Too many things

As you reach a "certain age", there are times when the news all around seems to read more like a casualty list than, say, a Christmas letter.

You know what kind of Christmas letters I mean. Those compilations of accomplishments ranging from merely above average to staggering genius, glowingly reported by some justifiably proud parent or spouse. I get a couple of them each year that are so filled with shining promise I half expect a postscript to read "and after the holidays we are taking on bringing peace to the Middle East" at which point I will relax, knowing this family of optimistic American Dream over achievers is on the case.

No, lately, the reports I have been getting from near and far are whatever the opposite of a Christmas letter might be. A father with young children dies here, cancer in a young woman there, a recurrent cancer after nearly two decades of remission elsewhere. A young mother is told her unborn child has died and must now deliver his lifeless body. An aged Mom struggling with Alzheimer's breaks her hip. A man otherwise in his prime discovers his HIV status has elevated to full blown AIDS. I can't get my head around it all. It feels past some invisible line of tough breaks, venturing into cruelty.

The national news is no help. Police break into a home looking for a drug dealer and instead shoot and kill a young mother of five, wounding her youngest who was in her arms as she died. A young actor dies and a minister who purports to be a Man of God threatens to picket his memorial service solely because of a heartbreakingly brilliant role he portrayed in a movie.

Life is so incredibly short and beautiful and sweet and I cannot believe anyone would willingly waste one moment of their life shrouded in hatred, sowing pain into lives already shattered by unexpected loss.

Into a world of sorrow, there are often too many things for my small heart to carry. I have no choice but to lay these burdens down for I can stagger no further if I hold them all. I will slip these troubles to the ground, onto God's lap. I know of no other thing to do. If you are troubled today, as I am, I pray this psalm from Anne Sexton will sing you some comfort.

The Big Heart

"Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold." - From an essay by W. B. Yeats

Big heart, 

wide as a watermelon, 

but wise as birth, 

there is so much abundance 

in the people I have: 

Max, Lois, Joe, Louise, 

Joan, Marie, Dawn, 

Arlene, Father Dunne, 

and all in their short lives 

give to me repeatedly, 

in the way the sea 

places its many fingers on the shore, 

again and again 

and they know me, 

they help me unravel, 

they listen with ears made of conch shells, 

they speak back with the wine of the best region. 

They are my staff. 

They comfort me.

They hear how 

the artery of my soul has been severed 

and soul is spurting out upon them, 

bleeding on them, 

messing up their clothes, 

dirtying their shoes. 

And God is filling me, 

though there are times of doubt 

as hollow as the Grand Canyon, 

still God is filling me. 

He is giving me the thoughts of dogs, 

the spider in its intricate web, 

the sun 

in all its amazement, 

and a slain ram 

that is the glory, 

the mystery of great cost, 

and my heart, 

which is very big, 

I promise it is very large, 

a monster of sorts, 

takes it all in-- 

all in comes the fury of love.

~ Anne Sexton ~

(The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton)

World without End

My father had a poster up in his study. It showed a small figure, scowling, sitting with hands around knees in a box with the lid shut. The caption read "I love humankind, it's people I can't stand!".

I thought of that poster while reading about a fascinating show that aired recently purporting to show what would happen to the earth if all the people were gone. "Life After People" on the History Channel, premiered this week, with repeats Wednesday and Thursday, if you missed it like I did.

From what I understand, not some cataclysmic blowing it all up type of gone - more a "poof" and we are all gone. I am guessing. As I said, I didn't see the show, but a friend shared this fascinating timeline from the book that inspired the show. It gives a flavor of what would be the eventual aftermath of the demise of civilization. After us and all the damage we have caused? The earth heals. Eventually....

I've read it over a couple of times - each time through something different strikes me.

Mostly, I am surprised not to feel more sorrow at the idea of an earth without people. Humans being just that, human beings, have caused so much harm and grief to each other, as well as finding ways to express love and kindness. I guess when I think of this in terms of "humankind no longer exists", rather than "oops - me and everybody I love so dearly are all gone NOW" it is not so startling.

Everybody I have ever loved or will love will die. Part and parcel of being human to end. No matter what I think might happen to me after I die - and I will confess I have no surety there, just a sense it won't matter at all to me at the time - the idea of all of us being gone does not shock me the way I thought it might. I suppose it shifts for me with nobody left to mourn?

Take a look and see for yourself how you react. Would it be so very awful to have the humans gone? Are we in any way necessary to the universe once we take our own personal benefit out of that equation? Very interesting stuff.

The good news is that, for the most part, the world doesn't end when we do according to these guys. I find that oddly reassuring. It really is, mostly, "world without end".

Amen. (amen!)

The Surety Problem

According to some, I am not really a Lutheran, not truly a Christian, because I entertain doubts.

Doubts which I freely admit to. Doubts which mean that some of what I "confess" in my congregation every Sunday is not for me a certainty I can prove or fully understand, but rather a statement which I will give room in my thinking, and more importantly, in my living, to be true. Proven or not.

I won't go line by line through our creed(s) to delineate where my doubts reside; my areas of question shift from time to time. My doubts are a result of my critical thinking, of my belief that our intellect is a gift and my conviction that unquestioning obedience is safe only in the context of God's will, which I reject as capable of being inerrantly or accurately reported or often even interpreted by frail and broken human beings.

Some would state I am, by my own description, an agnostic theist. I consider myself more an agnostic Christian, but people seem to want surety as the true anchor for faith rather than doubt. I maintain faith is belief without proof or surety, but the very idea of belief is cast by some as irreconcilable with doubt.

Which brings me to a disturbing article in the Wall Street Journal today about certain churches banning or shunning their members based upon what they cite as Biblical admonishments to cast out "unrepentant sinners" and referring to passages they say casts "causing discord" as an "abomination".

And another disturbing report on a presidential candidate who apparently sees his campaign success so far as a manifestation of "God's will", while stating the United States Constitution ought to be rewritten to reflect "God's standards".

"God's standards" according to who? The problem with all this for me is the idea of human beings lining themselves up to state, categorically, that they know God's will for the world, that they know this in a way that leaves no room for doubt or opposition, and that this knowledge of theirs is comprehensive and trustworthy enough that it should become the law of the land. Furthermore, most of the folks I am aware of who are casting themselves as these modern day prophets, are doing so off an anchor of Biblical literalism and inerrancy.

Allow me to restate. I am being asked, as a Christian, and a citizen/voter, to accept that certain politicians are worthy of my support because they have been chosen by God to bring our country's political documents into line with a Biblical standard that will represent, according to one adherent, the "God-centered" domination of "public policy, the laws we make, and every other detail of our existence.".

Am I not wishing for a more God-centered government? As even an agnostic Christian, why would this pose any potential threat to me? Why am I not sending my dollars, using my volunteer hours, and praying for precisely this "return" to Old Testament standards of "imposition of law by godly men"?

Aside from that linguistic limitation to "godly men", there is the New Testament for starters. And this question. WHICH interpretation of the Bible will represent the "Standard"? The King James version? The Revised Standard version, International version, Jerusalem Bible, The Message?

The Bible itself is a compilation, a compendium, a collection arrived upon and agreed upon by committees and groups with their own human bias and agenda often painfully apparent. The Bible is, at heart, a translation, and translation is always at least limited by human capability and context. Always. Translations are, by their very nature, revisions.

Some of what is in each "version" of the Bible is so very human as to practically define by it's inclusion the need for God's grace offered to humanity and demonstrated through the death and resurrection of Christ.

I cannot verify for myself or anybody else the accuracy of some candidate's statements that their ascent is "God's will". In my mind, God's ways are mysterious and often unknowable.

I can state that I will always, in every circumstance, question the authority of any human who purports to speak "for" God, especially when that human is attempting to gain access to one of the most powerful political offices in the world.

I will always reject, because I believe I must, any attempt to take one version of a translated compilation and establish that as not only "God's will" but also as the new "standard" of American law for all citizens of the US.

This country was founded utilizing principles of separation of church and state. Those safeguards of the Constitution were placed in hopes of preventing the imposition of any one "interpretation" of proper religion upon the entire populace. How tragic it would be for the latter day followers of groups who originally came to these shores to escape the legal exclusion they suffered in theocracies abroad, to now attempt to establish their own version of theocratic rule.

Should I, as a Christian, blindly support such a self pronounced prophet? I sure doubt it.

Have Your Say

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has demonstrated something of a cavalier disregard for current events and public opinion outside the group(s) he is courting as witnessed by his seemingly being unaware of the situation in Iran recently or domestically, the details of the writer's strike affecting television programming.

Whether or not such lapses bother you matters less perhaps than whether or not this is yet another "imperial" President to be, who will make decisions based upon what he believes, rather than what is verifiably true.

Nothing exemplifies this more than Gov. Huckabee's refusal to meet with Ryan White's mother weeks after agreeing to do so.

You may recall Huckabee refused to back down from his remarks made in the 90's stating that HIV/AIDS sufferers should be quarantined, even after being reminded that scientists, including physicians, have categorically denied any such need for isolation.

Let's keep Governor Huckabee honest, shall we? Join the HRC folks in asking that he meet with Ryan White's mother to learn firsthand the impact such careless and callous remarks have had on those living with AIDS.

Those in our nation who are living with AIDS are our neighbors in every sense of that word. Governor Huckabee must as a Christian acknowledge the impact of his nationally reported remarks. He has the obligation to do everything in his power to learn about the lives of those he seems ready to isolate further by prejudice than is already accomplished by hardship arising out of a lack of robust health and often the financial burdens that accompany illness.

Visit the website HERE and take action.

On this, two days after Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, we would do well to remember his statement: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - "The Trumpet of Conscience", 1967

Come Monday!

I really like the internet.

The way one thing leads to another simply fascinates me. It is as close to having an external mind as I can imagine, this ability to follow one thought to an internet source, which can lead me to another, and another... After several hops it is not unusual to find myself in an entirely new place I'd never heard of or imagined existed, and yet there it is, just what I needed and was not realizing I should be looking for.

Today for instance, I started out reading Kelly Fryer's post on her blog "Reclaiming the F Word". If you haven't yet read Ms. Fryer, then do yourself a favor and get started. Fryer has a lot of sensible things to say about church and Christianity in general. Her take is often a breath of fresh honest air in what can otherwise often be a stale, lifeless exercise. Ms. Fryer was commenting on a shift she had experienced recently, an attitude moving away from cynicism. She attributed it to several factors, chief among them her experience as being a keynote speaker for a group called the Gay Christian Network. Their enthusiasm and positive energy was driving hers, she stated, and she recommended folks check them out. So I did.

While on the GCN site I looked into how they addressed various passages of the Bible. In the GLBT rights community these are often referred to as "Bible Bullets". Passages of scripture that are often quoted, or more accurately, misquoted to condemn all forms of same sex attraction and resulting behaviors. (Genesis 19, Romans 1:24-27, 1 Cor 6, I Timothy 1:10, etc.)

I found a GCN section called, "The Great Debate" dealing with celibacy. This led me to The Shepherd Initiative site and a great resource prepared by the Metropolitan Community Church, "Homosexuality: Not a Sickness, Not a Sin".

Finally I ended up reading a transcript of a talk given by Baptist evangelists Tony and Peggy Campolo, documenting their respectful disagreement on the proper interpretation of the Bible with regards to the glbt community on their site, "Bridges Across the Divide".

This captured my attention. As I reported earlier, I am nearing the end of the first week of a study on King David written by Beth Moore, a Baptist woman from Houston who is a star in the pantheon of published Bible studies. As is my usual practice when I am in a group with rotating leadership, I'd volunteered to go first. That means in two days, I am leading the study.

So I am working along in this Baptist bible study book, congratulating myself periodically on the wisdom of my own past decision to leave that denomination as I hit one passage after another that I began to mark in the margins of my study book with the initials "BA" for "Baptist Alert!". Then I came to the next to last paragraph of the next to last day's study for this first week. Moore is describing how the young warrior David is called to serve his king as a lyre player and singer, on the recommendation of Saul's attendants. She contrasts the descriptions of David as brave, a warrior, and yet sensitively musical. (1 Sam 16:18)

Moore begins talking about her own brother, who was forced to choose in Middle School between two things he had gifts for, basketball and playing the piano. His choice led others in his school to taunt him. Moore writes, "He went with his greater gift at the cost of being labeled effeminate. He and his wife have recently celebrated 20 years of marriage. Those who ridiculed him were wrong. He still makes his living on a keyboard. Many of his co-workers are homosexual. I wonder if our society pushes some individuals into the world of homosexuality by failing to value tenderness and sensitivity in men." (italics mine)

What had I done? I am an unabashed ally to the glbt community now slated to lead a discussion written by a woman I completely disagree with! It would be easy at this point to write the study off, to decide anybody with these ideas about the glbt community had nothing to say to me.

But that would be just as inaccurate as I believe Moore's attribution of sexual orientation to societal pressures to be. And there will be at least one or two in the study group I am to lead this coming Monday who will feel a strong affinity for Moore's position on this.

Rather than declaring I have nothing to say or nothing to learn from a Baptist woman who holds views far to the right of my own, I wanted to try something new. I wanted to try out my central resolution for 2008 to practice "both/and" living.

The materials found on the Gay Christian Network are open and honest about the division in their community. There are folks who feel lifelong committed relationships are the desired norm for all God's children and there are those who feel celibacy is the calling of those not exclusively attracted to members of the opposite sex.

The overall amiability of their agreeing to disagree struck me. What a difference from the bitter, often vitriolic exchanges I had been subject and witness to in other groups, including those of my own regional denominational gatherings.

Tony and Peggy Campolo, Baptist "stars" in their own right were similarly amicable in their dialog. Despite differences on the proper expression of sexuality they are clear it is more important they are both Christians, they are happily married, they offer love to all their brothers and sisters in Christ and condemnation to no one.Their willingness to address this in tandem, and the respectful ways they each make their points, left me with a glimmer of hope that on this coming Monday, the women in my study group will similarly be able to agree to disagree in ways that will open, and not close, doors. That we will be able to find ways to allow for "both/and" thinking rather than "either/or". I am optimistic the women in our study group will be able to maintain mutual respect, share information, and recognize our commonalities in wanting to learn more about David's amazing story in the Bible in order to learn more about our own individually amazing stories of faith and relationship with God.

The Baptists don't agree, ELCA Lutherans don't agree, the GLBT Christian community doesn't agree, so surely our small group can live without having to settle the issue once and for all.

Personally, I disagree with Beth Moore on sexual attraction sometimes being the result of societal pressures "pushing" people to be attracted to members of the same sex. I do not think, for instance, that some men love other men because they were forced to choose between playing the piano or shooting hoops. I believe Moore's own brother's example makes that case for me.

I agree wholeheartedly with her however that it is "a mistake we make in our society when we consider gentleness and masculinity in exclusive terms." I would enlarge on that to say it is another mistake we make in our society when we consider faithful, monogamous, committed relationships and the glbt community in exclusive terms.

In John 1:46 Nathanael asks, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?".

I'll amend that slightly to ask, "Can anything good come out of a Southern Baptist Bible Study?". Philip gives such a wise reply..."Come and see".

I was initially dreading Monday's leadership duties. Now I can't wait!

Extremism

In my own way, I am an extremist. I have a tendency to over-do, rather than do.

I have just begun not one but two different Bible Studies held at my congregation.

Each of them meets for one to two hours, once a week. Each of them requires around 45 minutes of reading my Bible, along with answering questions for one and doing all sorts of other exercises such as journaling for the other.

Why have I gone from zero to what might prove to be "two much"?

I can think of several reasons.

First and foremost, the folks who join and stick with these higher commitment studies in my congregation tend to be thoughtful seekers, willing to work together, to share, to laugh and cry together. The sense of community that develops from ongoing small group experiences such as these does not similarly grow out of attending worship or even Adult Ed opportunities on Sunday mornings.

Secondly, I benefit from somebody waiting for me in a room at least once a week who has done their work and expects me to do mine. The discipline is great for a dabbler and dawdler such as myself. Regular sessions keep me honest and keep me on track. If I am going to study the Bible at all, I have discovered that will only happen if I do so with others.

Thirdly, one of the studies is taken from a series by Beth Moore, a very successful Baptist author, an empire, really. This study, which was chosen for the group by a couple of the members, quickly reminded me why I left that denomination as soon as I had the option. I enjoy the women who are in this group though, so will try sticking the study out with the idea that recognizing the differences between her approach and a more typical Lutheran approach might be healthy as opposed to potentially fatal. The other study is part of the "Companions in Christ" series devised mostly by Methodist clergy, which may just be the ideal antidote to the Baptist study.

Here I stand (or sit), a Lutheran, taking part in two study groups, one from the Baptist tradition and the other from the Methodists. I am sure this says something about the ELCA and Lutherans generally, I just don't know quite what.

Speaking of which, I have nearly two hours of work to get done today and must get started. I am interested to see if the Baptist study will eventually get past my strong immediate negative reaction. I know from past experience that some of the times I react in a strongly negative way it can yet result in my learning something really important about myself. One way or another, I can see how participating in both groups will challenge and feed me in different ways.

Could it hold true for Bible Studies as it does for so many other things? Maybe two will be better than one....

Arise, shine!

Epiphany.  This is the time we Lutherans, among others, stop to consider questions of light and dark.  A time when we thoughtfully discuss where the Light is shining in our lives and where we might yet wish for more illumination.

What do we see?  What do we refuse to see?  Where do we look?  When do we look away and why?

In a typically dualistic world, many of us are well acquainted with Either/Or thinking. Our lives are this "or" that.  Perfect or ruined.  Right or wrong.  Good or evil.  On track or off base.  

I'd like to propose something new for 2008.  New for me, anyway.  

I am wanting to make just one central resolution for this upcoming year. I want to try and keep my eyes ever open to those times when "Either/Or" categorization might better be replaced with "Both/And".

It is a very Lutheran stance, considering we are all both saints AND sinners.  

I am wanting to see, if I keep my attention focused in new ways, if there are not ever so many opportunities to experience the extravagant abundance of God's grace when I stop placing my narrowed human "either/or" framing on my day to day living.

If I really do, really can "let go and let God" what might find new breath and space in my life?  What is there to experience when I leave possibilities open to interpretation, rather than pre-determined by my either/or thinking?

What could I see for instance, if I stopped looking at folks on the other side of the glbt rights divide in my denomination as actually being "against" me?  What if I looked for the many places where we agree, the ideas we share and experiences we have in common?  What if we are all simultaneously "right" AND "wrong" in our insistence to have things our own way(s)?

What would the ELCA look like if we all laid down the arguments for just a moment and considered we might ALL be missing the forest for the trees?

Maybe the Word Alone folks have it exactly right that we need to listen to and adhere to scripture, only we LC/NA folks have it exactly right as well that scripture says we are ALL equal in the eyes of God and as such ought to be in the eyes of the church?  

Could be a wonderful "both/and" substitution for the "either/or".  

Could be, if we stop arguing long enough, we could actually enjoy each other's company, share each other's gifts and start looking for all the many ways we can and should work together to heal the world with our energy and intentions. Could be we'd find ways to "be church". Together.  Again.

What an arisen, shining ELCA that could be!