanda team (our pastor and two others) from our church left on their two-week journey. For the first time, my phone number is on the church answering machine as the "call in a pastoral emergency" contact number.

My grandpa's health has been failing for awhile, and he passed away on Wednesday, June 14, 4 p.m. PST. I booked a last minute flight and went home for a couple of days to support my family. And, for the first time in several years, I got to have breakfast with my dad on Father's Day.

I arrived back in Chicago around 6 p.m. on Sunday, went home, collapsed in front of the TV for a couple of hours, repacked my suitcase, and flew out again Monday morning at 8 a.m. for the Anglican Provincial Assembly in Bedford, Texas (in between Dallas and Fort Worth). I was very, very tired... but at least I had a whole hotel room to myself!

So, for the past few days I have been in Dallas, attending meetings, hearing speakers, voting on the Canons and Constitution of the new Anglican Province (ACNA = Anglican Church of North America), and generally experiencing life through the eyes of those orthodox Anglicans who have decided to leave the Episcopal Church. I'm still processing everything that I have seen and heard (especially since AMiA will fall under the jurisdiction of the ACNA yet will still remain under the auspices of the Anglican Church of Rwanda), so expect another post about this soon.

Let's just say that I am tired and ready to come back home to Highwood and stay awhile. I hear a rumor that it's summer...

Gifts vs. Roles

2009-05-06T09:43:00.003-05:00

Check out this great article on the False Distinction Between Gifts and Roles that many people in the church buy into.* The article is from a blog sponsored by Christianity Today called "Gifted for Leadership," and this particular article is written by a graduate of TEDS, Sarah Flashing. She challenges the church, and particularly women, to think more deeply about what it means to honor God with the spiritual gifts he has placed in us. She also has a great discussion of what submission ought to look like in the church, emphasizing that submission is NOT a "giving up" (negative, shutting down one's gifts) but rather a "giving to" another person (a positive act of love, not a denial of pleasures).

Check it out!

*Forgive the preposition at the end of this sentence, but it sounded way too awkward to write "into which many people in the church buy." As far as I'm concerned, I chose the lesser of the evils!

Till All Our Strivings Cease: Reflections on a Four-Year Journey

2009-04-29T09:38:00.003-05:00

Note: What follows is an article I wrote for the most recent student newspaper at TEDS, the "Graduate Scrawl."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“O Lord God, I am not worthy to be here. I fear to fail you, to go through this program without deepening in you. Forgive me for my lack of faith, Lord. May my efforts here show forth Your glory.”

With the words of this prayer, scribbled on a notecard during Orientation, I began my master’s degree at Trinity. Fearing failure. Fearing weakness. Longing to please God but fearful my own inadequacies would keep me from being “good enough.” Four years later, as I reflect back on my time at TEDS I can’t help but think of a well-worn vignette from C. S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian, when Aslan takes Eustace and strips off the dragon skin, transforming Eustace from a selfish, petty boy to a mature young man. I suspect I know exactly how Eustace felt–God has used the past four years to strip away some of the toughest layers of my own dragon skin so that I can minister as the person He made me to be.

Stripping the Outermost Layer: From “T” to “F”

One of the thickest layers the Lord has stripped away during my time at TEDS was my pride in my intellect. When I entered seminary, I saw myself primarily as a walking mind; I valued intellectual ability and rational thinking above all else. Imagine my horror when I took the Keirsey Temperament Sorter in “Personal Assessment” and discovered that I am a “Feeler,” not a “Thinker”! I took the test over and over, trying my hardest to be a “T” while still answering honestly. After all, I was destined to become one of the great academicians, dazzling the world with my theological treatises, NOT one of those “touchy-feely” counselor-types.

It wasn’t until my third year in seminary that I began to embrace being an “F”. By God’s grace, that year I enjoyed community and friendship as never before; for the first time in my life I found myself spending as much time with people as with my books. To my astonishment, I discovered that I actually love being with people, talking with people, listening to people, caring for people, even counseling people. In other words, I found I had a heart for ministry, not just a mind for theology.

Destroying the Deadliest Layer: From Striving to Resting

During my first two years at seminary, I worked over twenty hours a week, carried a full class load, participated on music teams in chapel and at church, ran four miles multiple times a week, helped to lead a student group, and slept an average of six hours a night. I was miserable, but I felt I couldn’t afford to spend time resting.

I resisted rest, fearing that if I stopped, I would fail – fail to earn As, to earn enough money, to earn approval from friends and professors, to keep in shape, … to please God. As hard as I worked, I was haunted by a deep, deep sense that I was never good enough and could never measure up to God’s standard for me. I knew in my head that my relationship with God relies more on His faithfulness than mine, but I was so fearful of spiritual complacency that I could not rest in His grace. I appended a string of “ifs” to “My grace is sufficient for you.”

But my frantic pace could not continue forever, and eventually my body rebelled. I was forced to rest and thus to face what I feared most: the silence of inactivity, where striving must cease. In that terrible silence, I have begun to learn the most basic and the most difficult lesson of all: grace. Following God is not a matter of doing or working hard but of continual surrender, learning to be dependent on Him and transformed by Him – being willing to submit as He strips the dragon-layers away.

Leaving the Layers Behind

As I prepare to graduate, less of a dragon than when I arrived, I am equal parts excited and scared. This “ministry” thing is still new to me – four years ago, I was merely a mind who eventually wanted to teach. I’m still getting used to the “new me,” the one who loves church work and treasures the deep privilege of rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep, the one who ministers not just in what she does but out of who she is. I still doubt my own abilities to “make it” in ministry, but I know that God has called me. And I am beginning to suspect that His strength just might actually be made perfect in my weakness.

Thinking Not Past Daily Bread

2009-04-19T23:59:00.003-05:00

For some reason, I craved Scripture tonight. Maybe it was because I'd been glued to various entertainment-related screens for a good portion of the afternoon... For whatever reason, I needed something solid, something with depth, something that reached a deep place inside - even though I wasn't sure where exactly that place was located. In flipping through the New Testament (looking for a specific passage - I can't remember numbers for the life of me), I stumbled across exactly, exactly, exactly what I needed to read/hear from the Lord tonight.

You see, although it wasn't in the forefront of my mind tonight, I've been worried about... yep, you guessed it: money. Surprise, surprise. I've been praying and hoping and worrying about whether or not I can afford to continue working at my church as part-time staff, or whether I need to finally "grow up" and get a "real job." Music and church don't seem to count as "real jobs." I long to stay with the church community, doing the ministry I truly feel called to do - but is that simply naive? How do I know if staying here is a leap of faith or simply not being realistic? Lately, normal "life" matters of a few medical bills, needing (?) some new clothes, buying groceries, paying rent -- all those things have weighed upon me.

So tonight, this is the passage the Lord brought to me:

Matthew 6:25-34
"Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. [Ouch!] Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. [Living like that sounds amazing... I'm more likely to fear that trusting my heavenly Father to feed me will leave me hungry. And how does this relate to worldly wisdom about 401k's?] Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? [I don't really want to add hours. Now, if I could add dollars...]

"And why do you worry about clothes? [Because I feel exceptionally shabby lately!] See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you -- you of little faith? [Yep. That's me. I really do doubt. And I don't fully comprehend what it means to be more precious to God than a field lily.]

So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' [What about 'How will I ever afford to pay off my school loans?'] For the pagans run after all these things [So true, the world is full of people working hard to take care of themselves, desperate to provide for their needs and wants by careful planning and hard work] and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

WHOA! Stop right there! "Your heavenly Father knows that you need them." Wow - it never hit me like that before. Tonight, something about that phrase grabbed me - God knows that I need these daily things. All the "But's" I add won't change that.

But here's the kicker, the verse that hit me once again tonight:

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

If I am truly seeking after God's kingdom, seeking to follow Him and serve Him, He WILL provide for me. No conditionals here. Putting Him first is all that matters. That is not naivete: that is faith.

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!

Amusing Anglican Maladies

2009-04-15T16:52:00.004-05:00

Courtesy of my GoogleReader, I ran across a blog put out by an Anglican priest named Tobias Stanislaus Haller BSG (Brotherhood of St. Gregory). One of his funniest postings is titled "Anglican Maladies: being a compendium of certain illnesses afflicting many sectors of the Anglican world, and, of course, intended completely as satire." For any of you who are somewhat familiar with the ins and outs of Anglicanism, it's completely hilarious!

Perhaps I should write a similar satire called "Evangelical Maladies..."

Check it out: Anglican Maladies.

Time for a Change...

2009-04-13T13:22:00.002-05:00

As you can see, I'm currently trying to give this blog a bit of a face-lift... So thanks for your patience as I tinker with it for the next few days.

2009-04-11T09:42:00.002-05:00

In honor of the Great Tridium, I'm posting a poem by one of my favorite poets, Denise Levertov.

Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis

Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model.
A dark, still young, very intelligent face,
a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, unjudging.
That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth
in a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.
The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him
that He taste also the humiliation of dread,
cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,
like any mortal hero out of his depth,
like anyone who has taken a step too far
and wants herself back.
The painters, even the greatest, don't show how,
in the midnight Garden,
or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross,
He went through with even the human longing
to simply cease, to not be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit
nor the faithless weakness of friends, and surely
not the anticipation of death (not then, in agony's grip)
was Incarnation's heaviest weight,
but this sickened desire to renege,
to step back from what He, Who was God,
had promised Himself, and had entered
time and flesh to enact.
Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled
up from those depths where purpose
drifted for mortal moments.

2009-03-23T23:08:00.003-05:00

The curse of synthesis --
re-creating worlds in webs
lacking linear logic
for the moles, those men
devoted to the single cause,
energies funneled in
one powerful stream
moving mountains,
demystifying depths
with beady eyes
and tireless fingers.

But we, the spiders,
spin subtlety,
Make plain the sparkling threads
holding trees and towers
diamonds and dirts
cats and skylines
all together in the master scheme.

~ARH, 4/5/08

The wounded pass through their days
dazed because this thing has happened
to them
not another.
Virtual reality realized--
devastation.
And we become the thing we mocked.

~ARH 9/8/08

A very good reason NOT to move to Amsterdam

2009-03-15T07:31:00.002-05:00

I've never really considered moving to Amsterdam. Nothing against the Netherlands, it just hasn't crossed my mind. And now, thanks to a story my Google Reader brought to me today, I have even less desire to move to Amsterdam... public weigh-ins just aren't my style. However, it sure makes for a humorous story!

Check it out: Bus Shelters in Amsterdam Point Out Fat People

Living in a Psalm

2009-02-21T09:43:00.003-06:00

Well, I did it -- I preached my very first sermon since my first year in seminary. Honestly, I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it. God certainly showed his goodness to me through the whole process; in fact, he used the Psalm I studied and the message I prepared to encourage me!

When I preached in class, I felt incredibly peaceful and confident - and that confidence really didn't come from my preparation (since I hadn't even really practiced the sermon aloud and actually had no idea how many minutes it would turn out to be...). I really think I sensed the peace of the Spirit. That was cool.

Here's another cool thing: I had been kind of intimidated to preach in front of all the guys in my class (since seminarians are notorious for nit-picking at sermons), but after my sermon several of the guys told me it was just what they needed to hear that morning. The main theme of my sermon was joy in the midst of lament, and one guy in particular told me that he had come to class praying that God would show him how to be joyful. Now THAT's awesome.

Whew! I'm almost done with all the work for my MDiv degree... kinda crazy...

2009-02-17T07:36:00.002-06:00

Liturgy of Lament? Done.
Sermon on Psalm 126? In progress. NOT panicking. Really
Books and reading reports for class on Sexual Identity? Thursday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the way (particularly for Ryan), I think I figured out what my mysterious factor "X" has been, although I think the equation will actually have to include X1 and X2 . For me, X1 is the thought/feeling that since I'm not going to be able to complete whatever task is before me "perfectly" (at least according to my standards), what's the use in trying? Interesting and slightly twisted, eh? I think there's still an X2 floating around out there....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the hats I currently wear at TEDS is that of the president of a group for women graduate students (the group has been through many names with just as many acronyms, none of which I remotely find enjoyable). We are welcoming a guest speaker next Monday, Carolyn Custis James, and I'm really excited! Among other things, I'm intrigued by the fact that she was one of the first women students to register at Dallas Theological Seminary... Check out her short Bio.

While I was looking at one of the blogs to which Ms. James occasionally contributes, I ran across an interesting article: The Rise of Gender Fundamentalism. Frightening. But I fear that in some circles, it strikes all too close to home...

Liturgy of Lament

2009-02-09T09:29:00.005-06:00

It's amazing to me that the fewer classes I take, the harder it is to actually get my work done for said classes. You'd think the opposite would be true, right? But no.

I have an integration paper due this Friday for my "Loss and Grief" class, the only real paper required for the class. This is the last class that really "counts" toward my degree - you'd think that would be motivation enough for me to get 'er done. But no.

I chose a topic for this paper that should really engage me: putting together a "Liturgy of Lament" for our context at Church of the Redeemer and explaining how it functions to help those experiencing grief and loss. Worship + pastoral care = me being interested. At least, so you'd think. But no! The equation needs some tweaking: worship + pastoral care - ? = me lacking motivation.

Somehow, I know I'll get it done. And then I'll move on to my sermon on Psalm 126. And then I'll write another post about how I'm unmotivated to complete THAT assignment. Ahhh... grad school fourth-year-itis strikes again.

Image from this website.

Biblical Curse Generator

2009-02-06T10:41:00.002-06:00

How'd you like to be able to whip out these zingers at the drop of a hat?

Hear this, thou child of Jezebel, for you will have more mother-in-laws than King Solomon!

May you fall under a speeding chariot, O ye irritating inhabitant of Gath!

I hope you will be taunted by the king's concubines, thou son of thunder!

Check out this link: http://ship.saintsimeon.co.uk/curses/index.html

Enjoy!

Adventures at Garrett [Less] Evangelical [than Trinity] Divinity School

2009-01-27T21:17:00.006-06:00

TEDS. GETS. Similar acronyms, no? My J-term at Garrett, "Loss and Grief," wrapped up last week, and overall my experience at a seminary outside of TEDS was well worth while! Here are a few snapshots of the past couple of weeks for me:

My professor was named Dr. Adolf Hansen. Based on name alone, I envisioned this tall, martially grey-haired, angry professor with an extreme German accent. "Zee loss??!! Zee grief?!! You must all get over zeeze things, you puny little people!!" In fact, Dr. Hansen is a dear, dear white-haired gentleman, with a huge heart for people, inside and outside of the classroom. Although we probably disagreed on some doctrinal matters (such as whether the Gospels reflect what Jesus actually said - he was a NT scholar for much of his life), his life reflected Christ in a big way. He inspired me with his stories of how he cares for people and witnesses to his neighbors. AND he doesn't believe God will automatically save all people (a doctrinal bonus for a non-evangelical) , although he says, "but God wants to save all people... and He might!"

In terms of gender, I was in the majority in the classroom - an unusual event in my seminary experience. When I mentioned this fact with a wry smile on the first day we met, the entire class laughed for about a minute. Apparently evangelicals have a reputation. :)

Speaking of which, it was very interesting being one of the few evangelicals in the class. In a small group discussion, I tried to express my vague discomfort with an article that talked about C.S. Lewis' spirituality without talking about God, and my partner told me that she was coming from a different place: she believed, "Jews, Muslims, Christians [I can't remember if she went further than that] - we all worship the same God. And I work in healing energy - healing energy, healing prayer - it's all the same thing, just different words." It reminded me how very insulated I am at TEDS... and it frightened me that I wasn't sure exactly what to say. So, I just listened.

Dr. Hansen's teaching style was very different from what I've encountered in most classes at TEDS. Rather than lecturing from on high the entire class period, he used a combination of lecture, dicussion of readings, personal reflection, video, and other interactive exercises... and although I received less pure content and took far fewer notes than I usually do in classes, I think the material from the class sunk into my mind far more quickly than in most classes. So wait... lecture isn't the only (or even the best?!!) way to teach a class...

At the same time, one of my favorite class period at GETS was a lecture of sorts. A guest speaker from Garrett, Dr. Pamela Lightsley, spoke to us for about an hour and a half one afternoon on the topic of African-American grief, and she was absolutely fascinating! As an African-American woman who is ordained as a deacon in the Methodist church (I think - don't quote me on that one... might be the AME), she has seen a heck of a lot, particularly since she ministers a great deal on the South Side. Imagine conducting a funeral for someone who died in a gang fight, so that the police have to come to the funeral just to make sure things don't explode into further violence...

I have to say, it was awesome being in a class at GETS around the time of Obama's inauguration. I'm not saying that Obama is the hope of the world (it seems to me that we already have a Savior), but there's no doubt that his election is a historic moment for our country. Dr. Hansen was involved in pushing for civil rights and greater justice for African-Americans throughout his career, so hearing his excitement about how far things have come, as well as the reflections of the two African-American students in the class, made me very thankful for the progress made in our country over the past fifty years. We're not out of the woods by any means, but for now, I'll celebrate the moment!

As you might imagine, a course on "Loss and Grief" brings up all sorts of things in a person who enters into the material. Several students in the class had pretty heart-breaking stories that they shared with the class - in fact, having a safe place to share their stories seemed to actually help a few students move forward in their grief processes. Personally, the class showed me that I've got a few things of my own to grieve - which is good to realize, but pretty darn scary. In fact, I suspect that I've only begun to learn how to grieve...

... for everyone grieves differently! Throw out the old 5-step model of grief (developed by Kübler-Ross, BY the way), and usher in the newer, more flexible models of grief. As in so many other areas of study and practice, thanatology is moving away from "one-size-fits-all," somewhat prescriptive models (oh-so-modern!) and toward personal, culturally-sensitive, descriptive, non-judgmental models (hello postmodernism!). I think this trend is a positive correction of reductionistic models for the most part, and even the new models emphasize that disfunctional ways to grieve exist - but treating "complicated grief" must be done on a case-by-case basis. In other words, since each person grieves in his or her own unique way, influenced by factors such as culture, gender, age, other experiences of loss, and personality, determining what is "healthy" grief and what is "unhealthy" grief cannot be done out of context. Whew! Less guilt to attach to non-moral issues! For the guilt-stricken (which is all of us at one time or another), this is good news!

Anyway, those are just a few thoughts/vignettes from the wonderful world of Garrett. Not including the $50 parking ticket I got the first day of class, the 45-minute commute I performed multiple times in a blizzard, the impossibility of finding parking on campus after 8 in the morning, and the days the classroom was so cold I had to wear my winter coat (the one that makes me look like a big marshmallow) inside, "Loss and Grief" was well worthwhile!

A little melancholy for a cold winter's night

2009-01-18T23:44:00.002-06:00

A time to mourn--
the last red dew-drops
clinging
as the leaves slowly shroud the ground;
the final crumbs
of a spent plate--
napkin crumpled,
rejected;
the last echoes of a masterpiece
dying into memory
silent.
The good is wrenched away.
The void is filled with pain.
hope hurts--
dreams dead--
anticipating dully the new day.

~ARH 10/23/08, rev. 1/18/09~

2009-01-06T23:09:00.002-06:00

Starting next Monday, I'm going to be taking a class ("Loss and Grief") NOT at Trinity, but at a nearby theological seminary. Let's look at a few facts:
- This nearby seminary is loosely affiliated with the United Methodist Church
- This nearby seminary tends to be much more liberal than TEDS.
- The syllabus doesn't really mention Scripture. That would never happen at TEDS.
- The syllabus DOES talk about ministry and about God. This is a plus.
- The first book we have to read for the class is called, "Men Don't Cry... Women Do." Again, not real common at TEDS
- The assignments are mostly personal reflection, not theological or biblical. Not a criticism, just different!

This could get interesting...

Gettin' All Domestic

2009-01-05T13:38:00.004-06:00

Since my last post, an entire holiday season has passed! And apparently, with more time at my disposal I get more... domestic. In the past week and a half I found myself engaged in the following activities:

- Making an apple pie... then making another
- Knitting (slash learning to knit - ask me how I learned the importance of counting stitches...)
- Cleaning (less of this)
- Helping my mom make home-made caramels
- Baking rolls
- Baking cookies
- Cooking pork stew (my first time handling pork - ew!)

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the fact that I caught myself spending an entire afternoon making apple pie and knitting - I haven't exactly considered myself the "domestic type." But for now, I'll take it.

Potrait of the artist as a young woman...

2008-12-15T20:42:00.002-06:00

This was me today - only cranky. Yeah, imagine Angry Eeyore - and that was me. I'm currently attempting repentance.

Whoa there...

2008-12-12T08:50:00.004-06:00

Ok, so this morning I'm reading along, trying to finish up a textbook for American Church History, and then BAM! I run into this paragraph:

"Some denominations, rather than taking steps in the direction of female ordination and greater leadership opportunities for women, have taken steps in the opposite direction. The Southern Baptist Convention had ordained women as early as 1964 and by the mid-1980s had ordained over 400 women. By that time, however, ordaining women to the ministry had become highly controversial, with an increasingly conservative leadership becoming ever more outspoken in opposition to such action. At its 1984 annual meeting, in a crucial fundamentalist move, the Southern Baptist Convention declared that women should not assume a role of authority over men. Women were to be excluded from the pastoral ministry to 'preserve a submission God requires because the man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall.' In 1986 the convention's Home Mission Board voted not to grant funds to any church that employed a woman pastor, and then in 1998 the convention capped its reactionary turn by declaring the women were to practice 'gracious' submission to their husband's leadership."
~Edwin Gaustad & Leigh Schmidt, The Religious History of America, 389 (emphasis mine).~

Whoa there! I had no idea that the SBC had ordained women at one time! Can you imagine being one of those women who had been ordained, then told that their callings were invalid so they couldn't be pastors anymore? And it's prrrrretty interesting that their conservative position on women's submission did not formally crystallize until the 1980s. Granted, you can't make an argument for women's ordination (or for egalitarianism) based on this fact, but I'm just saying...

Perhaps we should all recognize that the way these debates unfold in the U.S. are as much cultural as theological.

Fragments of the day

2008-12-09T22:50:00.004-06:00

Reading the past in an old worn journal,
I wonder at the thoughts I see expressed--
mine, yet not mine,
far off, yet resonant--
and I trace the patterns
through many days of grief,
recurring questions,
tear stains,
exclamations
of joy and frustration--
the patterns of my life--
weakness interwoven
with truth--

and You are there
for You were there--
in the dullness
in the ache
in the joy
in the beauty--
You were there
in those strange words
in a familiar handwriting--
You were there
in those dry tears of desperation
and knotted angst--

You were there with me
when I felt no presence
of You--
your truth
your love
your passion
your grace
your peace
your goodness
your justice
your blessings
your Word--
You were there
loving me.

And for that--
I praise thee.

Excusing vs. Forgiving

2008-12-06T10:11:00.007-06:00

As part of one of my classes, I am reading a great, great book: Peacemaking Women: Biblical Hope for Resolving Conflict. I admit, when I first saw the title, I thought (in my sarcastic voice), "Great, a fluffy book that's going to drive me crazy and be all sentimental." However, from the moment I opened the book, I was captured. The book goes much deeper than simply, "Let's just all get along" - it talks about conflicts with God, conflicts with others, and conflicts within (like shame, fear and depression). It also draws in Scripture in such a way that it hits home in very practical ways. I sense that the Lord is actually going to use this book in my life in a deep way...

Here's one quote that struck me as I was reading a chapter on Forgiveness this morning:

"... Excusing somebody is not the same thing as forgiving her. Too often, even in the church, we are taught to excuse others rather than to forgive. Have you ever heard (or said) something like this: 'Yes, she wronged me, but she was going through a really hard time and I really wasn't there for her--so I forgive her.' This is not forgiving; it is excusing. Excusing says, 'On the basis of some external criteria, I release you.' True biblical forgiveness says, 'On the basis of God's forgiving me for my sin, I forgive you.' ... Excusing does not last. Forgiveness lasts forever."~Tara Klena Barthel & Judy Dabler, Peacemaking Women: Biblical Hope for Resolving Conflict (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 114.~

Looking back...

2008-12-05T08:47:00.002-06:00

Most of you will probably NOT be surprised when I say that I am a self-reflective person. I'm one of those people who keep old journals and occasionally go back and read them. Sometimes, I find it hard to fall asleep until I get my thoughts down on paper. So imagine my delight when, while putting some old notebooks in boxes (let's hear it for a mid-semester move), I found my folder from a class I took my first year at seminary: "Personal Assessment and Introduction to Ministry." Now I realize that all you TEDS people probably just gave a big groan... but I actually enjoyed that class! This morning, I've been looking through my thoughts about myself and about ministry - written three years ago. It's pretty fascinating to see where God has brought me, three years later.

As part of my "Life-Line" project, which basically involved writing a spiritual autobiography, I wrote the following prayer in response to what I saw as I looked back at God's work in my life.

Lord God, Father Almighty, how often I have cried out to you! I look back at myself and I see desperation, I hear weeping. Yet I look back at you and I see faithfulness, I hear comfort. For before I could cry out, You knew me. Before I knew how prideful I was, You prepared humility for me. Before I knew how little I knew You, You knew me better than I will ever know myself, and You loved me. When my whole life was dedicated to serving myself, You were preparing me for service. When I struggled against Your plans for my life, You were persistent in pulling me in the right direction. And in spite of myself--in spite of my pride, my ambition, my independence, my snobbery--You saved me, You granted me faith, You breathed new life into me by Your Word and Spirit, and You transformed my life. I praise You, Lord!

Holy Trinity, I am unworthy. And even my self-doubt is lack of faith: I fear that You are not enough to cover my inadequacy. Yet You have taught me that You alone are enough! You alone save me by Your grace! You alone have raised me up and given me a calling as a precious gift! You have guided my every step! You created me with a unique personality and passion, and You chose to create me this way. When I hate who I am (Kyrie eleison!), You show me Your love and remind me that I am who I am for a reason... and You are shaping who I am to conform to the image You designed me to reflect: the image of You Son. I praise You, Lord!

2008-11-13T23:05:00.011-06:00

When did I learn not to cry?
Not to reveal,
instead conceal--
emotions hidden
die unrejected
but lie undead
in the heart's chambers,
preparing their revenge.

A dribble of pain
unleashes torrents--
destructive, overwhelming--
and rusty gears
creak, creak, creak
before they
click along again.
Greased by tears,
my inner gears
begin to turn--
more risk
more pain--
but free.

~ARH 11/5/08~

2008-11-05T09:43:00.003-06:00

Seek the source
Crave the root --
springs of life
come unexpected
but not without intention.

Work for rest,
Strive for peace,
Clear the clutter,
Rediscover
the room of one's own.

~ARH 09.28.2008~

2008-10-30T08:37:00.011-05:00

"Soul's Imperative"

Let in the light,
Banish the darkness,
Throw open the curtains
dusty with disuse,
Tear down the blinds
that hid the day
and face the bright stranger
with squinted eyes.

Soak in the piercing clarity
with pale cheeks uptilted,
Sweep clean forgotten corners
and drive away the fear
that cherished gloom
and guarded ash
and stifled souls
but could not conquer.

Fling wide the barred door
and reclaim your rightful home.

~ARH 10/30/08~

flickr.com/photos/70818488@N00/2426397140

"Top 10 Ways to Write Bad Worship Song"

2008-10-23T08:49:00.002-05:00

Zing!

Top 10 Ways to Write Bad Worship Songs

(From Worship Matters blog)

Happy thoughts

2008-10-20T23:20:00.008-05:00

This past weekend, I got to go home to California for Fall Break - the first time I'd been to SoCal since last Christmas. Sunshine, good food, Disney, the beach, the parents, the bro, the lazy mornings... ahhh.... a girl could get used to that REAL fast. But a girl could also not get any studying done right before midterms.... oops. Oh well. Some snapshots of the good times:

Despite the unbelievable number of times I have been to Disneyland, it's still special to come with my Dad.

We didn't exactly plan our wardrobes that day thinking we would pose for a picture in front of a ginormous winking pumpkin.

I may forget it sometimes, but I really am a California girl at heart.

Oh, the bro. I could have posted some normal pictures of him... but where's the fun in that?

Reflections on Pain

2008-10-10T08:11:00.006-05:00

"And Take"

Deep wounds
invisible bruise--
surface contusions carefully concealed.
Common-place
Profound
Particular
Ecumenical

We the wounded walk in fear
of the glaring critical eye, or hand, or tongue--
sword of those past pain recruited
to join the monstrous ranks
of the life-feeders, the damning--
defense masks gashed souls,
turn about is fair play
in the war-games of the world.

Love--
bears all things (the anguish!)
endures all things (the ravage!)
hopes all things--impossible.

We the silent sufferers
absorb offensive defensiveness
of our sharper brethren,
confusing self with Cross.

~ARH, June 2008~

I have spent a great deal of time over the past year reflecting on pain, particularly on how easy it is to hurt others when we have been hurt. So often, pain generates more pain, just as sin tends to generate more sin, and evil more evil. In a world in which this vicious cycle often runs unchecked, what does it mean to love others? Does it mean simply suffering in silence, absorbing hurt without lashing out? No. This is a wrong definition of self-sacrifice. Christ is the one who absorbed our pain and sin, and who has conquered it. How do we seek justice for ourselves without wronging those who have wronged us, in our attitudes and words? We are never, ever utterly blameless; we are always both sinner and sinned against. What does it mean for us to live into the reality of the cross, to bring our hurts to the light, to others, and especially to God... redemptively?

Lord God, You alone are holy. Christ Jesus, You have borne our sins; You have suffered alongside us; You alone are the blameless one. Give us the grace to love those who have wronged us, even as we challenge the wrong-doing. Give us the ability to see the ways we contribute to the problems that bother us the most. Lord, use us in this pain-filled world to bear witness to your strong, unconditional, truth-filled love.

Above picture: 'Cross on Mt Erebus', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/erebus-cross, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 15-Nov-2007

2008-10-03T16:49:00.003-05:00

"Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and exclude myself from the community of sinners."

Gotta love the Volf.

~Miroslav Volf, "Exclusion and Embrace: Theological Reflections in the Wake of 'Ethnic Cleansing,'" in A Spacious Heart: Essays on Identity and Belonging, 57.~

An Annotated Psalm

2008-10-01T23:40:00.004-05:00

Psalm 63

1. You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you, [Yes, Lord, this is exactly where I am tonight]
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water. [Yes, Lord, I am so thirsty in this place]

2. I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory [Yes, Lord, thank you for the privilege of seeing you work at my church, of participating in your work there!]
3. Because your love is better than life
my lips will glorify you. [Wow, I can barely comprehend what that means - but it resonates within me! And yes, may it be!]
4. I will praise you as long as I live, [Yes, Lord, I will]
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods, [fully satisfied - wow, that's powerful]
with singing lips my mouth will praise you. [Yes, Lord - thank you for the joy of singing to you with all my might!]

6. On my bed I will remember you; [that's exactly what I'm doing right now]
I think of you through the watches of the night. [it amazes me when a Psalm hits so dead-on with where I'm at]
7. Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings. [Wow - I've never thought about this verse before - "singing" in the shadow of His wings - I bet that'll come to mind the next time I lead in worship]
8. I cling to you; [yes, Lord]
your right hand upholds me. [thank you, Lord!]

9. Those who seek my life will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10. They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals. [Verses like these always remind me that the Psalms were NOT written just for my personal devotions.]

11. But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God will glory in him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced. [Lord, even though these verses don't make me "feel" like I'm connecting with you in the same way so much of this Psalm does, I thank you for them. And I thank you that justice belongs to you, and that you watch over those who fear You. Help me live in such a way that I rejoice and glory and rest and work and trust in You!]

Collect

2008-10-01T09:48:00.002-05:00

One of the best things about planning music for church is that I get a sneak preview of where the Lectionary will lead us each week. I find this week's Collect particularly powerful (from the BCP).

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Lectionary Page

Liberty and Obedience

2008-09-13T08:48:00.003-05:00

"Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery."

~ William Penn, quoted in Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt, The Religious History of America~

Pop vs. Soda

2008-09-11T18:22:00.002-05:00

Ever been in a mini-argument about what to call a carbonated beverage? Ever noticed that the crazy term for it your friend uses seems directly linked to where he or she is from?

Well check out this link: The Pop Vs. Soda Map. Here's to all you CA soda drinkers!

Christian Dating Link

2008-09-10T07:25:00.002-05:00

Oh, MY gosh. I can't believe this link is real. Ok, actually I can, but it still makes me feel like I either am going to be sick or laugh for days.

"Christians Learn the Art of Dating"

Apparently Christians increasingly are going to dating workshops these days to "improve their technique" by learning body language and Christian pick up lines. Ok, fine, some of these lines are funny (my favorite is "The name is Will. God's Will"). But seriously... am I really naïve, or is this just plain silly?!!

Two Meanderings

2008-09-08T23:22:00.005-05:00

"Literal Translation"

חֶסֶד
Be it mercy
or lovingkindness
or longsuffering faithfulness
or dumping ice cold living water
into gaping whiny mouths wanting Egypt,
return to dust for heaven's honey bread?

Three letters etched in a people's soul,
Three letters capturing inexpressibility,
Three letters marking boundary
between howling winds of nothingness--
violent anti-everything,
expansive, but contained--
and rippling waves of prairie grass and a sky the size of Texas,
endless glittering ribbons caressing ocean's end,
the digits of pi,
the air at dusk, husky, golden--
solid ground fades and infinite beauty impossible expands
into a single chapter to Corinth
and a familiar radiant body.

ARH 7.17.08

"I, a Sinner"

Forgive it, Lord, that I should--no, do--
boast in my successes, petty and profound;
My personality, four capital letters
spelling out how I just am
(yeah, me and Gandhi!);
my intellect, best of friends,
barricade, companion, spectacles;
My weaknesses, or my gift for masking them--
faith in my weakness, idolatry!

The cross, the cross?
words fail.
boasting ceases.
silence.
weight.
my words must die.
Crucify!

ARH 7.2.07

Small Faithfulness

2008-09-06T13:21:00.003-05:00

God hath been alwayes found true in his word, most faithfull in his promises. . . . If God promiseth that he will give his only Sonne, that whosoever beleeveth in him shall not perish, but have life everlasting: his Sonne Jesus Christ shal be borne into the world at the appointed time, and undergoe the weight of Gods [sic] wrath for redemption of beleevers. Shall God then faithfully performe all his promises in so great matters, and be unfaithfull in lesser matters: oh let no such base conceit of the Almightie enter into our minds, as to thinke that he that spared not his owne Sonne, to performe his promises to us, will be so unmindfull of us in so small a thing."
[Alexander Whitaker, "Good Newes from Virginia," in Keith J. Hardman, Issues in American Christianity: Primary Sources with Introductions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 18-19. Emphasis added.]

The last sentence of this quote astounded me! Although if you asked me, I would never have said that I believe God is only faithful in or cares only about the "big things," the things that really matter (like salvation), the strength of Whitaker's assertion struck me as the exact opposite of my own assumption. I never thought about this angle, that if God is able to be faithful in "big things," how much easier (so to speak) it is for Him to be faithful in small things! Somehow, I am both significant and small in the kingdom of God -- and that comforts me greatly.

In the Light

2008-09-03T23:03:00.003-05:00

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another..."

Some of you might be surprised that, in blatant defiance of all exegetical rules, I stopped in the middle of that verse (1 John 1:5-7). And yes, the words I left out, "and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin" are extremely important words! But tonight, those words, "we have fellowship with one another," hit me squarely in the middle of the forehead. If I hadn't been reclining already, I just might have fallen over!

If we are walking in the light, we have fellowship with one another. The only way our relationships are going to work is if we are walking in the light. Yes, wise counsel is good; yes, it is important to "work" on friendships and other relationships, but the bottom line is that if I am not walking in the light (as HE is in the light - yikes!), I will not be able to relate well with others. Quite the challenge: letting the light expose my darknesses and draw me forward to purer relationships. True, holy fellowship only comes through that light -- in all its dreadful purity and deadly perception.

Tasting Grace

2008-08-24T13:52:00.004-05:00

I love attending a liturgical church. And I love receiving the Lord's Supper every week. That meaning of that ritual sinks deeper and deeper into my soul each time I come to the table, although I still feel that I understand what exactly happens in the Eucharist so little!

Today was one of those days that I felt like I really "got it" -- that just for a brief second, I understood the power of receiving the consecrated elements. It had been one of those Sunday mornings where the cares of the world just refused to stop following me around the sanctuary, bouncing on my shoulders and poking me in the mind so that it was hard for me to enter into worship, even while leading the music. But when it came time for me to receive the bread and wine up in front with the other musicians, something quietly extraordinary happened.

It was as if during the whole service up to that point, I had been seeing and moving through a viscous liquid that held me back, but when the bread was offered to me with the words "This is the body of Christ, the bread of heaven" and the priest's eyes looking directly into mine, suddenly the air around me was pure again. "Lord, I receive you -- all that you desire to give to me, all that is mine already in Christ -- Lord, heal me, strengthen my faith, fill me, thank you." The communion bread was sweet, soft, a slightly larger morsel than usual -- today, I could literally taste the Spirit speaking, "See? I do not skimp on the gifts I give to you. Taste my grace. You do not need to plead with me for crumbs. Receive my healing." And the communion wine, offered to me by the catechist, had never tasted so wonderful to me as it did today.

Truly, truly we sang, "Taste and see, taste and see the goodness of the Lord."

Growth Pains

2008-08-13T22:26:00.006-05:00

All the thoughtful people I know tend to generate their brilliant thoughts under different conditions. For some, the shower is the place of epiphanies. For others, perhaps the library (although I'm not convinced). As for me, I tend to have major revelations while on walks or jogs. Somehow the combination of activity, music, and solitude just plain helps me think - and I highly recommend it!

Well on my walk today, I was visited by a metaphor, a metaphor that captures what I have been experiencing this summer: emotional chemotherapy. Sometimes our own "junk" surfaces in such a way that we see just how sick we have been. For me, this summer has proven to be a time of recognizing some things about myself that need to change in order for me to be healthy. Now the fixing of these things, the "treatment" has been pretty painful at times... at least within my own microcosm... and hence the chemotherapy metaphor. Sometimes becoming healthy requires a heck of a lot of pain or even just discomfort - but it is worlds better than embracing the cancer and feeling it strangle your body. Pain of personal growth, of old unhealthy things dying - now that's a pain that's worthwhile!

I am hoping that this round of treatments is almost over for me. But if this particular cancer remains hidden somewhere still in me, I will take my medicine with hope.

Watchful for the Muse

2008-08-10T16:49:00.003-05:00

Whoa... I forgot I posted that last poem. Kinda intense, even for me... and I wrote it!

Well, as you might suspect from that last post, it's been a bit of a difficult summer for me. Lots I'm thinking through and sorting out, and some key areas in which I'm trying to grow. All that to say, I haven't found it easy to blog lately - but I'm hopeful that the Blogger's Muse will come to visit again soon.

2008-07-20T07:29:00.003-05:00

condemnation-voices
generated by my brain.
emotions--mere chemicals
concentrated
diffused to poisonous
vapors in my mind--

cowering in this corner of my soul
i tremble, terrified
at the lashes i know
will fall
undeserved.
Scorn jabs at old wounds with pointed sticks
and smirks.

self must stand
up to the disembodied voices,
up in the undertow of scorn--
For no condemnation is there
in this river of grace,
no poison in this deep, deep cup,
No scorn from this Spirit invisible.
No condemnation--
hear, oh my soul--
for those in this Christ.

And I stand up in my soul to find
He is still with me.
I shall
not fear.

ARH 7/13/08 - Rom. 8

Thomas Merton's Prayer

2008-06-29T19:57:00.007-05:00

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

From Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude," heard during sermon this morning, found online here.

Praying at the Pump

2008-06-27T09:18:00.002-05:00

Yes, I believe God cares about the nitty-gritty details of our lives. Yes, I believe He is our provider and that His provision for us is seen in tangible, often startling ways, especially the more we learn to rely on Him and not on ourselves. So why does this strike me as so, so odd?

"As cars surged steadily down the road in Toledo, Ohio, a familiar melody rose from the circle of people gathered beside the gas pumps at the Exxon-Mobil station on the corner.

'He's got the gas prices, in his hands. He's got the gas prices, in his hands. . . ' "

That's right. Prayer walking around the pumps. Taking on the gas companies through prayer. Crazy? Radical faith? Well-intentioned but somewhat simplistic? It's pretty obvious that our current reliance on oil in the U.S. needs to change and that the gas prices are the most visible reminder of that, but I'm not sure that prayer without policy is the best plan of attack. A lack of faith on my part? Perhaps. Maybe I'm just reacting against the re-written praise chorus ...

[Note: I came across this online article via (surprise, surprise) TitusOneNine.]

GAFCON

2008-06-24T07:39:00.004-05:00

Anglicanism has been all over the news this week due to the meetings occurring in Jerusalem known as GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference). Many see GAFCON as the conservative "alternate" to the Lambeth conference, the gathering of Anglican bishops from all over the world that occurs only every 10 years and will convene again this coming July.

A lot of controversy surrounds both conferences. The rumors swirl especially vigorously around GAFCON, for many suspect that the more conservative church leaders meeting in Jerusalem are determined to form another Anglican communion in protest against what conservatives see as the "wayward" beliefs and practices of large sections of the Western Anglican church (such as the Episcopal Church in the States).

Though the conflict over ordination of homosexual bishops in the Anglican church gets top billing in the news, the dividing issues in global Anglicanism are far deeper and more expansive than this one issue. Here's one helpful link that compares conservative and liberal views on a number of points: "Anglican Rift: Conservative v. Liberal."

NOTE: This link is from BBC News. It doesn't quite get at another, perhaps THE, core issue between liberals and conservatives in the Anglican church: the doctrine of Scripture, as well as the related issue of authority in the church. The two "sides" seem to take fundamentally different approaches to these central questions, which is more concerning to me than debates (though legitimate) over morality and who-should-be-ordained.

Another link: GAFCON photoblog (found it on TitusOneNine)

[Cartoon from http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/9509/.]

Have YOU been left behind?

2008-06-19T09:06:00.002-05:00

Man oh man, I'm speechless. Check out this link that I heard about on NPR -- apparently, the folks on this website figured out how to let you know if the Rapture has occurred without your knowledge, or how to reach out to your loved ones one last time if you are "raptured" and they are not. Unfortunately, it seems to be for real!

http://www.youvebeenleftbehind.com/

A Rough Sonnet . . . Almost.

2008-06-18T22:02:00.003-05:00

A modicum of space amid the mess
of life's cruel jokes and winter's circumstance--
Reflections on a lake, though smooth as glass,
when winds rush in will twist, distort the true
depiction of the world, erase the clear
connection from the image to its mate.
No, stillness is what's needed for the eye
to gaze upon the lake and see the sky;
and solid truth will melt and disappear
when gales glaze the water, dark with fear.

~ARH 4/1/08~

Learning to Float

2008-06-16T22:12:00.003-05:00

Holy, You are still holy, even when I don't understand Your ways. Holy, You are still holy, even when my circumstances don't change. (More Rita Springer...)

Immeasurable comfort -- that the God of the universe is in control. Even in the stereotypical-but-real waves of life -- the waves that crash suddenly on your head and flood your eyes and ears and nose with acrid salt water, or drag you under and into the ocean-swirls until you have no idea which way is up or down, or hurl you out onto the burning sand as you choke on bits of seaweed -- even then, I am not out of God's reach. Even then, I am in His charge; even then I can depend upon Him for what I need. How simple the truth! How hard the reality. How impossible it seems -- to cease my frantic struggle to control the waves and learn to float on the surface of the deep, upheld by the One to whom the waters are as solid ground!

Aaaaaannnnnd.... we're back!

2008-06-10T08:27:00.007-05:00

Whew! Much has happened since my last post, in fact, so much that I don't know quite how to resume blogging! Since my last post, in no particular order, I have...

- Traveled to 3 new (to me, of course) countries, with an hour layover in a 4th
- Spent a week in a Tuscan hamlet
- Improved my German accent
- Climbed the leaning tower of Pisa
- Climbed up the Duomo in Florence
- Climbed up various other historic tall buildings ("we like to go up things...")
- Finished my third year in seminary
- Began an internship
- Completed my Starbucks training... again (not much has changed in a year)
- Acquired a yen for sparkling mineral water
- Been hampered by shyness... but not for long
- Decided on a thesis topic
- Spent hours of amusement dialoguing with a friend in a poor Ukrainian accent
- Stolen part of the Venice lagoon... ("in our pants")
- Formed a precious "attachment"
- Missed the first half of the "first dance" at a wedding reception, though technically seated in the same room
- Been introduced to patbingsu
- Spontaneously prayed with good friends for two hours
- Nearly been evacuated from my apartment at 1 a.m. because of CO levels
- Discovered that rain got hold of our itinerary... and used it against us
- Danced in the rain
- Gladly received new neighbors
- Said farewell to close friends
- Gained new appreciation for the Doxology
- Continued to overuse ellipses...
- Endless etceteras

Perhaps every month could generate such a list for each of us. Life is rich - and certainly quirky at times! As the rhythm of summer begins, I can't help but wonder: what will the next month bring?