anamchara

Catching Up: End of Break, the Psalms

2010-04-17T10:24:00.001+01:00

A friend of mine at church here mentioned that he’s been reading my blog. He seems like a cool guy, so I was surprised to discover that he has no life. (Just kidding, Martin!) And then I decided that I’ve been neglectful of the ol’ blog, and I should write something.

There’s one measly week left of my break. It’s been a good one – I enjoyed an Easter trip to the Belfast area with my friend Amy, and the rest of my time in Oxford has been pretty low-key. I took walks, read books, played games, tried out a new pub each week with friends (sort of a gradual pub crawl!), baked bread (and devoured it! Yum!). I even got a little work done… not as much as I’d like, but hey, there’s still one week left!

I have yet to write that thesis proposal, but I have definitely found a topic that I’m interested in. I’m waiting for the ‘okay’ (or ‘nay’) of a faculty member. As I was reading in the library several weeks ago, I came across an article about a 6th century figure named Daniel of Salah. In the midst of a rather tumultuous time for his church community, Daniel was commissioned to write a commentary on the Psalms. Daniel wasn’t just interested in creating something scholastic: he wrote his commentary as a series of homilies, crafting one sermon per psalm, so they could shape many people at once and be easily disseminated. It’s the oldest extant Psalm commentary that we have in the Syriac language, and it made a huge impact on the generations after him. Daniel’s was a minority Christian community, persecuted by the Byzantine orthodox authorities because of their theological differences, and his commentary helped to shape their identity. That influence lasted longer than Byzantine rule – soon the Islamic conquest swept the historic home of Syriac-speaking Christians out of Byzantine hands forever, and this commentary continued to inspire generations of marginalized Christians in a new era.

As I was reading about this, I also discovered what a pivotal role the Psalms played in Syrian Christianity in general. In the Syriac-speaking churches, a person couldn’t even be ordained as a sub-deacon without knowing and reciting the entire Psalter by heart. (Being able to sign one’s own name was desirable, but negotiable!) Monastic life was characterized by the daily recitation of Psalms, and memorization of the Psalms formed the cornerstone of Christian education. The language of the Psalms is the prayer language of this community, so imagine the kind of impact that Daniel’s text would have had on those who gathered to hear it and ruminate on it, homily by homily, and who then passed on their knowledge to a wider audience.

Studying this has challenged me personally in several ways. Why don’t I try to memorize the Psalms, too? I presume that these would have been sung or chanted by these churches, aiding memorization. Maybe I could find a Psalter adapted for plainsong chant to help in that task? (Any recommendations?) Those of you who’ve spent any amount of time with me know that I hum/sing/whistle incessantly – why not harness one of my irksome personal habits for good?

My own Christian fellowship has been going through a long period of identity-shift. We’re mostly content to argue about fairly surface level stuff – what happens in our worship services and who does it. It seems like pretty sandy ground for us to build our house on. I wondered – what books of the Bible do we turn to in order to remember who we are? (For the C of C, my guess is Acts. What’s yours?) What communication tools are effective for shaping communal (not just individual) identity today and how can we use those best?

A Break of Sorts

2010-03-14T16:10:00.000Z

Hilary Term, the second of Oxford's three terms, just finished on Friday. I still have an essay to complete, and a catch-up German Reading class (ugh!), but other than that my load is considerably lighter. That is, it's lighter in that I don't have classes to attend or prepare for, but I still have a lot to do. I'll spend a good chunk of time actually trying to learn to read academic German (since I can no longer run from this eventuality), and the pile of Greek and Syriac texts that I need to work through for exams next year appears to be bottomless. I'll also be spending a lot of time in one of the many other buildings that belong to the Oxford University Library system. (Pictured here: the Radcliffe Camera, home to the general theology section, among other diverse topics. It's lovely, but a bit cavernous.)

Here's my big goal for the break: I have 6 weeks in which I intend to hunt down and take captive the elusive prey of every graduate student - the thesis topic! It's not that I don't have ideas for topics or interests. It's that I have too many of them, and most of them are too nebulous or possible dead ends. It's possible that this sounds like a rather drab task to undertake during a break from classes. So, I'll reframe it a bit: I get to take a 6 week romp through one of the world's best libraries exploring whatever topics strike my fancy. (And that, my friends, is a nerdy dream come true!)

So, I'm hoping that at some point in this wild, bibliographical (bibliophilical?) spree through the Bodleian, things will just magically click in place, and I'll at least have a clear enough vision to write a research proposal and start digging in. I'll probably have to completely rework the research proposal at a later date, but it'll be nice to have a place to start! (I'd like for it to be something like the first part of this comic, without so much of the second part!)

But that's not all: I'm going to do fun, normal-human-being things during this break, too. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with friends from California for lunch. (Shout-out to the Wilsons and co.!) I also get to take a little trip to Belfast for Easter weekend with my friend Amy. I'm hoping to actually visit some of the free museums that I pass every day on the way to classes. I'd really like to continue learning to make bread (maybe I'll post about my experiments?). And I'd like to take a couple of long walks in the nearby countryside. Perhaps I'll even take a short trip to London. I also have some budding friendships to invest in. All in all, I think it'll be a nice 'break'!

This is for you, Amber Joy.

2010-02-28T20:32:00.000Z

It seems that I’m even an insufferable, pedantic nerd in my dreams. It’s pretty rare for me to remember my dreams, but I did this morning. Here’s what happened, as far as I can now recall:

My dear friend Amber and I are walking through a field of tall grass with a scraggly, leafless tree in the middle of it. For some reason, there were a lot of birds in this dream, and I think they could talk. They were plump and mangy. The mangiest birds I’d ever laid eyes on. [Come to think of it, the time when I lived with Amber was full of birds – mourning doves in the house and chickens in the yard – so I guess it fits somehow.]

Amber turns to me and asks, “Is there any evidence in Genesis chapters 1-11 for the existence of Smurfs?” I look quizzical, so she explains further, “My friend says she believes God created Smurfs and that Genesis says so.” She gestures vaguely toward the birds in the tree. I look at them and raise an eyebrow – one of the birds told her this?

I think for a minute, giving her question due consideration, then I cock my head slightly to the right and respond very sensibly and seriously, “Well, I guess since we’re not really sure what range of colors the Hebrew word translated as ‘blue’ really encompasses, it would be hard to argue for the existence of Smurfs in Genesis.”

Amber willingly accepts this explanation, and we walk on through the field, out of hearing range of those mangy, delusional birds.

It's nice to know that such penetrating theological questions fill my dreams as well as my waking hours.

Snow: Atlanta and Oxford

2010-01-14T15:50:00.000Z

I’m back in Oxford, and it is a winter wonderland. Meanwhile, I cannot get "You Can Never Hold Back Spring" out of my head. (Thanks, Amber.) Is this delusion or optimism on the part of my subconscious? There can be such a fine line between the two. Or maybe a cruel joke?

Here’s a little fact that may surprise you (at least, it surprised me): people, in this part of the country at least, deal with snow accumulation with about the same amount of panic as people in the Southern United States. Since I left Georgia just hours before some wintry weather settled in, it’s been natural to compare British and Southern reactions to snow and ice.

Similarity #1: If there’s a chance of snow in the forecast in Atlanta, everyone immediately rushes to the supermarket to buy milk, eggs, bread, etc. – all the staples. This week, I picked my way through the snow to the nearest grocery store and discovered that there had been a similar ‘run’ on milk, bread, and fresh vegetables.

Here, however, is an important, yet related point of contrast. When it snows or ices in Atlanta, chances are it’ll accumulate overnight, be extremely treacherous for the morning commute, and vanish by mid-afternoon. If you sleep in too late, you might miss the opportunity to see white stuff. In Oxford, the snow has been on the ground and roadways for over a week now. I’d say the run on the grocery store here was a little more justified than the ones in ‘Hotlanta.’

Similarity #2: No one knows how to walk in the snow. I’m picking my way over sidewalks with the same amount of caution and nervousness as a local. There was even an article on the BBC’s website about how hospitals are swamped with cases of snow-related injuries, particularly fractures, because people are just ‘falling over.’ (Plus the requisite injuries due to reckless stupidity: Exhibit A.) I suspect that Atlantans would have the same issue if we walked more places.

Similarity #3: As far as I can tell, people don’t really know how to drive in snow here either. That’s just judging from news reports and driving advisories. Aside from a sleepy bus ride from the airport, I haven’t been on the roads to test out this theory properly. In Atlanta, there are two ways drivers navigate “Rush Hour on Ice.” (Sounds like a spin-off of a Jackie Chan movie, doesn’t it?) Some become slow-motion drivers, maintaining the minimum amount of speed necessary to inch forward rather than slide backward. They start to brake approximately a quarter mile away from a green light, anticipating that it will surely turn red before they get there. (In actuality, it will likely cycle back to green before they even reach it.) Others pretend like nothing has changed and drive like raving maniacs who think they are immortal. This is, of course, how most Metro Atlanta drivers get from point A to point B on a normal day, and, while it’s always risky, it is particularly perilous on ice. Get the slow-mo drivers and demoniac drivers out on the same 6 lane freeways, and… well, you can imagine the consequences. Maybe those runs on the grocery store are justified, if only in the interest of not being on the road with these people. No one wants to become a traffic statistic.

Similarity #4: Abundant snow sculptures. Because it doesn’t snow much here, when it does people rush out and create all sorts of snowpeople, igloos, epic snowball battlegrounds, etc. I didn’t see it, but I heard there was a snowman next to a bus stop with its arm extended as if hailing the driver. People have especially had fun supplementing Oxford’s monuments and landmarks. Albeit, the snowpeople in Georgia tend to be smaller in stature, since we usually only get a ½ inch or so at once, but I couldn’t help but notice a similarity in enthusiastic snow creativity. I suspect that the excitement wears thin more quickly where it snows more frequently.

Alas, I must get back to work. Anyone else have a snow-related anecdote to share?

A Walk in the Rain

2009-12-07T18:09:00.000Z

My first term is officially over. Actually, it was supposed to be over on Friday, but one of my tutors extended a deadline for me and another student out of the kindness of his heart. Our tutorial is tomorrow afternoon, but I finished my paper this morning. (The "Oxspeak" for tutorials is "tutes." It makes my inner 12 year-old giggle. My mom's, too.) So, I'm relatively free!

A story from my day offers some circumstantial evidence that still have a lot to learn about adjusting to life in the UK:

Today I got to indulge in that delightful end-of-term activity: return my library books! Woohoo! There's nothing like feeling literal, physical weight lifted off your shoulders at the end of a semester (or term, in my case). It's an ordinary sort of 'sacrament' to me. Anyway, it was raining this morning when I finished my paper. I waited until after lunch, and I thought I saw a relatively dry window... well, it was a drier than it had been. I grabbed my bag of books, slipped on my rain jacket, and set out. The rain picked up a bit. I consider pulling out my umbrella, too, but decided not to - if there's any wind my trousers usually get wet anyway. (It's very, very important to say 'trousers', by the way - say 'my pants got wet' here and it sounds like an indirect confession of incontinence.) Besides, if the wind is strong enough, it's better to just get wet than to have to chase your inside-out umbrella down the street.

This time, forgoing the umbrella was a misstep, and it led me down an odd path of decision making. The rain gradually became harder. At first I thought, "It's not that heavy, I have on my rain jacket, and my pan-trousers! are probably going to get a little wet with the umbrella anyway." This went on for a while as the rain became heavier. There was some turning point at which my reasoning had switched to, "Well, I'm soaked through now, so there's really no need to bother with the umbrella." Rationalization: it's a slippery slope, my friends.

The take-away here is, if you have the occasion to ask yourself, "Should I get out my umbrella?" the answer is nearly always, "Yes." If you think about the umbrella, you probably do, in fact, need it. Otherwise, you end up returning books, picking up something for dinner, and trudging a mile back to your flat with your slightly-too-big trousers sagging lower and lower until you feel like you're impersonating a penguin. It's like that scene in Mary Poppins, but without the animated characters, innocuous flirting, singing and dancing. Just waddling in the rain and whistling "Wade in the Water." (Actually, not much like Mary Poppins at all, I guess.)

On my way back to my flat, I finally decided to go ahead and get my umbrella out anyway. The other thing about umbrellas is that they limit your field of vision. I also had my hood up - now I was soaked and in over-kill mode. That's right, Kel: at least look like you tried your best not to get soaked. With the hood on, I have to pivot my entire torso to spot oncoming traffic. Adding an umbrella means I have to do a pivot-duck combination to peak out for cars. Anyway, I was approaching a crosswalk on a major street, and it's near a bus stop, so it's usually busy. Just as I was about to cross the street, in the very little peripheral vision that I had left, I noticed a rapid, dark streak of movement. It looked like someone was running extremely close to my back, enough that we would probably collide. Even though I knew I wasn't the one who put us on the collision course, I did what any person adjusting to British culture would do. I offered a profuse, preemptive apology to the reckless stranger as if our near-collision was entirely my fault. (They'll apologize for anything here! And apparently, I will, too.) Oddly, the other person said nothing in return, and we did not end up colliding at all.

It wasn't until I got to the other side of the street that I realized I had apologized so politely to the black piece of velcro that holds my umbrella closed when it's not in use. When the umbrella's open, it hangs freely, and its flopping around is obnoxious, so I usually rotate it to the back where I can't see it. I'm an abnormally bouncy walker (I think it's the product of my irrational, die-hard optimism), so the little black strip of cloth had dangled briefly within sight and then disappeared just as quickly. It made enough of an impression that I actually thought it was a person. (I wonder if anyone heard that?) Maybe I should start keeping that little annoying strip of fabric in sight. Or just not use the umbrella, get soaked and waddle home.

Pecan Pie

2009-11-22T21:53:00.000Z

I just got back from a Thanksgiving celebration with the ACU Study Abroad group. They were so kind to invite me to participate. I volunteered to bring something, and they said, "How about pecan pie?" I said, "Yum! You bet!"

Now, there are many traditional foods that no Thanksgiving feast should be without. The obvious ones are turkey, stuffing, homemade rolls and anything with pumpkin or sweet potatoes. A good Southern Thanksgiving will nearly always include someone's great-aunt's recipe for green bean casserole and, of course, that Southern delicacy, pecan pie.

There were any number of potential issues: changing from Farenheit to Celsius, an iffy college 'cooker' (oven, for my American friends), using golden syrup instead of Karo, my general lack of experience baking pecan pies, recipe doubling, using a new-to-me recipe instead of Grandma's. Plus, I couldn't ask Mom, "Is this right? Do you think it's done or does it need more time?" I have no idea which of factors (or combination thereof) conspired against me, but I can tell you this: the two pies I made are a disgrace to Southerners everywhere. One didn't set (a common enough problem), and it got burned a little on the top because I didn't have any tin foil. I left the other one in a bit too long... and it was oddly gritty. Also, it was shaped a bit like a crater in the end.

At this point I imagined reporting to Grandma Bryant on my latest cooking fiasco. While we were both in Abilene, I used to share my cooking experiences, good and bad, with her. I would exaggerate my failures in a ridiculous, Lucille Ball-like manner. She always chuckled at me and said something endearingly colloquial in her West Texas accent, like, "Oh, land!" I think she may also have responded that way the day I ran over the water spigot with that beast-of-a riding lawn mower. (It's been 2 and a half years since her death, and I still think of things to tell her.)

Anyway, I decided to go on and take the pies, despite their probable inedibility. I bundled up in my coat, stacked the pies, and set off for the ACU houses, about a 15 minute walk from my college. After a couple of minutes, my arms got tired from holding the pies out in front of me, so I pulled the edge of the pan against my belly for added support. This proved disastrous. About halfway there, I glanced down to find, to my consternation, that the pie that didn't set well had been leaking copiously down my front the whole time. There was a stream of golden syrup cascading down the front of my jacket that branched at my jeans and ran down each leg to the top of my tennis shoes! (Ew, I hate being sticky. I want to take a shower just thinking about it.) Walking with my oozing pies extended in front of me, I glanced sheepishly at the people I passed.

All this, you'd think, would add up to a very un-Thanksgiving-ish attitude. And I was certainly a little grumbly when I finally arrived at my destination. But here is the wonder of a feast shared in community - almost immediately, I forgot about my embarrassment, I sponged off my sticky jeans until they were merely tacky, I sang and laughed and prayed and communed, and I ate my fill. Nobody worried about my fumbled pie attempt (there was a whole table of dessert to choose from anyway), and I stopped worrying too. They welcomed me to the feast, even though I had little of value to give.

A good community accepts us in the midst of our messy humanity, and not just in innocuous mistakes like bad pies and sticky clothes. I'm thankful to have been a part of several communities who have been bearers of the love and grace of Christ in my life.

Thanksgiving Special

2009-11-21T00:11:00.003Z

Seriously, what's Thanksgiving without this?

Whenever my brother, Russell, is feeling up to it, he cooks our turkey in the backyard in an (unused) aluminum can (sort of like Oscar the Grouch's abode). They call it a 'litter bin' here. 'Garbage' is strictly an American word (apparently), and 'trash' has stronger negative connotations than at home. I usually end up calling it a 'traaaaa ---- litter bin?' Anyway, Russ's turkey is wonderful - cooked to perfection, very moist, and done in about half the time of a traditionally baked turkey.

Even though I'll be missing Thanksgiving dinner with my family this week, I'm looking forward to enjoying a little Thanksgiving celebration with the ACU Study Abroad folks this Sunday evening. (They have trips coming up, so they opted for celebrating early. Plus, we naturally don't have the holiday off here in Oxford, so it'd fall right in the middle of 7th week.)

I'll be home 3 weeks from yesterday, thanks to the generosity of Janis and Brian. My Christmas gifts this year are mostly "the gift of family." It's probably the best Christmas gift I've ever received.

Oxford: A Concise Photo Tour

2009-10-10T00:15:00.000+01:00

Hi! I've been settling into life in Oxford for about a week and a half now. Our meteoric term begins on Monday, so, as you might imagine, I'm unlikely to produce any substantial thoughts here in the next couple of months. I've been putting off blogging until I had an acceptable cache of photos to share. Yesterday was beautiful and sunny, so I wandered around shamelessly taking pictures of anything that simultaneously caught the light and my eye. (Disclaimer: I have no idea what formatting will show up on Facebook. If it's horrendous, click "Original Post" at the bottom.) So, here's a little taste of what I've been encountering day to day.

The Historic

(The Saxon Tower)

The Iconic

(Radcliffe Camera)

The Monumental

(Commemorating the "Oxford Martyrs")

The Terrifying

("The Grey Book" describing course examinations for this year.

It's two inches thick. Fortunately, only 2 pages apply to my course!)

The Optimistic

(Very much needed after the Grey Book!)

The Autumnal

The Pretentious

The Melodramatic

The Inviting

The (as yet) Unexplored

I hope you enjoyed the tour! There's more to come... sometime.

Reading Genesis, Pt. 1

2009-09-24T15:39:00.000+01:00

Two posts ago, I left off with the question, “Is male hierarchy God’s intended order for creation for all time?” The hierarchical complementarians answer yes, and the egalitarians (and I) answer no. In this post, I’ll begin a discussion of gender in the creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2.

I’d like to start by noting that Genesis has two distinct creation narratives in the first two chapters. For various linguistic and literary reasons, scholars think these may have been written by different authors at different times. But at the very least, the people of God retained both accounts placed side by side, suggesting to us that each offers an important insight into the God who created all and that God’s relationship to that creation.

The first narrative focuses, of course, on God’s effortless and artful work of creating the cosmos. Unlike other ancient gods, this God expends no more energy than a puff of breath to bring order to chaos. The narrative builds from foundational, inanimate elements like light, earth and water to thriving living things. Climactic in God’s work is the creation of human beings who, male and female alike, are made in the image and likeness of their Creator. To these humans (male and female), God gives the first commands (to humans) in our Scriptures: “Be fruitful and multiply” and be responsible stewards over the rest of creation. The latter command is one of the things that separates human beings from the creepy crawlies in this narrative - it’s giving them, both male and female, some sort of shared authority over creation. (Aside: if we are to be like God in our care for the earth and its inhabitants, it ought to facilitate the living and thriving of all creatures. One soapbox at a time, Kel...)

I think, for most of us, there’s no question that men and women are both made in the image of God. That is, aside from a few histrionic patriarchalists in the last century who claimed that only men were made in God’s image. (But they do offer a wonderful example of why it’s so imperative that our modern Bible translations should use gender inclusive language -- Ah! Another soapbox! They’re everywhere!) I’d argue that, at the very least, this “image and likeness of God” entails a shared responsibility for and authority over the rest of creation. Drawing from the theological richness of the Christian tradition, I’d also claim that human beings are like the triune God in that they are relational beings. As “God is love”, we are to “love one another.” I’d venture to say that this gives us a picture of harmonious, loving partnership between women and men that is central to our identity as bearers of the image of God.

From this first creation account, both the HC and the E can claim grounds for their agreement that men and women are equal before God. Both are created in God’s image, so there is an essential, ontological equality. It’s in their interpretations of the second creation account that the HC and the E diverge from one another. The HC would claim that a hierarchy of roles based on gender does not undermine this essential equality. On the other hand, the E think that, if we really believe men and women are essentially equal, it should be reflected in egalitarian roles. In other words, ontological equality should correlate with practical equality. These distinct perspectives color our interpretations of the second creation narrative.

Unfortunately, I have some errands to run and packing to do, so that’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Brief Interruption: On Text & Interpretation

2009-09-23T16:14:00.000+01:00

This is not the post I promised last time, but I think it’s a good way to preface the next stage of discussion.

I think our beliefs about the place of women in the church are governed, at least initially, by our gut reactions. We’re predisposed by experience, upbringing, personality, etc., to one position or the other, and then we follow up with reasons why things should be the way we think they should. This “rational backing of a predisposition” has a direct impact on our interpretation of the Bible. We tend to collect what we consider to be the relevant portions of Scripture and provide interpretations of them that fit our perspective. In some ways, this is unavoidable. We all bring our webs of beliefs and assumptions to the text when we read it, and these things affect what we look for and how we interpret things. No one is unbiased. Often the best we can do is be aware of how these assumptions shape our interaction with Scripture; we usually can’t completely separate ourselves from them or be purely objective. We all have a gender and a particular assumption about what “genderedness” implies.

Something I’ve appreciated about the class that I’ve been sitting in on is that they chose to open their study addressing how people interpret the Bible. I think there may be some in the room who are impatient with this approach because they “wanna get down to business,” but our different approaches to Scripture are a big part of our disagreement. In the churches where I’ve grown up, there are many ways that people go about interpreting Scripture. (This is by no means comprehensive, of course.) One of the traditional ways has been to quote a passage that presumably backs up your position, citing book, chapter and verse. This often entails ripping a text out of its original context to use in some other setting. Rather than allowing the Word of God its proper authority, we impose our conclusions on the text and try to force it to fit our position. This is akin to forcing puzzle pieces together: you might be able to make them “fit” but the final picture will be distorted at best.

Another way that people often approach Scripture is to describe how they feel about it. Now, I think there should be room for a reader response to the Bible. It seems especially helpful for certain kinds of spiritual disciplines. However, when we’re trying to make communal decisions about major issues facing the church, personal reaction to the text is too subjective to provide much help.

I think the best we can do in a conversation in which we’re trying to make a decision for the whole community is to investigate what the original intent of the author may have been (and often there are multiple possibilities). This is generally called the “historical-critical” method. We want to consider how the original context of the author and audience may have shaped that text. The basic idea is that we can hopefully grab some concrete, objective data to prevent our biases from taking over (they’re pretty tough to quell anyway!). Hopefully, having a common approach encourages us to have humility about our own opinions and to find common ground with people who think differently. (And so, historical-criticism, although it sometimes seems overly dry and rational, can also be a spiritual discipline.) We also want to do some careful thinking about our own context and what it looks like to faithful to the gospel here and now. Obviously, that is a matter of contextual discernment, and it’s more of an art than a science. Maybe even more a matter of trial and error! But we are a people who believe that the Holy Spirit is an active participant in our communal discernment, and we need not fear walking in faith together.

This historical-critical approach is used by both the HC and the E, and they come to different conclusions... partially because their assumptions have already predisposed them to that conclusion. When there are multiple possibilities for the interpretation of a text, we are naturally inclined to pick the one that coheres best with our predisposition. Sometimes our predispositions prevent us from giving a legitimate interpretation the hearing it deserves because it doesn’t fit what we want to believe or prove. What I’m striving to do here is admit my limited insight, express my opinion as coherently as possible, and give other points of view a listening ear. (I’m relying on you, reader, to help me hear those!)

Enough prolegomena - next time it’s the real thing!

The HC

2009-09-21T02:50:00.001+01:00

Continuing where I left off a few days ago, I want to reflect on the Hierarchical Complementarian (HC) approach to understanding gender roles in church and at home. To recap, the HC position affirms the statement, “Men and women are equal but different,” emphasis on “different.” The HC maintain that each gender complements the other, with men providing leadership roles and women filling supportive roles. I mentioned in my last post that I could go with the idea of women and men are complementary but that the argument breaks down for me when it implies hierarchy. Let me explain further.

As is often the case, the reason that this viewpoint is compelling for so many is because it holds more than just a grain of truth. I think that the vast majority of people agree that men and women are different and that those differences are in some way complementary. It’s practically a staple in the romantic comedy genre. Think, “You complete me.” However, it become problematic when we begin to generalize about the ways in which women and men are different from each other. For example (speaking of chick flicks), my dad and brother like romantic comedies way more than I do. And they are big, tough, power-tool-wielding, hunting-license-bearing Southern good ol’ boys. (More of an anecdote than a fitting example, I suppose.)

Anyway, the trouble (for me) comes with the claim that these differences imply a hierarchy. (If you think about it, this is a big logical leap... but then again, logical argumentation is probably secondary in much of this discussion.) This assumption arises from more than one source. On the one hand, I think the HC have a general concern to be faithful to God’s will even when it’s not popular. The HC believe that this hierarchy is a God-ordained part of creation, and they feel responsible to defend it. They are convinced that egalitarians are too influenced by the surrounding culture, that allowing the power structure to change will throw off the order of creation. The HC are not misogynist; they believe that changing this God-ordained hierarchy will actually be detrimental to women and the relationships between the sexes. In short, maintaining this gender hierarchy is a matter of doing God’s will, and the influence of modern culture is suspect. We can see where these concerns are coming from, and I want to acknowledge that these are valid concerns.

At the same time, this “us-against-the-world” feeling has the potential to blind the HC to how contemporary culture shapes their own position. The feminist movement is fairly young, and portions of Western culture are still reacting to what they perceive to be an upset in social stability. The HC are part of this larger cultural reaction, but they remain largely unaware of it. No one is a-cultural.

At least part of the reason for this unawareness is that the hierarchal view seems to fit better with the patriarchal culture(s) portrayed in the biblical text. The cultures in which these texts were written influenced the experiences and perspective of the author(s) and the original audience. Paradoxically, it is this very “timeliness” of the Bible that make it so “timeless.” Throughout history, the people of God have had to ask themselves, “What is a faithful way for us to structure our lives and relationships in our current situation?” This “in the world but not of the world” dilemma makes the Bible endlessly intriguing, but it also requires discernment on our part to decide how to live in our world in a way that is shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ. The culture of 1st century Corinth or Ephesus, for example, is no more holy or pleasing to God than is that of 21st century America. Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians or to church leaders and family households in Ephesus are culturally sensitive and appropriate to their context, but they may not be as directly or easily applicable to the situation of affluent, long-time Christians living in 21st century Atlanta, Georgia. We might do better to investigate the way Paul allows the good news of Jesus Christ to shape his approach rather than merely asking, “What did Paul say/command?” The “why” is more important than the “what.”

So, I guess, one of the big questions is, “Is male hierarchy God’s intended order for creation for all time?” Both sides have well-developed arguments for this question. I’ll offer mine next time.

Interlude: Reading Recommendation

2009-09-17T19:55:00.000+01:00

My friend Cathie recommended a series on John Mark Hicks' blog to me, and I'd like heartily to recommend the same set of posts to you. Here's part of Hicks' introduction to the series:

Last January I began a series surveying the privilege of women to speak or their restricted silence within assemblies of Churches of Christ from 1897 to 1907. ...

... The posts tract the varying positions of the Tennessee Tradition (the most conservative and influential on this issue), the Sommer (or Indiana) tradition (the most progressive and limited in influence), and the Texas Tradition (a strange mixture that ultimately merges in opinion with the Tennessee Tradition).

By the mid-20th century, Churches of Christ had silenced women in their assemblies except for singing and baptismal confessions as well as excluding them from teaching males in Bible classes. But it was not always so among them. ...

I appreciated the historical perspective offered by these carefully researched posts, and if you're interested in the history of this stream of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, you don't want to miss these!

Find links to the first 4 posts here and the recent 5th post here. Enjoy!

I'll continue my own posts soon...

The Middle Ground, Pt. 1

2009-09-16T21:00:00.000+01:00

Here are a couple of things I should have mentioned earlier. First, for a more nuanced and detailed discussion of this topic, check out our primary source: Dr. Carroll Osburn’s Women in the Church (ACU Press, 2000). I’m really not doing the conversation justice, just giving my gut reactions to it. Second, the positions I described as “straw persons” in the last post are not “straw” in that they don’t really exist - there are people who have endorsed them. I just think they’re rarely held by the people wrangling over the issue at church (at least the ones I’ve attended).

Now for the positions in the middle ground: let’s get to know the Hierarchical Complementarians (Syllabic overload! HC for short) and Egalitarians (E, a.k.a., evangelical feminism... just don’t get scared away by the ‘f’ word!). The HC are a little right of center on the spectrum. They believe that men and women complement one another, with men providing leadership roles and women support roles (thus 'hierarchy'). A little to the left on the spectrum, the E embrace gender equality and see little or no correlation between gender and what roles a person may fill. What’s interesting is that both groups would basically agree with the following statement: “Women and men are equal, but different.” The primary different between the two is that they emphasize one part over the other: the E stress equality over difference while the HC elevate difference over equality. For the E, the “difference” part sounds like a concession: “Sure, men and women are different, BUT... .” For the HC, equality is primarily spiritual (i.e.,women and men are equal before God), but they’d persistently assert that God has ordained them distinct roles at home and at church. So far so good?

There are other things these two groups have in common. Both are faithfully dedicated to the authority of the Scriptures. They both reject the radical feminists’ wholesale dismissal of Scripture and Christian tradition while also suspecting that the patriarchalists abuse the Scriptures in order to defend their own prejudices. When reading the biblical text, both attempt to use the historical critical approach, trying to analyze the literary and historical context of passages and ascertain the original intent of the author. Both groups care passionately about the church and long to understand the will of God for their communities.

In short, we occupy a lot of the same ground, and that’s why we fight. Ultimately, our distinct emphases, equality v. difference, color the way we approach this matter. Our presuppositions cause us to interpret biblical texts differently, even when we use a common method of study. As often happens, we are ignorant of the way our own presuppositions influence our study of Scripture even as we say, “Aha! You’re blinded by your assumptions!” to our opponent. We look askance at each other, believing each other to be overly influenced by secular culture. (And that's not only the egalitarians, who willingly admit the influence of secular feminism. Patriarchalism and HC are both part of a broader cultural reaction to the women’s rights movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.)

If you’re like me, you’ve been thinking about where you are on the spectrum. It’s probably no surprise that I consider myself in the E group. I find the egalitarian interpretations of the biblical text more persuasive than the HC ones (while recognizing that I too have biases). I appreciate the more positive role assigned to culture by this perspective. For example, during the Civil Rights Movement, a cultural shift challenged Christians and churches to reassess their beliefs about race and segregation. We needed to listen to that call for repentance and change, and we’re still suffering the consequences of doing too little, too late. I also believe that God has given spiritual gifts to women for the sake of the church, and the church inflicts suffering on them and itself by ignoring them. We may unintentionally communicate to our young girls that they are not as valuable to our community (to God?) as their male peers are. It's not what we believe nor what we intend to teach, but all too often that's the message that's conveyed. On a personal note, as a single woman, I want to be accepted as a complete person before God without being married to a “second half”.

There is one thing about the E perspective that gives me pause though. (If I’ve understood it correctly.) It’s the claim that we all relate to God individually. I think this claim is meant to counter the HC assertion that men and women complete each other before God. The HC can sound like they think a person isn’t complete, even spiritually, unless they’re married. Obviously, that sounds bad to me. But the E perspective on this point sounds too individualistic. (Actually, the general evangelical Protestant view of salvation is a bit too individualistic for me.) I think of Christian salvation in broader terms than just personal assurance of a pleasant afterlife. I believe that in Christ, God is putting the world to rights again, reconciling people to God and people to people, making all things new. As the church we’re called collectively (not only individually) to be a part of God’s work of righting the world. The church is a people who have begun this process of reconciliation to God and others in the waters of baptism. We celebrate what Christ has done and anticipate what he’s going to do in the fullness of his Kingdom when we gather together at the Lord’s Table. We’re far from perfect - God’s not finished with us. But if we’re called to be ministers of reconciliation in the world, we’d better learn to love the messy people sitting next to us in the pew. I think a Christian comes to the Lord alongside others, not merely individually.

That explanation isn't really satisfactory to me, but it's what I have today. Interested in a deeper analysis of the HC point of view? How about next time?

The Kick-Off

2009-09-15T15:01:00.000+01:00

The Wednesday night discussion class on women’s roles in the church started last week. As I mentioned before, I really thought about going to another class... or waiting it out at a local coffee shop and grilling my mom for details later. (Guess which option I was leaning toward!) I resisted temptation and followed the crowd of people making their way into the classroom. (If I were a youth minister I’d interject, “One of those rare times when 'resisting temptation' and 'following the crowd' go together! *snort*” Cheesy joke + "us against the world" motif - that's a youth ministry home run! But I'd hate to put you through that. Oh, wait...) The class was enormously popular, which is unusual for a Wednesday night in a Metro Atlanta commuter church. The big turn out sent my father on a 10 minute chair-ferrying frenzy, which is just the kind of thing he delights in at church. (I love this about Dad: he’s an elder who’s happy just to be finding everyone a place to sit, facilitating community from behind the scenes.)

To my great relief, most of the class was an introduction led by one of the elders and the preaching minister. Given the heated arguments that have happened, the leadership of the church wanted to reframe the discussion. They began with a familiar exercise in identifying a continuum of viewpoints on women’s role on the church, from the patriarchalist “women belong in the home, barefoot and pregnant” on the far right to the radical feminist “men are the enemy and organized religion is complicit in the oppression of women” on the far left. Actually, these sound more like caricatures to me, but I think the point of this part of the discussion is to make us realize that we’re all somewhere in the middle, and we’re not as different from each other as we sometimes think. These arguments tend to be polarizing, and maybe it helps to see that there are more polarized positions out there than those we hold to. They might be straw people (at least in our church context), but at least we’re knocking them down together! Unity!

Silliness aside, this rhetorical move diffuses some of our animosity toward each other, and I think it sets limits on our temptation to caricature the person sitting beside us. We stop sneaking glances at people we may previously have categorized as extremists. “She might say clunky things to avoid using a gender-specific pronoun for God, but I don’t think she hates men or the church.” “His obnoxious jokes during class might reinforce gender stereotypes, but I don’t think he considers women unequal in society or before God.”

However, thus far the discussion leaves us unsatisfied, and the more cynical among us may suspect it's a bit of a ruse. The distance between the patriarchalist and the radical feminist is great, and our theological skirmishes take place in the hazy middle ground between the two. We may not be that different, but we’re still different. What’s more, we share a lot in common, which opens up another can of worms. We care strongly about a lot of the same things - like being faithful to Christ, worshipping together, and allowing God’s Word to shape our lives, our fellowship, our church structure - but our perspectives on how this translates into practice are seemingly worlds apart.

In the interest of keeping post length manageable, I’ll offer my two-cents on the “middle ground positions” next time.

Intro: A Stream-of-Consciousness Series on Gender and Church

2009-09-15T00:40:00.000+01:00

While I’m home, I’d like to write a series of posts reflecting on gender roles in the church. My parents still attend the church where I grew up, and they have had of conversations about the role of women in the church lately. Several of these conversations have been quite heated. A few people have even left. The church is currently holding a Wednesday night discussion class, and since I’m here, I’ve decided to sit in. As a female theologian with Christian feminist leanings who is dedicated to a rather conservative fold, this discussion is naturally of great interest to me. Actually, if I'm honest, I was tempted to avoid the class even though I'm concerned with how it goes. I wasn’t sure that I could sit through the discussion, especially if it’s going involve “verbal tennis” between opposing parties (as has happened in the past). Could I endure the potential emotional pain of it?

But in the end, I know I can’t stay away. I want to see this kind of communal discernment in action, even if I don’t like everything I hear or see. I love these people. Folks on both sides of the line have taught me that loving and following Jesus is a good way to live, and I want to keep doing so side by side with them, whether we agree or not. If Jesus Christ can conquer death and Satan, he can certainly empower us to overcome dissension, to love each other, and even to change our callous hearts. We are all works in progress, individually and collectively. I plan to listen in on the discussion without speaking much since I'm really just visiting, but I'll probably offer some of my reflections here.

I used to be angry and bitter about this (and honestly those feelings occasionally crop up now too), but I consider those defense mechanisms unhelpful. (Perhaps they're justifiable in a sense but not helpful.) They're walls that I prop up to keep me from being further wounded by insensitive words or actions (many of which are so commonplace that people don’t realize they can be harmful). These days I try to let myself hurt a little bit without running away or hurting others in return.

Now, I’ve been known to talk about writing a series of posts only to peter out after a post or two. (Usually because of perfectionism: I run out of time and energy because I’m never satisfied with what I’ve written.) I’ve been chewing on some of these thoughts for quite some time, so hopefully that won’t be the case. Still, just because I’ve been thinking on it for several years, doesn’t mean that my thoughts are systematic, well-ordered, persuasive, or complete. My perspective is as limited as the next person’s, and it’s shaped by more factors than even I know. These are limited offerings, but I think it’s a worthwhile exercise anyway.

Personally, I’m trying to learn the balance between articulating my perspective on these issues and respecting the different opinions of others. I want to be intellectually tenacious and still maintain room for the other. I figure that if I want to see greater inclusion for the marginalized in church and society, my own discourse should be hospitable to others, too. I’d welcome your thoughts on the subject, too, and I’d like to ask that if you have comments to leave you do so in a spirit of hospitality. (If a comment doesn’t make “the hospitality cut” in my opinion, I may delete it.) Feel free to speak your mind boldly and clearly, but do speak it lovingly.

*Photo: A promo for "The Vicar of Dibley", a hilarious British sitcom starring Dawn French. I heartily recommend it. (But it's probably not appropriate humor for the kiddos - it is, after all, a British sitcom!). I borrowed the picture from www.dailymail.co.uk.

A New Post for a New Phase!

2009-09-10T16:37:00.003+01:00

It's approaching three months since last I wrote, and, wow, there are some really new things afoot in my life. Part of the reason that I've been 'quiet' for so long (aside from my habit of infrequent blogging) is that I didn't really know how several possibilities were going to play out. It seemed good to me to wait quietly rather than to announce things that were uncertain. But we're breaking new ground now, so here's my latest news:

First, I finished my work for McM U and moved away from Abilene, TX. I left my well-loved, quasi-functioning car in Ft. Worth, rented a more reliable car, and drove to my parents' house in Atlanta. I was east of Birmingham when I allowed myself to think about the wonderful people who were becoming farther away with every passing minute. I saw their faces, heard their voices, felt their embraces. I knew I wouldn't turn around and at the same time wondered that I didn't. I'd managed to stay dry-eyed until then. (My eyes aren't especially dry right now either!) My poor cat made the trip, too. She did all her crying in the first hour or two. :) But she's adjusting.

I'm visiting my family in Atlanta for a couple of weeks. It's nice to be home for a while - connecting with old friends, hanging out with the family, walking in my favorite park, feeling the pulse of the city again (without necessarily being part of the chaos). But this is just the in-between phase...

My next stop is Oxford, England, where I will begin an MPhil in Eastern Christian Studies in October! I'm in Wolfson College, located in North Oxford on the banks of the River Cherwell. (Anyone as nerdy as I am can take a virtual tour!) I hope to complete a DPhil at Oxford as well. If all goes as I'd like, I'll be in the UK for 5-6 years.

So, that's the big, waiting-with-bated-breath news. Last fall, I applied for a number of graduate programs, most of them PhD's in the States, and heard "No" or "Maybe, but probably not" all spring. All that time, the one I really wanted - this program at Oxford - was sort of MIA. That is, until June 1st, when I found out I'd been accepted. (I'd about given up hope! I was trying to psych myself up for another round of applications! Ugh, the idea still makes me shudder.) Then I had to figure out how to pay for my degree - it's not cheap and I'm not independently wealthy! I talked to some of my mentors at ACU. I waited for two and a half months. A little less than a month ago, ACU offered to help me fund my degree(s) if I'd come back to teach there for (at least) an equal amount of time. "Yes, I'm in!!" (A friend of mine called this "indentured servitude." Personally, I think it's a sweet deal!)

And, so, when my sojourn in the UK is over, I plan to return to Abilene to teach undergraduate and graduate theology courses at ACU. I want to focus my studies and research on historical theology (which engages the development of Christian doctrines throughout history). I'm not exactly sure what topics I'll focus on, but I'm very interested in Christology, ecclesiology, gender, and inter-religious dialogue.

Chances are, with all the new things heading my way, the blog is going to get a bit of a makeover in the coming weeks. I'm hoping to step it up on posting, because I imagine this'll be a good way to maintain connections with a lot of people who are special to me. Maybe this cushion time in Atlanta will be a good time to turn over a new leaf...

'Children of Heaven'

2009-06-19T17:11:00.005+01:00

At church on Wednesday night, we discussed ways to make the gospel message concrete, especially abstract words that are familiar to Christian people but have little meaning to those who are unfamiliar with Christian terms. When Jesus teaches in the gospels, he doesn't define abstract terms or create syllogisms, he embodies them in action and story. We each reflected on life experiences, and we tried to describe examples of mercy and forgiveness from our lives.

Damon, our preacher, described a journaling project assigned in one of his graduate classes on preaching: over the course of the semester the students had to catalog each time that they saw the gospel or an illustration of the gospel in every day life. Over time an exercise like this should train these aspiring preachers to be constantly on the look out for glimpses of the 'gospel in miniature.' This is also a helpful discipline for those in the pew - no matter what job we get paid for, we all have a part in the missio Dei, the mission of God in the world. Damon challenged us to look for the gospel in miniature, and in keeping with that challenge, I'd like to recommend a film to you.

'Children of Heaven,' a 1997 Iranian film, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999 in the Best Foreign Language Film category, but it had justly won numerous awards overseas before it caught the attention of Western critics.

The opening scene of the film shows young Ali waiting patiently as a cobbler fixes a rip in Ali's sister's shoes. Ali loses the pair of shoes on his way home. Knowing that their family has no money for a new pair (and fearing a beating from their father), Ali and his sister, Zahra, hatch a plan to share Ali's sneakers until they can find a replacement of Zahra's shoes. They attend school at different times a day, so they engage in a daily shoe relay between classes. Ali later hears about a 4 km boy's race with an alluring third place prize: a brand new pair of sneakers. He swears to Zahra that if he wins third place, he'll trade the new sneakers in for a new pair of shoes for her.

I'll stop there. If you want to see self-giving love personified, this is a great film to check out. I suspect that the kingdom of God is quite like this, making 'Children of Heaven' an aptly named film.

A-Line April

2009-04-01T17:08:00.003+01:00

In Abilene, spring is here. The trees, even the mesquite, are putting out brand new green shoots. The grass is transitioning from dry and dead and soft and fresh. (It only takes a little rain to inspire such botanical optimism.) The males grackles are puffing themselves up, strutting about, and making that awkward call that sounds like they are choking to death (the females seem uniformly unimpressed).

And I'm wearing skirts. Yes, skirts in Abilene in April, possibly our windiest month of the year. You never know when the strong gusts are going to come! What can I say, I like to live on the edge.

While watching The Secret Life of Bees, some friends and I took note of how flattering all those A-line dresses were on the leading ladies. We mused about how pants just aren't as becoming on the feminine form. Why not revisit the days when dresses and skirts were the norm, even if only for a month? And so, the idea of "A-Line April" was born. We thought it a fitting alternative to the annual "No-Shave November" heartily embraced by our guy friends (A-Line April's sort of the opposite for us, really).

For those of you who've known me for a while, you might be thinking, "Does Kelli even own a skirt? I've never seen her wear one." Actually, I have a few... but it does look like I'll have to find a couple more skirts to mix things up this month. Any ideas out there for where to find inexpensive (preferably second-hand), decent, cute skirts here in Abilene? Anyone up for some thrifting?

What Were They Thinking?

2009-02-25T01:12:00.004Z

This is the graphic of a seasonal sweatshirt I came across in the "local attire/accessories" section of the grocery store a few blocks from my house.

There are several oddities about this sweatshirt. Note first that this winter wonderland sports the odd label "Abilene, TX." (Directly below the snowman.) Never, in my many years in Abilene have I seen a scene remotely close to this. An occasional snowfall, yes. Mounds of the white stuff piling up in drifts?! Uh, no. And are those pine trees and rolling hills??? The only thing anywhere close to accurate is the picturesque church in the background - we've got churches aplenty.

To those of us in Abilene, let's face reality. To those outside, let me tell you what "picturesque" Abilene is like in the winter. Imagine a flat, dusty landscape of dry grass as far as the eye can see, broken only by the occasional barbed wire fence... and I-20. Also, it's the end of February, and while other sections of the nation face wintry weather, our high today was in the mid- to upper-80s. Who is in charge of this seasonal sweatshirt making? Are you mocking us?

The good news, for you Abilenians with a certain kind of humor, is that this rather bizarre sweatshirt is currently 40% off. Need an ideal gag gift for less than $10? This could be the one for you!

Firsts

2009-02-23T20:50:00.003Z

In the last two days, I've had a few "firsts":

1. My first speeding ticket ever. I'm usually conscientious about speed limits, but this weekend as I drove home from my grandparents' house, the combination of needing a potty break and trying to make it to Abilene in time for church got the best of me. I really thought I was out of the city limits of Cross Plains already! Bummer! (I was ten minutes late for church, and did in fact make it to a bathroom despite the stop.)

2. Today I actually found the words, "Please don't dip tobacco in my class," on my lips. Seriously. It really happened. I'm still in shock.

3. Finally, I got my first "rejection" letter from a Ph. D. program today. Oh well. I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple of other schools... and also wondering what my alternatives for next year could be.

Even though this list seems on the negative side, I'm still feeling relatively upbeat. Most days, my life's charmed.

An Office Pet

2009-02-11T22:38:00.004Z

This afternoon, I've spent most of my office hours flitting between grading tests, planning lessons, and writing tests. Throughout the afternoon, I've had a constant companion: a little orange ladybug with 14 spots, 7 on each side. I'm convinced that it wants my job. I lift a test to grade, and it's beat me to the task. I go to pick up my pen - there's the ladybug perched on the tip, perhaps tasting a bit of the purple ink. (In solidarity with my mother, a spunky 4th grade teacher, I prefer to grade in purple... but, alas, with considerably less spunkiness.) As I type this, the ladybug crawls perilously across the keyboard, barely dodging my impulsive key-punching. It just attempted to ascend my headphone chords ("whatcha listenin' to?"), but got scared away by my hair (and, honestly, who can blame it?). Now, it's disappeared... maybe it's responding to those e-mails I've been neglecting. (Well, it could at least make itself useful!)

Okay, back to those tests...

A Week in Review

2009-01-26T04:14:00.004Z

I've decided to pick 10 highlights from this week to share. In random order (I'm writing them as they occur to me):

Completing and turning in my last graduate school application. The process reminded me of why I want to pursue a PhD. And now the waiting begins... (I probably won't hear back from any schools until March.) I've got to be the lamest applicant out there. Maybe everyone feels that way? Yikes!
I've had lots of time to spend with friends from my church, Hope C of C. We ate meals together, met for coffee before church tonight. I love getting to know them outside of church.
On Friday night (during one of the dinners mentioned earlier), I got to spend time with kids. At one point, I held the three-year old in my lap while we all talked about our favorite parts of the Harry Potter series. There is nothing quite so sweet as the unguarded affection of a small child.
As my 9 o'clock class ended on Friday, one of my students said to me, "Your class is too short!" I said thanks! I wondered if he'll feel the same way in a few more weeks and also considered that he's one of those "front row sitters" (therefore likely to say ingratiating things like that), but it's still a comment that I'll treasure.
This is a more abstract highlight, but more days than not, I've gone to work and come home with a feeling of deep enjoyment and contentment about work. After this semester it will be time for me to move on, and I'll be ready, but I'm enjoying the present.
I'm looking forward to Wednesday night church these days. (This is not usually the norm for me - I usually go to build community and endure whatever we're doing in class.) Right now we're studying 1 Corinthians.
I talked to both of my siblings, if briefly, for a few minutes each today. I love them.
My cousin invited me to her baby shower this weekend in Ft. Worth. I couldn't go, so instead we made plans to hang out next weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing her.
This week was full of walks: some solo, but most others with Shannon B and/or Deanna. Wonderful!
Media fun: I made a mix for a friend (we always trade mixes on birthdays and I'm about a month and a half late on hers). I think it'll be worth the wait. Also, I've been reading The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. That deserves it's own post. Finally, the Vicar of Dibley just cracks me up. Especially the nun jokes at the end of the show that inevitably flop.

It's 15 minutes past my bedtime. And since getting around 8 hours of sleep is a highlight of every day, I'm signing off.

Reflections on Teaching

2009-01-17T22:51:00.003Z

It's hard to believe it, but I've been out of school and teaching for a year and a half now. Today I've been thinking a bit about the things I like about my job, the challenges teaching presents, and the various in ways I need to grow as an academician. I thought I'd share some thoughts here.

Here's one thing that I really love about my job, something that makes me smile to myself as I climb those grueling, building-code-defying stairs to my office: moments when I can tell that I'm getting through to my students. I've recently discovered anew the joy of trying to find relevant, creative ways to connect our class discussion with my students' realities, particularly their spiritual/religious experiences. I think it's the same thing that I enjoy about crafting sermons - finding and articulating a link between careful theological thinking and the nitty-gritty situations of life. Really, what good is one without the other? Striking an appropriate balance between the two is a major part for how I evaluate my teaching effectiveness these days.

That, of course, is part of the challenge of teaching - having the wisdom to know how best to connect these things. I feel a bit ashamed to own up to the other thing I find challenging: I'm really terrible at articulating student learning outcomes and clearly explaining assignments and expectations. I stare at the computer screen for lengthy periods trying to find the best way to express these things. All I can say is, I hope it gets easier with practice. Or will it always be this painstaking?

There are other growth areas too - certainly more than strengths! I'm very aware of my paucity of experience as an educator and a scholar. I have so much to learn about my subject matter; the more I teach, the more I realize I've got so much to learn. The list is daunting, and on my pessimistic days it feels virtually insurmountable. I've yet to figure out the best way to ask clear questions for class discussion... they're especially convoluted when I'm shooting from the hip.

So, I've got a long way to go. At the same time, this unexpected opportunity to teach has given me plenty of reason to believe that it's a journey well worth taking.

A Little Forced...

2009-01-09T22:50:00.002Z

It's been a long while. I haven't really relished the thought of blogging for a few months - I've sort of been on autopilot. And this probably wouldn't be my favorite way to begin a blogging "come back", but my friend Amy tagged me, and I've decided to cooperate... mostly. :)

4 Things I did yesterday:

1. Ate breakfast and played Settlers of Catan with Shannon and Caryn. (That was yesterday, wasn't it?)
2. Walked to Peet's Coffee to work on syllabi, and found 15 cents on my way (6 coins in different places)! That's 10% of the price of my coffee!
3. Ate dinner with my roommates: a fantastic salad and a glass of red wine. In my mind I call these "kitchen sink salads" because we throw in anything that seems even remotely salad-friendly, and they're always yummy!
4. Watched Clue with roomies Kaylynn and Olivia.

4 Things on my Wish List:

1. Being accepted to a Ph. D. program for the fall.

2. Going hiking as often as possible in the next 8 months.

3. Having a successful last semester of teaching at McMurry University.

4. Learning to play an instrument: maybe the piano or the mandolin?

4 Restaurants I like:
1. Jason's Deli (I love their tomato soup and chicken panini)
2. Sharky's Burritos ("Cilantro, please!")
3. Abuelo's (if only because of the flan)
4. I actually try not to eat out that much... one of my favorite meals is homemade pizza.

4 TV shows I like:

1. The Office
2. Heroes (but I haven't seen any of this season's episodes)
3. 30 Rock (more or less because it's on after The Office)
4. Otherwise I'd rather read a book or watch a movie. But I think I'd really like The Vicar of Dibley - it's on my Netflix cue.

4 People I tag:

Well... my cooperation has its limits. I hate tagging people. (Yes, I'm that person who always broke the chain letter.)

2008-09-26T13:43:00.002+01:00

Graduate school: paying lots of money to learn to say simple things in the most pretentious way possible.

My Office

2008-09-22T18:58:00.003+01:00

For those of you who don't know, I'm teaching religion courses at a local college right now. It's my first "real job" - I don't get paid very much, but I do get benefits and don't have any other jobs on the side, so it feels pretty cushy. They even gave me an office. I'm not much of a decorator - the most distinctive feature of my office is... piles of papers on every flat surface. (All of my current and former roommates now sigh, "Big surprise!") But I do have an original Amber Lee piece on the wall and a coffee pot. That's enough to make it feel homey.

The only problem is one over which I have no control: the air conditioning. Based on how cold my work space is, I'd have to say that the thermostat is set on "arctic." The first week of work, I went out and bought a sweater to keep in here. Last week, I finally gave in and brought a crocheted blanket from home that I shamelessly wrap myself in during office hours. When it's my lunch break, I put on the sweater and go to the park - there I remember what it feels like to be warm, even - *gasp - hot! Then I go back to my office and freeze again. (Maybe this is why I've been sick recently...)

Last week we had a cooler spell - for several days in a row we had pleasantly mild temperatures. Thursday I arrived early to school to put finishing touches on my lesson plan and prepare my mind for class. I was shocked to discover that my office was a bearable temperature! The classroom was a little warm, but during office hours later that day I didn't even need my blanket! "This is more like it!" I thought to myself. I was hoping that the change in temperature outside had influenced the powers that be to be a little more reasonable about the thermostat settings. I was so excited.

Then I went to a meeting. They apologized for the heat in the room. It turns out that my office was a tolerable temperature because the air conditioning in the whole building was broken! Boo!

We're back to "arctic" again this week.

Reflection

2008-08-15T16:54:00.004+01:00

I just moved into a new house, and although I haven't unpacked everything yet, I've been thinking about arranging stuff in our space. I'm no great decorator. In fact, I'm a rather lackadaisical about it, much to my previous and current roommates' chagrin.

Anyway, I have this mirror that my last roommate left in our house. I saved it - it's a nice mirror. But a part of me feels weird about decorating with mirrors. It's like saying, "You know what this room needs? A little more ME!!!"

Summer Goals

2008-07-14T22:57:00.004+01:00

Although my summer hasn't been as "productive" as I had hoped it would be (or feared it would have to be!), I have been able to accomplish a couple of goals of utmost importance. For instance, this weekend I got to catch up with a couple of friends from high school, Erin and Robin. We went to the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta and watched Ben Hur, a part of their summer movie series. [For Abilenians: The Fox is like the Paramount - complete with Egyptian/Moorish decor and an "enchanted" ceiling - but it's about 4 times larger with two ballrooms. It's usually the place to go in Atlanta for touring Broadway shows, among other performing arts events.] In the summer, they try to recreate the old movie-going experience, complete with live organ music, a sing-along culminating in "Georgia on My Mind" (what else?!), a classic cartoon (Mickey Mouse this time), and an old news reel before the feature presentation. It was a lot of fun. Catching up with old friends: Check!

Another goal of mine this summer was to hike in North Georgia as much as possible. I still hope to get in another day hike with Mom, but I've already had the opportunity to hike a couple of times with Erin. This is a great opportunity for some photo-journaling. The following pictures are from Panther Creek Falls, a 5-mi. hike a little more than an hour from my house:

The fearless hikers!

The mountain laurel was still in bloom, one of the delights of hiking in the Southern Appalachians during late spring/early summer. The flowers were waning, showering our path and the forest floor with their lovely pink petals.

Our path took us alongside a tranquil mountain stream - the kind of environs that evoke transcendence, poetry, and "going green." We enjoyed another summer-time treat here: bing cherries! Yum!

Toward the end of the hike the waters became more tumultuous. We marveled at the way the river had sculpted the riverbed over the centuries.

Finally, we reached the end, the namesake of the trail: Panther Creek Falls.

The memory of the hike lived on in more than pictures - Erin and I both walked stiffly for the next couple of days. (We like to think of ourselves as active, outdoorsy girls, but our muscles seem to think that they were meant to belong to prissy princesses.) But achy muscles are part of the appeal of hikes like this. It sounds like a paradox, but it's not: I find nothing more spiritual than this kind of deeply physical, tangible experience. It's the loving-kindness of God made known in rushing waters, blooming flowers, delicate bugs, and singing birds. It's the presence of Christ, whose incarnation affirms the dignity and goodness of physical bodies, disclosed in human companionship and sore muscles. It's the Spirit of God moving in a perceptible but hard-to-put-your-finger-on way, not unlike the uncontrollable, unpredictable rustling of the wind through lush, green leaves.

Q & A

2008-07-06T19:45:00.004+01:00

Q: Is it possible to "grow thicker skin" and maintain a healthy amount of sensitivity?

A: ??? (Anyone?!)

Or maybe the bumps and bruises along the way are a part of the way of the cross - not to be avoided (though perhaps not to be sought after either) but rather accepted as an integral part of Christian discipleship. (It's just hard to take knocks from the devout person sitting next to me in the pew.) I have this gut feeling that this is only the beginning, and that these little blows can teach me to endure opposition without losing hope for the church or failing in love for my well-meaning brother or sister.

In Requiem

2008-07-03T16:01:00.004+01:00

Today I say goodbye to an old friend:
This is my favorite t-shirt, which I've had since high my junior year (or so) in high school. (Whoa - that was nearly 10 years ago!) When I bought it at a local thrift shop, it was already soft from years of casual wear. I wore it out. And then, when I finally felt that it was too indecent to wear around, I retired it to sleepwear. Over the years, it's gone completely threadbare - it's so thin that it has runs in it like pantyhose! I've known for about a year that I should really throw it away, but didn't have the heart. Now the runs have become sizable holes, and I can deny the truth no longer - the time has come. Goodbye, old friend - you lived up to your slogan!

A Thursday Report

2008-06-27T01:46:00.003+01:00

The Downside: 4-hour GRE. Boo! Including math applications that I haven't looked at in 8+ years (and never wish to see again). So-so combined scores (but they're acceptable, so I'll take 'em!).

The Upside: Testing center just a few blocks from the Cheesecake Factory. Lemon Raspberry Cream Cheesecake to-go. Hoorah! I'm off to enjoy my reward...

Concerning the Labeling of Milk Jug Lids

2008-05-23T21:31:00.004+01:00

I am currently employed as a barista at a locally owned coffee company. We go through a lot of milk in the course of a day, especially a lot of whole milk. Recently, I have noticed that our milk providers are intent on insulting us in one way or another through the seemingly innocuous presence of labels on the milk jug lids.

The skim and whole milk have different colored labels and lids. This is helpful, considering that we are often hastily pulling out jugs of milk to fill orders, and being able to recognize color is easier than reading each label. Also, the skim milk jug has the word "SKIM" printed on the top of its purple lid. This is okay, I think, because it effectively describes the contents and differentiates it from other sorts of milk.

This is not the case with the whole milk. In fact, the milk company we buy from can't decide what they'd rather print on the whole milk lids, so there are two different ones. What I find confusing is that the two options that they apparently can't choose between are both insulting.

The first time I noticed this, I was steaming whole milk for a latte, and needed a little extra to top off the steaming pot. Upon opening a new milk jug, I noticed the label on the lid: it said "HOMO." Presumably, this stands for "homogenized," which isn't terribly helpful because most of our milk (whether skim, 1%, 2%, or whole) has been homogenized. (Check out the selection at your local grocery store.) My initial reaction, however, was: "Can't we get some politically correct milk around here?" I'd hate for the customers to feel that our milk lid is calling them such names!

The second label option is better upon first inspection. It simply reads, "MILK." But if you think about it, how helpful is that?! We know it's MILK!!! It's obviously milk. Are they assuming that we need help identifying this as milk?! (Perhaps this is a label to help non-English speakers?) Like the "HOMO" label, this is unhelpful since it doesn't differentiate this milk from other sorts of milk, and it also assumes a very low level of intelligence on the part of the consumer.

I have a theory about why this happens: this particular milk provider puts labels on the lids of their various milk products. Due to the size of the bold, all caps font on the small lid, the label is limited to no more than 4 letters. So, the skim milk simply has the label "SKIM." However, the labels-on-the-lids policy ran into some trouble with the whole milk. Clearly, the best descriptor would be "WHOLE." This word, unfortunately, is one letter too long for the 4-letter standard. So, the milk company was stuck with two rather bad options, which they can't seem to choose between: HOMO and MILK.

My verdict is that they might as well use even more colorful four letter words since their two options are already insulting.

A Random Sampling

2008-05-23T21:03:00.002+01:00

One of my best friends called me yesterday to tell me that she's getting married... next Thursday!! (I think she's crazy.)

* * * * *

I spent last weekend in Austin with my sister and her growing family. I was delighted to be present for one of her ultrasounds. My 2 year-old nephew, Quint, and I listened to the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of his little brother's heartbeat. I'm not sure Quint really grasped what was happening, but he asked us to imitate the whoosh sound for the rest of the day.

While we were in the doctor's waiting room, Quint and I played at the kids' table in the corner. Here Quint displayed his unique skills and interests: cleaning! First, he pulled all the chairs out from the table, and announced to me, "Quint vavoom!" His imaginary vacuum zipped around the little square of carpet under the table. Once his vacuuming was completed, Quint pushed the chairs back under the table, and decided that something had to be done about the tabletop. He picked up the toy sitting on the table and placed it on top of the small bookshelf nearby, meticulously positioning it in the center of the shelf. He discovered that several books were laying on top of the bookshelf instead of on the shelves with the other books. He put them with the other books. Satisfied, he turned back to the small tabletop and began to wipe it with the palm of his hand. "Are you wiping the table, Quint?" "Yeah." The wiping went on for a while - it's obviously his favorite part.

By this time, Janis had finished paying and came to fetch us. As we turned to go, a woman about halfway through her pregnancy, who had been watching Quint's diligent cleaning "game," said to my sister, "I hope my baby comes out that clean!"

He is so my sister's son.

This week Quint and my sister have called me almost every day. Janis tells me that it's gone something like this: Quint looks forlorn. Janis asks, "What's wrong, Quint?" "KeeKee." "Do you miss Aunt Kelli?" "Yeah." "Well, let's call her!" Awww!!! That's enough to make me want to move to Austin and commute!

I'll claim her!!

2008-05-03T23:14:00.004+01:00

Guess who was recently named Greater Atlanta Christian School's Outstanding Educator of the Year for the elementary school?

KAY BRYANT

(I usually call her Mom.)

Of course, she didn't have to win an award for me to know that she's a brilliant teacher - it's just nice that other people are taking public notice too! (And now I can appeal to the informed opinions of many others when I broadcast what may otherwise seem to be biased comments about her amazing teaching talents.)

Congratulations, Mom! I'm proud of you!!

Excerpt from "Being and Doing" (More from Merton)

2008-05-01T15:10:00.003+01:00

A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.

One who is content with what he has, and who accepts the fact that he inevitably misses very much in life, is far better than one who has much more but who worries about all he may be missing. For we cannot make the best of what we are, if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not.

The lower our estimation of ourselves and the lower our expectations, the greater chance we have of using what we have. If we do not know how poor we are we will never be able to appreciate what we actually have. But, above all, we must learn our own weakness in order to awaken to a new order of action and of being - and experience God Himself accomplishing in us the things we find impossible.

We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but also because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing hell on earth.

If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will silently withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.

Let us, therefore, learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much about what we are missing. It is true that we make many mistakes. But the biggest of them all is to be surprised at them: as if we had some hope of never making any.

Mistakes are a part of our life, and not the least important part. If we are humble, and if we believe the Providence of God, we will see that our mistakes are not merely a necessary evil, something we lament and count as lost: they enter into the very structure of our existence. It is by making mistakes that we gain experience, not only for ourselves but for others. And though our experience prevents neither ourselves nor others from making the same mistake many times, the repeated experience still has a positive value.

- Thomas Merton, "Being and Doing" from No Man is an Island

Cross-Pollinating

2008-04-24T03:20:00.004+01:00

That's what my friend Ed calls it when a person raised in the Churches of Christ works for a university affiliated with another denomination. Well, I've been "cross-pollinating" all year - teaching a class or two in the Religion and Philosophy Department of a local Methodist university.

I found out today that I'll get to continue my little adventure in "academic horticulture" next year - as full-time faculty member for one year. (They need another year to find a good candidate for the open permanent position, which works out perfectly because I have an awkward interim year before I hopefully start a PhD.)

There are lots of things about this that excite me. For instance, I'm excited about having an office that isn't a little closet in the back of the library or a disheveled desk in my living room (which sometimes contaminates every flat surface in the house!). Now it'll be a disheveled desk somewhere else! Woohoo! I've been pointlessly brainstorming about how to make my Intro to Christianity course better, and now I get to purposely brainstorm about it! But the most exciting thing is having the opportunity to actually be a part of the community of this university - working alongside experienced faculty members and being able to connect more readily with my students outside of class. My only misgiving about this year as an adjunct professor has been my extremely loose connection to the daily rhythms of campus life. I want to be a professor because I love the unique opportunity it offers for synthesizing academic study and pastoral ministry, and being an adjunct professor has made opportunities for the latter difficult to come by. Plus, I think it'll be GREAT FUN!

a good change

2008-04-14T20:59:00.004+01:00

Where once there was this:

...Now there is this:

The leathery, dessicated catfish heads - a rather nauseating emblem of death, if you ask me - have been exchanged for a hanging pot of vivacious (albeit wind-tossed) ivy. It's a good change!

awkward

2008-04-01T02:20:00.006+01:00

Sometimes I wonder if my social skills will ever recover from graduate school.

Once last semester, right after that final grueling summer of my M. Div., I accidentally introduced myself with the wrong name. I was meeting a friend's (now ex-) girlfriend from out of town. My friend Olivia, one of the hosting our gathering, introduced everyone in the room. She started with me, "Kelli, this is Meredith. Meredith, this is..." I broke in and meant to supply my name as I amiably stretched out a hand to shake hers. The hand was extended successfully, but the overly confident words that came out of my mouth were, oddly enough, "Hi, I'm Meredith." At the same time, that I claimed my new acquaintance's name was my own, Olivia finished her part of the introduction, "...Kelli." Kaylynn, after she stopped laughing at me (it took a while), remarked, "If I didn't know who you are, I would have believed that your name is Meredith. You said it with such confidence." It was a bad day for social awkwardness.

Most of the time my social blunders are less conspicuous, like saying obnoxious scholarly words in ordinary conversation. At one point over Christmas break, I found myself explaining what an inclusio is to a 3rd grader. (That was a low point of my social awkwardness. It just came flying out of my mouth before I could stop it! I'm blaming exegesis, David and Jon for this one. ;) ) This week I ran into some friends at a local restaurant and we were chatting casually when I found the word "culpable" on my lips. One friend kindly mocked me. Really - I don't try to do this - these things just come to mind before other, more commonplace words. I end up feeling like I'm being pretentious... even though I'm not trying to impress anyone.

You've lived in West Texas too long when...

2008-03-11T02:14:00.004Z

... You're grading papers and have to look up the proper conjugation of the English word 'drag.'

In case anyone out there is wondering, the past tense of this verb is not 'drug.' It's 'dragged.' For example, you would say, "I dragged myself out of bed," not "I drug myself out of bed." But I've lived in Texas long enough to read 'drug,' think it's wrong, and then think, "But I hear it all the time!" (A flawed system for understanding how to write properly in English if there ever was one... but it's my normal system.) I'm sitting in the coffee shop where I work, so I asked around. None of us could decide - my co-workers decided that either conjugation is valid (even grammar is relative these days). We even entertained the idea that the use of a helping verb might distinguish 'dragged' from 'drug.' Then I looked it up (because I can't go on with life without satisfying my grammatical curiosity), confirmed my initial suspicions that the past tense is indeed 'dragged' (never 'drug'!), and thought, "I've lived in Texas a long time."

Spring(-ish)

2008-03-10T18:40:00.005Z

Last week I took pictures of the flowers blooming in my yard - Amber planted them at least a year and a half ago, but she's not around to enjoy the product of her labors. So, here you go, Amber. Thanks for the springtime flowers!

The plum tree also began to blossom... a week before it snowed twice. It has bad timing - I feel an odd kinship with that pathetic little tree. I didn't get a good shot of it, so you'll be spared the floral pictures.

Last Thursday it snowed enough between the time I got up and when I was leaving to give my class their midterm that the street in front of my house was covered by an inch of snow. It was perilous! I pulled out of my driveway and cautiously headed down my windy street only to discover that I wasn't being nearly cautious enough! I hit the first curve a little too fast and found my car sliding out of control toward a neighbor's mailbox. I hit the brakes - that did no good. I sucked in my breath, bit my lip, and tried in vain to regain control as I watched the mailbox slip closer and closer toward my window and side mirror. The car stopped sliding inches from the mailbox. On my way home from school that afternoon, I took a look at the tire marks in the snow - it was sooooo close!! (I think I'll continue trying to live in minimally snowy areas, for the safety of everyone!)

Bedichek Yourself

2008-03-05T21:25:00.007Z

Here's the license plate of a dear friend of mine:

It's almost as if someone at the DMV found out that she's a preacher's kid and said, "I've got just the thing for her." It makes me giggle.

Driven

2008-02-28T14:40:00.002Z

"The wind blows wherever it pleases..."

The walls of my little lake cabin are paper thin, and I'm a light sleeper. On gusty nights (like last night), I can hardly sleep, and my half-asleep dreams all have this driven, restless quality that mirrors the surges of wind outside my window. I'm just hoping that my day won't continue to imitate the drivenness of this windy West Texas day.

Luke

2008-02-27T18:41:00.003Z

At the moment, I’m reading up on Luke-Acts. I’m focusing a good deal of the internet course I’m creating on the Gospel of Luke. Something that keeps striking me is that Luke is equally at home in the Jewish and the Greco-Roman world. He draws much of his theology from the Jewish Scriptures and applies familiar Old Testament images to explain who Jesus is. Jesus is Messiah, Son of Man (Dan. 7), a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18), the Suffering Servant (Isa. 53), an Elijah-like figure. At the same time, Luke appropriates Greco-Roman models in his gospel: Jesus teaches at meals like a philosopher would, he seems comparable to an Immortal (i.e., Hercules) and benefactors.*

There are lots of theological reasons that Luke keeps piling up image upon image to describe Jesus. I think it’s interesting that Luke assumes an audience made up of both Jews and Greeks. He tries to make the good news of Jesus accessible to both groups, doing in his writing just what Paul does in the book of Acts. Luke doesn’t just write about the expansion of the Kingdom of God among Jews and Gentiles – Luke participates in it. In the way Luke chose to write his gospel – with echoes of Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures – he (purposely?) puts into practice the inclusiveness demonstrated in the lives of Jesus, the apostles, and the early Christians.

Is it any wonder then that scholars can’t tell whether Luke was a Gentile or a Hellenistic Jew? Maybe the ambiguity is precisely the point: “There is neither Jew nor Greek… for [we] are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

* I’m drawing from Mark Allen Powell's Fortress Introduction to the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) 100-103.

The Missing Valentine

2008-02-18T04:37:00.004Z

Thursday was my first Valentine's Day without a card from Grandma. It was the third (and final) card missing this year. My grandmother, Elaine, passed away this summer on July 14th (exactly 9 months). She loved to express her affection for others through finding just the right card for the right person on any given occasion. I remember looking forward to opening the mailbox and finding the envelope addressed in her neat, slanted script (it was much like my dad's). While Grandpa was still living, she always signed for him, too. Once I moved to Abilene, the cards were often hand-delivered when we would meet up for lunch on Sundays. Before my last year of graduate school, Amber and I moved into the little lake cabin next door to her house. Amber got a card that year, too. I wish that last year hadn't been so busy, so I could have enjoyed the last months living close to her. I didn't realize our time was so limited, but I guess no one ever does.

I never knew that the little, often sappy, cards she sent me had meant so much. Actually, they probably didn't matter much in themselves - I just miss the woman who sent them so faithfully year after year.

discouragement

2008-02-08T21:29:00.000Z

I have a decent education: a BA, an M. Div. Not a bad grade-point average either. I've even had opportunities to do cool things like officiate weddings, present academic papers, teach college classes, speak on the radio, and write curriculum. For better or for worse, lots of intelligent, respectable people have confidence in me.

Why is it, then, that I spend so much of my time feeling like I don't have a clue what I'm doing?

Lent

2008-02-07T05:31:00.000Z

Lent crept up on me this year. Before I knew it, it was Ash Wednesday. This year, I've decided to give up one of my constant guilty pleasures: hitting the snooze button (along with resetting the alarm for a much later time, or turning off the alarm and going back to sleep). I'm a day late, but better late than never, right?

Fun in Syriac

2008-02-04T17:40:00.000Z

I've decided to pursue a Ph. D. sometime in the next couple of years, so I'm auditing a couple of language classes. I'm trying to do a little leveling in German, and exploring a probable field of study in classical Syriac. (German is grunt-work, Syriac is groovy, both are guttural.) The following words were exchanged this morning while we took turns translating sentences from our Syriac primer:

Hesitant student: "I know what I want it to say..."

Dr. Childers: "I've met people in churches like you."

(I giggled and scribbled it in the margins of my notebook.)

Merton's Response

2008-02-01T22:47:00.000Z

Thomas Merton must have spent some time musing on hypothetical outcomes, too. I imagine that his response to my earlier questions about choosing between different possibilities might run something like this (from No Man Is An Island):

In planning the course of our lives, we must remember the importance and dignity of our own freedom. A man who fears to settle his future by a good act of his own free choice does not understand the love of God. For our freedom is a gift God has given us in order that he may be able to love us more perfectly, and be loved by us more perfectly in return.

Love is perfect in proportion to its freedom. It is free in proportion to its purity. We act most freely when we act purely in response to the love of God. But the purest love of God is not servile, not blind, not limited by fear. Pure charity is fully aware of the power of its own freedom. Perfectly confident of being loved by God, the soul that loves Him dares to make a choice of its own, knowing that its own choice will be acceptable to love.

At the same time pure love is prudent. It is enlightened with a clear-sighted discretion. Trained in freedom, it knows how to avoid the selfishness that frustrates its action. It sees obstacles and avoids or overcomes them. It is keenly sensitive to the smallest signs of God's will and good pleasure in the circumstances of its own life, and its freedom is conditioned by the knowledge of all these. Therefore, in choosing what will please God, it takes account of all the slightest indications of His will. Yet if we add all these indications together, they seldom suffice to give us absolute certitude that God wills one thing to the exclusion of every other. He Who loves us means by this to leave us room for our own freedom, so that we may dare to choose for ourselves, with no other certainty than that His love will be pleased by our intention to please Him.

A Quiz for Amber

2008-01-26T16:43:00.001Z

My friend Amber has been complaining that her new friends in California think her Texas accent is so cute. The problem is that she didn't know she had an accent. So, I'm challenging her (and any other curious observers) to take this quiz. Here are my results:

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The Inland North
The South
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

It was pretty accurate for me: I was born in St. Louis (and have mostly retained that accent) but moved to Atlanta after kindergarten (and thus have added useful Southern words like "y'all" and the occasional accidental drawl). What's your American accent?

Hypotheticals

2008-01-25T16:46:00.000Z

This morning I've had a flurry of hypothetical questions on my mind. What if things were different? What if my plans included y instead of x? Would (or will) I regret choosing one set of options over another? What am I willing to relinquish? Other than my faith in Jesus Christ, what will I cling to at all cost? Could the call of God in my life be answered obediently in more than one way? Or maybe it's better asked this way: Is God's calling in my life something that is specific or general? (I think God calls some people to specific tasks and others to more general ones - which kind of calling is mine?) Can I live fully, faithfully, joyfully with a different set of circumstances than those I envision? Can I with the ones I'm choosing now?

Some of these questions we answer for ourselves. We get to learn to live into them, accepting the outcome as the end that we chose over other possible ends with the hope that God is somehow in the midst of that process - guiding us, journeying with us. Some questions are answered for us, for better or for worse, and we learn to live with those too. Other questions we can only answer alongside others. Here's where the questions of what we are willing to leave behind and what we will not release become the most complicated and the most urgent to answer.

Such hypothetical questions and the world of dim, hazy possibilities behind them are like planted seeds. They each seem to hold the potential for life that gives way to more life. Given the conditions of soil, water and temperature, some will germinate while others lie forever dormant. For now, the surface of the soil is still smooth - who can tell which fragile shoots will break through?

The Mantis Parable

2008-01-17T22:57:00.000Z

I randomly found this short animated film on YouTube while looking for inspiration for the online class I'm writing for ACU. The Mantis Parable is Josh Staub's first film. (You can visit his website and order it here.) I enjoyed it and thought that you might too!

I'm trying to introduce my students to the theological perspectives of the four gospels. That is, the four gospels differ from one another (sometimes in small ways, sometimes significant) because of the theological message that the writer is trying to communicate to the reader. To get them thinking about different perspectives, I thought I'd have them each watch this film and write an interpretation of its meaning. Much like the four evangelists, my students are reflecting and describing the same story, but chances are they will perceive different nuances in that story depending on their own perspectives, contexts, and life experiences. I imagine that in a group of 3 or 4 students, their interpretations will differ significantly even though it's just a short, animated film. Is it any surprise, then, that the gospels differ sometimes slightly, sometimes significantly as they are interpreting a story of much greater length, importance, and ambiguity?

I'm still experimenting with teaching - maybe I'll learn that this isn't the best concrete experience for my subject matter. Still, it's an assignment that I'm excited about. Any feedback?

An exchange from work

2008-01-16T06:23:00.000Z

I've been working at a locally owned coffee shop, Tuscany's ("tus-CAH-nees" is how my employers insist we pronounce it), since October. The following is by far my funniest exchange with a customer to date:

A teenage boy walks up to the register, his buddies in tow, and orders an artsy coffee drink (we do pretty coffee drinks - it's all about presentation). I take his order, ring it up, and as he digs out some change, I write down his description so we can bring his drink to him when it's ready. When I look up, he's peering down at my messy, slanted script.

"Boy in green t-shirt?" he asks. "I thought you'd just need to write, 'Handsome.'"

Grinning mischievously, I reply, "Yeah, but I want them to be able to find you." (It was just too good to pass up. Kelli with the zinger! That hardly ever happens!)

His buddies yell, "OOOOOOOooooo, she got you!" (I believe high fives were exchanged.) While they're ordering their own artsy coffee drinks, boy-in-the-green-shirt won't leave me alone about his description.

"I'll tell you what," I finally say, "I'll put 'handsome' in quotation marks just to make you feel a little better." He assents and walks away with his buddies.

About 5 minutes pass, and I'm busy washing dishes (we do a lot of that) when my boss walks up to me with a drink in hand and says, "I can't find the guy on this ticket. Who's 'handsome'?"

Something Life-Giving

2008-01-11T21:15:00.000Z

This week I've been working on developing an internet course for ACU's Distance Ed. Program on the Life and Teachings of Jesus (Bible 101 around here). I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with an outside consultant, Tom, to plan out one of my course modules. Due to a communication error, we ended up having to scrap hours of work. Oops. But all was not lost. We had some great discussions about faith, the Bible, and the church. Tom is a faithful Catholic, and he has listened to the teachings of Jesus through liturgical readings all his life. He was especially fascinated with the idea that each evangelist develops certain themes to convey the theological perspective of the gospel. Tom had not read the gospels through in a long time, so yesterday he went out, bought a easy to carry Bible, and began to read Luke. When I saw him today, he informed me that he's almost finished with the gospel of Luke and asked for his next "reading assignment."

Writing this course has really been stretching me, and the process has been slow and draining. Tom's fresh enthusiasm for the story of Jesus Christ and for the distinctive viewpoints of each gospel reminded me why I wanted to do this sort of work in the first place. Tom has found something life-giving in the story of Jesus. That's doubly life-giving to me.

Self-Disclosure

2008-01-10T13:27:00.000Z

I'm a people-pleaser and a perfectionist. It's an unfortunate combination.

Homespun

2008-01-07T18:54:00.000Z

In Abilene, you sometimes find bits of April sprinkled into winter months like January. Today is one of those days, and I took advantage of the welcome sunshine during my lunch break. While walking the track around ACU, my mind wandered the realm of metaphor - that wondrous literary device that bests lengthy expositions with a simple image. I've recently discovered that finding a metaphor to describe my feelings or situation at any given point is extremely satisfying, opening new doors of self-understanding in a way that other descriptions can't. Anyway, here's the metaphor that really stuck with me today.

One thing that I love about reading patristic writers is that they have immersed themselves so deeply in the Scriptures that biblical images and phrases pour freely from their pens and saturate their writing. Some of this is intentional, but some is subconscious. They wield biblical allusions freely, imaginatively, and even playfully - far more creatively than my historical criticism trained mind can begin to fathom. Sometimes the allusions are so subtle that I skim right over them without noticing. Whatever the outcome, for these patristic writers the text has a life that's not quite bound by its original context so that it takes on new meaning and significance in the author's situation. I'm not about to throw cautions about original context to the wind, but I still think there's something beautiful and inspiring about the lively patristic use of the Bible. I'd like for Scripture to capture my imagination that way (instead of quotes from the latest Office episode!).

These patristic writers use Scripture the way a woman quilting by hand works thread in and out of the material. Sometimes the thread is barely visible, even intentionally hidden from sight, but nonetheless it is that which holds the whole tapestry together. However beautiful the material and design may be, the small, careful stitches combine to form the pattern that gives the quilt its appealing texture. In such a way the Scriptures are woven into patristic writings, holding them together, adorning them.

Lord, though life sometimes hands us what seem to be random pieces of material, may your life-giving Word be the thread that binds it all together, bringing order, beauty and texture to our otherwise jumbled existence.

New Year's Exclusive

2008-01-02T22:16:00.000Z

Happy New Year! Well, 2008's certainly holding new things for me. For instance, this will be the first year I've ever lived alone, meaning that I'll spend a lot of my time listening to that phantom ticking noise in the lake cabin (where is it coming from and how do I stop it?!) and plotting the next great way to lure visitors out to my neck-o-the-semi-arid-land ("woods" doesn't quite fit for Abilene terrain).

My now former roommate, Amber Joy, is currently en route to her next great adventure: 13 weeks as a traveling nurse in California. (Sounds like great fun, doesn't it?) Today she's romping around at the Grand Canyon. Here's an exclusive picture of her catching some zzz's on New Year's Eve in preparation for her early morning departure. (The cats felt that they needed to get in on that awesome napping action, too.)

Aww! Isn't that sweet?! I just couldn't resist sharing. Hehehe.

Doesn't Alley look so peaceful in this picture? Well, don't let such appearances fool you! This morning as I sipped my freshly ground, fair-trade Columbian coffee (thanks, Henricksens!) in a lovely 8-cup French Press (gracias, Russ!), I heard her come onto the porch. Desperate for the company of something other than the Phantom (tick... tick... tick), I cracked the door open to greet her. She bolted in with a LIVE BIRD clenched between her teeth, and promptly let it go in my bedroom so she could play with her food inside. I managed to catch it and take it back outside before any serious blood-letting could occur, and returned to my leisured coffee-sipping while the Phantom ticked away. So begin my solo lake cabin adventures...

No Man Is An Island

2007-12-20T18:27:00.000Z

Thanks to a thoughtful gift from my friend Kadie, I've been slowly chewing on the first chapter of Thomas Merton's No Man Is An Island. The beginning of the chapter has been especially poignant for me this week:

A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.

There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. In disinterested activity we best fulfill our own capacities to act and to be.

Yet there can never be happiness in compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say it must be given, not merely taken. Unselfish love that is poured out upon a selfish object does not bring perfect happiness: not because love requires a return or a reward for loving, but because it rests in the happiness of the beloved. And if the one loved receives love selfishly, the lover is not satisfied. He sees that his love has failed to make the beloved happy. It has not awakened his capacity for unselfish love.

Hence the paradox that unselfish love cannot rest perfectly except in a love that is perfectly reciprocated: because it knows that the only true peace is found in selfless love. Selfless love consents to be loved selflessly for the sake of the beloved. In doing so, it perfects itself.

The gift of love is the gift of the power and capacity to love, and, therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So, love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received.

I love this passage of the book, but there's this little skeptical voice that wants me to buck Merton's assertions. Specifically, that voice asks me, "Is such selfless love humanly possible?" Merton is, no doubt, presenting an ideal, but he's presenting it as if it is within reach. Is it? Or, perhaps some of us learn to love in a completely selfless manner - how likely is it for those two persons to meet and love one another so that their love "perfects itself"?* This is an ideal to be lived into, but maybe it is not perfectly achieved until God completes his good work in us (Phil. 1:6).

Merton goes on to nuance his discussion of selfless love: it doesn't just consent to everything the beloved wants. Merton explains that we sometimes fool ourselves into believing that we are selfless when we give in to everything the beloved wants. In truth, we can be enslaving the beloved to ourselves. Also, selfless love desires what is good for the beloved, and that is not always the thing that the beloved wants.

* Note: Merton and I are both referring to all kinds of love, not merely romantic love.

Beginning Again

2007-12-17T23:02:00.001Z

This morning I arose in time to watch the sunlight break over the eastern horizon. (A rare event for me.) I stood shivering, camera ready, in the crisp morning air, wanting to capture it at just the right moment. I'm not a great photographer, but this seemed like a good image to end my blogging sabbatical. (Chances are no one bothers to check my blog anymore... that's probably for the best.)

I can't explain it, but I felt a baffling sense of loss as the light of dawn spread across the once inky landscape - not my normal response to such scenes. I'm still unsettled by my morning gloominess. I've been on the edge of weeping all day long - just a moment or two away from completely losing it. I managed to keep it together until I got home from work this evening, but it was a stretch. I guess it's just one of those days.

It's been a difficult and wonderful 6 months. There has been heartache and loss (the kind that comes in waves), stress and anxiety, feeling incompetent at nearly every turn, loneliness. But the same months held moments of deep joy (that even outlast the waves of loss), a feeling of completion and accomplishment, new jobs, a sense of calling, meeting new friends, deepening old friendships, and a growing, hopeful realization that God isn't finished with me yet. Needless to say, there's quite a bit to to catch up on.

This is a time of ambiguity and uncertainty in my life, much like the sunrise: whether it begins with bright, golden hues or just the gradual lightening of gray skies, it's hard to tell what the day will hold. The Lord was right: each day has enough trouble of its own. But there's hope and excitement for a fresh start too. Fortunately, we always begin again.

I'm tired...

2007-06-22T03:05:00.000+01:00

...of blogging. Well, tired of writing in general. I've been having a hard time stringing words together for the last month or so. I mean, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it always takes me a while to write something substantial, but this is ridiculous. I'm not usually one to turn in assignments late, but it's happened twice so far this summer - I just can't seem to get it together.

What I'm saying is this: it's summer vacation. And I'm taking a break from writing anything that I don't have to write. Maybe I'll pick it back up in a couple of months...

2007-05-23T21:02:00.001+01:00

I found several copies of this prayer floating around at the conference last week. It provides apt words for my current spiritual state:

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 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 I will 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.

- Thomas Merton

2007-05-22T20:50:00.000+01:00

Over the last year, our church has had a cycle of guest preachers. Sometimes this has been refreshing, at other times frustrating. One of our frequent guest preachers is a minister at another local congregation, and he seems to speak only in hyperbole. At first, this made me cringe – I desire a certain level of conscientious nuance in religious speech (a rigorous criterion that I myself rarely meet – maybe I should loosen up a bit!). However, my friend Kadie framed this for me in a different way as we were sitting together in church this Sunday. Kadie wouldn’t have said it this way, but her perspective was a God-sent, “Get over yourself.”

Kadie explained that our speaker’s exaggerated speech made her ask herself what she believed about his statement. For example, when the preacher explained that the most important question for a seeker shouldn’t be, “How can I get to heaven,” but “How can I be a part of this group of people (i.e. the church),” it was clearly an overstatement. Two poles are established, neither of which is rich enough to describe what it means to follow Christ. (But the first one is a primary fixation of Western Christianity.) The speaker was trying to emphasize the importance of community for spiritual formation over against the interests of the individual, so he overstated the case for it. This hyperbolic statement is not meant to be swallowed without question; it’s meant to make the hearers ask themselves and one another, “What do we believe about this?”

Kadie’s reflections have got me thinking too. While I feel a little antsy when a speaker overstates the case, it occurs to me that his preaching does what it sets out to do. That is, it is meant to evoke dialogue and reflection. This is speech that does not claim the final word, however over-confident such claims seem on the surface. The speaker doesn’t do all the thinking for the congregation, but delivers purposely provoking thoughts and gives the community the responsibility to critically sort it out.

So, “hyperbolic” is still not my favorite style of preaching. But because my friend Kadie shared her insight into the function of that style, I appreciate it much more. Her comments were redemptive and convicting for me – once again, I see God beckoning me back into the midst of the church instead of looking on, arms folded, in a critical manner. And suddenly, I feel as if I'm straightening up after spending hours slouched down - a feeling of release and reorientation, of freedom. Praise be to you, O God.

living Hebrews 11

2007-05-19T18:24:00.000+01:00

While at a conference this week, I saw Donna Hester perform her Iron Apron Strings, an original theatrical piece written in reflection on the women listed in Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1 (plus Eve). Hester's work centers in on each of these women in times of uncertainty, when they are struggling to make sense of the twists and turns of life. They're barely getting by, unable to discern their significance in the story of God which is breaking into the world.

Hester's interpretation of Rahab is especially captivating, not because of the monologue (which is well-written and well-performed), but because of the blocking (i.e. actions and props). Rahab describes her descent into prostitution - an occupation which morphes from "what you do" to "who you are." The monologue is gut-wrenching and heart-breaking. Yet, as Rahab unravels her tale of one hard knock after another, she irons a long cord of scarlet fabric. No mention is made of the destiny of that famous length of cloth - its presence is enough to evoke that fateful moment when it would dangle in her window as trumpets blew and Jericho's once sturdy walls shook (Joshua 2-6).

This image strikes a cord with me, as my graduation dates rapidly approaches. I'd like to think that maybe I'm ironing my own scarlet cord - holding in my hands, metaphorically speaking, something seemingly innocuous but that could be a tiny prop in the grand story of God which is unfolding in the life of the church. That may smack a bit of self-aggrandisement, but that's not my intention. The story in Joshua isn't centered around Rahab and her scrap of scarlet cord. It's about the action of God. Rahab happens to be in the right place at the right time, with an eye for the unusual, an imagination that can foresee an altered state of reality, and a willingness to dive in with whatever she has at her disposal even if it doesn't seem like much. She's an unlikely player... and an exemplary one - maybe that's why she also shows up in that long list of heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11.

Perhaps Rahab was also asked, "What are you going to do with that?!" Maybe, like me, sometimes her only response was a shrugging, "I don't know." But walking by faith, if Rahab is indeed an example of this, means carrying on in the midst of uncertainty and preparing for what currently seems unlikely or impossible.

To this end, I think I'm going to commit myself to a new discipline - a discipline that I will probably just allude to from time to time here. It's an unlikely one, one that will probably seem pointless and fruitless to many: I think I'll start writing sermons and practicing delivering them as a spiritual discipline.* Do I dare compare that to "ironing a scarlet cord" or building an ark?

* I think spiritual disciplines are best practiced in the context of community. Are there any of my female seminary friends out there who would like to participate?

2007-05-16T03:31:00.000+01:00

It’s been a while since I wrote a thoroughly pointless post, so I thought I’d write about this theory that I’ve always had. Unlike most of my theories, this one is actually practical in an every-day sort of way. Also, most people just roll their eyes at me when I insist that I really think this might be true. That’s okay. They can be wrong.

Have you ever noticed that hot liquids seem to spill more easily than other liquids? This is a regular occurrence in my life. Now, it’s true that I’m not the most graceful of girls, and I am prone to spilling things anyway. It is possible that I’m the reason that things seem more “spill-able.” However, this tendency also puts me in a knowledgeable position to speak about spills. You might call me a spill expert.

Having acknowledged my own role in the spilling of beverages both warm and cold, I have the following theory of why hot beverages seem to spill more often than cold ones. Heating a certain item involves speeding up the movement of its molecules. Therefore, hot beverages spill more easily because their molecules are moving faster, rendering them more volatile.

So, the next time you slosh hot coffee onto your shirt during the morning commute, don’t give yourself such a hard time. It might just be those zippy little molecules!

2007-05-04T22:49:00.000+01:00

So that paper didn't turn out quite as well as I might have liked... but I just turned it in anyway (5 minutes ago), and it feels nice to finally have a chance to take a breath without unfinished assignments looming over head. Besides, I got to read some patristic writers, and I always enjoy that. Here's a statement from Clement of Alexandria that I keep thinking about:

Now the Scripture kindles the living spark of the soul, and directs the eye suitably for contemplation; perchance inserting something, as the husbandman when he ingrafts, but, according to the opinion of the divine apostle, exciting what is in the soul. (Stromata, Book 1, Chapter 1)

Mmm - savor that! "Scripture kindles the living spark of the soul." I read Clement and I think to myself, "I want to read Scripture with that kind of passion." Perhaps I'll sit at the feet of the fathers this summer... Book of Steps here I come!

But first, it's time for a little recreation... I think I'll go see a musical tonight. Maybe Wicked?!

Thanks, Billy.

2007-05-01T04:53:00.000+01:00

I'm working on this paper. I'm not quite sure how it'll turn out, but I have a hunch that it'll be a mixture of the following components: excerpts from 2nd and 3rd century church fathers concerning the New Testament canon, insights from the epistemology of testimony and virtue epistemology (whew!), and Christian catechesis. Maybe. How that'll all fit together is still a mystery to me. (But it needs to all come together in the next 24 hours or so. No worries - it'll work out somehow.)

Today I picked up Canon and Criteria in Christian Theology by William Abraham. The first two chapters (all I've read so far) are fascinating! I wish I had more time to dive into this material. Abraham challenges the notion that the Bible is primarily a source of epistemic justification. In other words, Scripture should not be used as a trump card in religious discussion and life. (That's too simplistic a description, but it'll have to do.) Abraham describes the Christian Scriptures as just one among many canons of the church. Scripture is a means of grace which gives us access to divine revelation. It strikes me that this is quite different from the way that we tend to view Scripture in the church - in a refreshing and life-giving way. Although this seems to run counter to a lot of Protestant Christianity's teaching about the nature and function of Scripture, it actually provides a more balanced, respectful view of Scripture. Here's an excerpt that I found particularly moving:*

We might sum up by thinking of the varied canonical traditions as different elements in the production of a grand symphony. The music which results is the music of salvation, which naturally transposes itself into hymns of praise. Some of the canonical traditions, like the water, oil, bread, and wine of the sacraments, represent various instruments in the orchestra of the Church. Some, like Fathers and bishops, represent various players. Some, like liturgical material, represent the scores, which are best followed according to the programme notes which accompany them. Everyone involved in the orchestra must approach his or her role in a spirit of humility and dependence, joy and praise. Most important of all, everyone must heed and be open to the leading of the great conductor, the Holy Spirit, who, through the use of the canonical traditions of the Church, creates within the participants the melody of Christ the Saviour, a music which leads ineluctably into the unfathomable, unspeakable mystery of the living God.

When I first learned about the historical formation of the New Testament canon, it was somewhat disorienting. It took centuries to fully flower, and it was a messy, ad hoc process. I'll never see Scripture in the same way again... and I think that's a profoundly good thing!

We spend a lot of our religious lives trying to avoid disorientation. We sing happy-clappy (theologically bankrupt) praise songs and pretend that the lament psalms don't exist. (No wonder people fall away from church when they're struggling.) We make up ridiculous, snappy slogans to slap on our bumpers. Sometimes we turn a blind eye to things that might pose a challenge to faith. On the other hand, I've had friends drop their faith like a hot potato when times of disorientation come. These moves are two sides of the same coin - they seek re-orientation at the cost of serious inquiry. (Although the second of the two reactions seems more intellectually honest than the first to me.)

I suggest living into disorientation for a while - even (especially) when it comes to central assumptions in our faith. Unrushed re-orientation is worth the uncomfortable wait; at least, that has been my experience in struggling with the formation of the Christian canon. Disorientation gave way to new appreciation for the church, despite all of its short-comings and foibles. Most importantly, I think got a tiny glimpse of the great conductor, the Holy Spirit, leading us along through confusing tangle of human history. I heard the soft strains of the melody of the Saviour... could it be that in the midst of disorientation I stumbled unawares into the mysterious presence of the living God?

* It moves me partially because of the musical imagery - I'm such a sucker for symphonic metaphors!

a prayer for the church

2007-04-05T02:38:00.000+01:00

I came across this prayer by Margaret and Ian Fraser. It seems appropriate as we approach the day of Jesus' death - disorienting, challenging.

Lord God,
whose son was content to die
to bring new life,
have mercy on your church
which will do anything you ask,
anything at all:
except die
and be reborn.

Lord Christ,
forbid us unity
that leaves us where we are
and as we are:
welded into one company
but extracted from the battle;
engaged to be yours
but not found at your side.

Holy Spirit of God -
reach deeper than our inertia and fears:
release us into the freedom of the children of God.

Follow your heart...

2007-03-22T01:50:00.000Z

Actually heard during the closing announcements at church on Sunday:

Announcer: "We'd like to remind everyone of the upcoming bridal shower for So-'n'-So and Such-'n'-Such at Joe and Jane Doe's house on this particular date. In case you don't know where they live, the address is on screen behind me." [The announcement flashes up on screen with the address.]

Joe Doe pipes up from the amidst the congregation, "That's not the right house number."

Announcer: "Well, you know what the road is - just follow your hearts to the right house."

Wow. New Age meets technology - Our hearts are now internal GPS units. I definitely didn't see that one coming.

* This post is dedicated to Tera. Hang on, girl - just a couple more weeks. ;)

John 15:1-17

2007-03-09T02:13:00.000Z

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean* because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call your servants, because servants do not know their master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit - fruit that will last - and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

This picture is currently the wallpaper on my computer, and every time I see it I think about this passage. Thinking about it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy... until I actually attend to Jesus' words! This is a pretty challenging vision of Christian life together! Here's just an off-the-cuff list of my observations:

God is the one who prunes the vine. (I think we tend to forget that from time to time.)
As branches in the True Vine, we are participants in the love of the divine communion(!).
The allure of autonomy is deceptive. A branch hoping to produce fruit on its own ends up in quite the opposite state: tossed away, withered - good only for firewood. Kinda puts my prideful strivings in perspective!
"Friends" - wow. I suspect that this is a more robust notion of friendship than those we inherited from Romanticism. That alone is worthy of several posts.
Love is costly here. It's easy to read the final "love one another" without glancing at the first, more demanding command: "Love each other as I have loved you." And, of course, on the lips of Jesus, the reference to laying down one's life is no empty exhortation. (Ironically, what may appear as being cut off from the land of the living is actually remaining in the True Vine.) I wonder - what could we say about the nature of the church from this passage?

One more random thought: this passage makes me think of Polycarp - a second century bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of the apostle John. His name is derived from two Greek words that appear in this passage: polu karpos or "much fruit." And the name fits. In 155, facing certain execution at the hands of local magistrates, Polycarp refused to curse Christ saying, "I have been his servant for 86 and he has never mistreated me. Then how can I blaspheme the King who saved me?" With his decision to remain in Christ, Polycarp's life was forfeit - they burned and stabbed him. And yet, in laying down his life, Polycarp became a living sermon - a vivid illustration of the very passage from which he derives his name. (If you're interested, you can read a 2nd century account of his martyrdom here.)

* A Johannine play-on-words: the word translated "clean" is the same as the one translated "prune" in the previous verse.

an etymology lesson

2007-03-03T18:24:00.000Z

Here's something Tera and I learned today while holed away in our library study room:

Scholasticism is probably one of the most despised intellectual movements in human history. Thus the English word 'dunce' (fool) derives from the name of one of the greatest scholastic writers, Duns Scotus.

-from Allister E. McGrath's Reformation Thought: An Introduction

Scholastics were known to speculate on such questions as the well-known, "How many angels could dance on the head of a pin?" Other obscure questions include, "Could God have become a cucumber instead of a human being?" (was Scholasticism the underlying inspiration for Veggie Tales?!) or "Can God undo the past by making a prostitute a virgin?"

Perhaps a more pertinent question would be, "Is this post more pointless than Medieval Scholastic debates?" Hope you enjoyed it anyway.

2007-02-22T18:10:00.000Z

This week, I can't get these lyrics out of my mind. Mostly because Keith - our neighbor in the library carrel area - is always playing "All Because of You" by U2 pretty much every day in his nearby study space. (Not complaining - I like that song.) But also because I really connect with these lyrics in light of my (thus far) incompetent work on my comprehesive exam briefs:

"An intellectual tortoise
Racing with your bullet train"

In other words, comps is eating my lunch. But there's this dim light at the end of the tunnel... growing slightly brighter every day...

It just struck me that the next line in the song is something like, "Some people get squashed crossing the tracks." Hmm... I hope that I don't end up feeling like that part of the song really speaks to me!

simple tasks

2007-02-13T20:34:00.000Z

I'm not much of a morning person, and I'm a bit absentminded no matter what the time of day. Put those two factors together, and you've got a recipe for... well, maybe not disaster, but definitely some silly actions. Like the time(s) I put the water filter pitcher back in the fridge empty.

This morning I was preparing to brush my teeth before rushing out the door for my 8 o'clock class. I got out my toothpaste and toothbrush, turned on the water, and looked down to discover that I was wetting the toothpaste tube instead of my toothbrush. Oops.

It made me laugh at myself, so I just thought I'd share!

Recollection

2007-02-09T19:56:00.001Z

Enough whining - here's an excerpt from a reading that I found insightful earlier this week. It's from Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform US, by Adele Alhberg Calhoun. (Thanks, J. W. C.) The brief chapter on the prayer of recollection offered these insights:

"The Psalmist recollected his soul with this prayer, "Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you" (Ps. 116:7). A recollected soul is the opposite of a distracted, fragmented soul. It is a soul collected and at rest in God. Because it is natural for the mind to make random associations and wander off in a million directions, we need a prayer that recalls our soul to its center in God. The prayer of recollection reveals where our distracted hearts are going... Distractions reveal our attachments. Attachments reveal what in our heart needs recollecting back to God once again...

"... [T]he flood of distracting thoughts in prayer can be received as a gift! What you want to recollect your soul and end up rewriting the agenda for the next meeting in your head or when you begin praying for a colleague and end up imagining where you want to go on vacation, don't push these thoughts aside. Notice them. You cannot collect what you know to be scattered. You cannot abandon what you don't see. The way to a heart at rest in God comes through confessing and abandoning our limited, preoccupied heart. ...

"Confessing our attachments before the holy One, we return to our true root identity in God. We abandon the false self to embrace the true one. Remember, the self caught up in worry, power plays and image management is not the true self; it's a self that creates its identity through attachment to secondary things. But God has given you an identity. Receive it. Recollect your Christ-in-me identity..."

The chapter goes on to suggest a couple of ways to practice the prayer of recollection. This one resonates with me, perhaps it will with you, too:

"Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably before the Lord. Take some deep breaths, relaxing your body and quieting your mind. Offer yourself to God. Ask [God] to gather up the fragments of your scattered life and recollect your soul. Rest before [God]. When distracting thoughts come up, write down one word that expresses your distraction. Let the thought go and return to your rest in God. After ten minutes look at the words you have jotted down. What stands out to you? What anxieties do you see? Where is your identity centered? Confess that you are not called to control all that disrupts your life. Return these concerns to the Lord. Let [God] hold the concerns of your heart as you rest in him."

Recollection

2007-02-09T19:56:00.000Z

Black and Blue

2007-02-09T04:50:00.000Z

Maybe it wasn't obvious, but as I wrote last night's post, I was emotionally raw. I actually shed some tears, alternating with a clenched jaw and a hard stare. Playfulness tends to creep into my writing even when I'm furious, hurt or sad. It's my best mask. Anyway, last night I was letting frustration and hurt out, but I decided that once the new day had dawned, I would not be acting out of those feelings anymore.

That, of course, is easier said than done. Mentor group this morning helped. We probed topics of vocation and calling to ministry - what God's call has felt like and looked like in our lives. Not exactly a "safe" topic (I had a few teary-eyed moments), but definitely a good one. I cried a little as we prayed. Tera invited me in to sit on her couch and share my latest news and frustration. She kindly reminded me that I can't just will myself not to be hurt or mad. And she's right. Will power has it's limitations (especially mine!). I can't just stuff my frustration and hurt in a bottle, hurl it out to sea and brush the sand from my hands as it drifts out with the tide.

No - the hurt is going to stay a while longer. (Yet another thing that we can't switch off like a light... Hmm, sort of like a pointless but lingering crush.) Today it's more of a bruise: the sharp sting of the initial blow is gone, but the tender spot of black and blue remains. If I bump into things in the wrong way, it'll remind me that I'm still healing, but most of the day I almost forget that it's there.

Today is a good day to remember the kind of life that characterizes a person who has been buried with Christ in the waters of baptism and raised to new life together with him by the power of God.* It is a day to recall that I have taken off anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from my mouth. I might as well add a few more for good measure: self-centered complaining, sarcastic words, biting humor, defensive rhetoric. These are the filthy, tattered raiments of the old self - they don't fit anymore... well, at least, they shouldn't.

Stripping off the old self, I've clothed myself with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its Creator. That doesn't exempt me from hurt, frustration or discouragement, but it does change the way I should respond:

... clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ...

I know I can't just flip a switch and turn off all of the hurt. But I think that maybe I can live into a different sort of response than the rage and frustration that seem to be my default. Some of those "new clothes" don't just come in a vacuum - sometimes it takes some friction to develop such virtues. I'll keep praying - these are fruits that mature through the active presence of the Holy Spirit. I can't cut it on my own.

* I live in Colossians these days. It's so full of rich baptismal imagery. I'm just drinking it in!

"Nada te turbe"

2007-02-08T05:23:00.000Z

It's been a pretty encouraging week. Aside from my Comprehensive Exam prep class - which drains and stresses me so much that I have to go take a nap once I'm out of class - everything this week has been going my way. When I read these words by Teresa of Avila this afternoon, they went down sweet and sugary, like a savory dessert:

Let nothing disturb you;
nothing dismay you;
all things pass,
but God never changes.
Whoever has God lacks nothing:
if you only have God, you have more than enough.

Dr. Childers (a.k.a. "J. Chill", thanks to Xander) repeats words from Teresa* to soothe our nervous spasms in Comps: "All will be well and all manner of things will be well." (I remember being the obnoxious one of the summer mission team who kept repeating that phrase over and over as we were each dragging three over-sized suitcases from one airport in London to the other. My teammates were models of forbearance.) Yes, aside from when you're being painfully upbeat while everyone else pulls their hair out (in reference to me, not "J. Chill"!), these words are comforting like a nice warm cup of tea.

But it turns out that those words were not only meant to be my afternoon verbal tea.* I needed them desperately tonight... and I think I'll need them more over the coming days. After all, these words of consolation are just that - they bring reorientation in a time of dismay. They are not written for sun-drenched afternoons alone; Teresa's speaking to moments of desolation, big and small. My "desolation" tonight was comparatively small. I was so eerily quiet and serious while on the phone that Amber thought someone had died. But it's not as serious as that.

After a time of latent pessimism about the church, I was feeling some fresh hope. It was like a lamp turned on to illumine a dark room, leaving a few shadowy corners, but hinting that even they might be transformed at the flick of a switch. I was thinking, "It's just as we've been hoping all along. God might actually be at work here!" I'm usually bubbly - this week I've been bubbling over.

Tonight the lamp is flickering a bit. I'm reminded that lights can be turned off as easily as turned on. There's nothing like a little discouragement riding on the coattails of newborn excitement to take the wind out of your sails. At first I tasted the acidity of feeling personally slighted. The acidic taste is gone now. If I really believe the story of Jesus, I can't get bent out of shape every time things don't go the way I'd like them to. But I'm still a bit uneasy. What next?

It isn't that God is not at work in the church. God's just not working that fast. God likes to work in conjunction with the people of God... and we're a bit slower, less certain. We're not a "flick of the switch" bunch. We're more like, "Rub the sticks together until they start to smoke and then blow softly for a little while. Add some tinder. Blow some more. (You might have to start over a few times.)" So what I really need is some patience. And, again, these words:

Let nothing disturb you;
nothing dismay you;
all things pass,
but God never changes.
Whoever has God lacks nothing:
if you only have God, you have more than enough.

They aren't warm and fuzzy anymore. (They're definitely not "annoy your teammates with unabated optimism.") But they are consoling. They're something like Gospel.

*Verbal tea?! Wow, how lame can ya get?

* Jared very gently and indirectly pointed out that J. Chill's favorite quote is actually from Julian of Norwich. And he's right of course. I tend to get my female mystics confused. Julian's an English hermit from before the Reformation. Teresa's the founder of the Discalced ('Shoeless') Carmelites - a part of the Catholic Counter Reformation. One of these days it'll all sink in!

Roadkill

2007-02-05T14:08:00.000Z

One day last week as I was driving home from school, I looked at the left shoulder of the road to see a little furry body poised to cross the street at the best time. There was not a soul on the half mile stretch in front of me, with no cars in sight behind me. Crossing the road is the Russian roulette of the animal world - they don't really have the sense to look both ways and think critically about whether to go right now or after the next car passes. Well, this little bunny sized up the situation and decided to take off across the highway when I was about 30 feet away - close enough that I felt like I saw the moment of decision in the bunny's eyes. Fortunately, the bunny ran fast and I slowed down a little bit, so it made it whole to the other side. I drove on thinking, "No wonder there's so much roadkill on this street - they just don't know how to wait for the right moment."

I feel sorry for the animals that lurch unthinkingly into the path of automobiles traveling 70 mph. But they aren't the only ones who do that on FM 600. The people who live on FM 600 are even worse! Regardless of the ample space behind on-coming cars, they feel the need to pull out directly in front of any one who's coming. Sometimes I think they just don't look. Like the rabbit on the shoulder, you get close enough to see the moment of decision in their eyes and "body" language. You begin to mutter, "Don't do it," but before the warning has fallen from your lips they've already pulled into the driving lane at a snail's pace. You slam on your brakes and they look up into the rearview mirror in surprise as if to say, "Oh, I didn't see you there." (How near-sighted are you?!)

I wonder what goes through their minds. "Sure, my 20 year-old, beat-up farm truck can go from 0 to 70 in 5 seconds." Or maybe, "There's just enough space for that person to slam on their brakes before coming through my back windshield. Perfect - I can go." How about: "It's my personal responsibility to make sure that every person on this road is on his or her toes." Or maybe it's more apathetic: "Looking both ways and waiting for on-coming cars to pass is so over-rated." Perhaps it's Calvinism at its most extreme: "There's no point in looking before I pull out - if God wants me to live, I'll live." But I think it's probably more like this: "Zzzzzzzzz..."

Whatever these drivers are thinking (or not thinking), one thing's for certain: they have the same level of defensive driving skills as potential roadkill. Really, folks, let's up the standards here!

2007-02-03T17:05:00.000Z

Here’s the trouble with blogging: the allure of pressing the “Publish” button before you’ve fully completed your thought.

This morning, my sister pointed out that my last post seemed a bit critical of Dad’s dinner table prayer. Janis pointed out what a soothing ritual Dad’s prayer is – the familiar words, their steady rhythm and intonation, the comforting sound of our father’s voice. What I meant to say is that what seemed like a stiff tradition in the days of my youth is now deeply meaningful and orienting to me. I should have said so from the beginning instead of assuming that my conclusions about the value of Roger and Jared’s ritual prayers would be read back into my dad’s. I hope some of you will one day sit at my father’s table and hear his daily prayer – he’ll even alter the usual form a bit and thank God for your presence with us.

Habit-forming Prayer

2007-02-02T16:35:00.000Z

The Orans or Orante, one of the most common images in early Christian art,
depicts a woman praying with her arms outstretched and her head covered.

When my family gathers around the dinner table to eat (on the nights when we're not eating in front of the t.v.), my dad has always said the same prayer. Well, at least, the prayer always had the same structure, rhythm and intonation. There was a flexible part: in the portion usually reserved for thanking God for each member of our family, thanksgiving for the presence of any guests was always included. Sometimes Dad said the prayer so quickly that, if I hadn't heard it nearly every day for my entire life, it would have been difficult to pick out the individual words.

I think it's probably fair to say that the closest thing to a liturgical prayer I heard growing up was at our dinner table. Other than the occassional (redundant and more or less nonsensical), "guide, guard and direct us," Dad was the only one I ever heard praying something out of habit. Among my peers at church (and I suspect among people of all ages), praying by rote or reading a prepared prayer was considered less "spiritual."

This attitude took me a while to outgrow - even after I'd grown to appreciate a more structured form of prayer, kicking my perceived need for spontaneity was hard. But the pressure of being continually new and creative becomes pretty overwhelming, even paralyzing at times (and I don't think it's actually Christian to always need something new and fresh to be spiritually alive). Lately I've been paying attention to the ways ritual prayer affect the daily lives of people around me. Here are some of my findings:

Last fall, I ate lunch at Aunt Yvonne and Uncle Roger's. As Roger ages, he stutters more and more. Yvonne can usually clear up what he's trying to say, but sometimes it's even hard for her to understand. As we sat down for lunch, we joined hands to pray, and I expected that my cousin Scott would give thanks for the food. It quickly became apparent, however, that this is Uncle Roger's house, and he was going to say the prayer. As we bowed our heads, I wondered how long this would take and how hard it might be for him to get the words out. To my surprise, the words rolled off his tongue with ease, loud and clear - the words of a prayer that he's been saying over his family's dinner table for 50+ years. Not a single stutter. I was amazed, but I shouldn't have been. It shouldn't be surprising that a prayer prayed over and over during the course of an entire lifetime has actually formed the person who prays it. After all, none of the fruits of the Spirit are virtues that just spontaneously surface; they're habits formed by a lifetime of discipline.

Here's another, different example: My friend Jared, who was confirmed in the Episcopal church last spring, includes a prayer in nearly every post on his blog, Scribere Orare Est (Latin for "to write is to pray"). More often than not, the prayers are from the Book of Common Prayer. It strikes me nearly every time I read something by Jared that the written, ritual prayers of his communal and personal worship often provide orientation for his daily experiences, even (or perhaps especially) those that are not easily explained or resolved. I think there's something to that.

Seven Things Meme

2007-01-25T18:04:00.000Z

Because I appreciate dear Jared so much, I'll participate:

1. Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies:

Always We Begin Again, a modern interpretation or meditation on the Benedictine rule by John McQuiston II.

It looks like one of those cheesy little gift books, but don't let appearances fool you. I even give this book away to people who I know don't care about spiritual things because I find it to be wise in a way that transcends religious/areligious barriers. (And it's less than $10.) My poor mother once listened to me read it aloud all the way through. ( I love reading aloud; Mom is so patient with me!)

2. Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music:

It's hard to pinpoint exactly, but it was probably "Foolish Love" by Rufus Wainwright (thanks to a mixed cd from Robin Jedlicka). It starts out in slow motion with just a piano and Rufus' slurring vocals for about two minutes. Then there's a sudden change in beat and flavor as new instruments chime in and the song playfully crescendos, and eventually returns the slow motion feel of the beginning of the song. Rufus' musical savvy and poetic imagination create a 5-minute marvel of a song that has altered what I look for in music.

3. Name a film that you can watch again and again without fatigue:

There are many to pick from, but the performances by Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing (1993) are among my favorites. They bring this Shakespearean story to life.

Close runners-up: The Emperor's New Groove and Mickey Blue Eyes. I wish I could cite some deeper films, but when it comes to watching a movie "without fatigue," I go for light-hearted.

4. Name a performer for whom you dispend all disbelief:

Hmm... I have a hard time remembering celebrity names. I've already mentioned Branagh and Thompson... maybe Colin Firth?

5. Name a work of art that you'd like to live with:

Nothing famous. Right now I live with prints by two of my friends: "The Joy of Solitude" by Bonnie Buchanan and "Miriam's Song" by Amber Lee. If you haven't seen them, you should come by for a visit! (They belong to my roommate, and I'm glad to live with them while I can.)

6. Name a work of fiction that has penetrated your real life:

Last year it was The Brothers K by David James Duncan. (I get most of my good literature from Tera!) This year... who knows! After my comprehensive exams are over, I might actually get to read something fun!

7. Name a punch line that always makes you laugh:

Me: Did you hear about the butcher who backed into his meat grinder?
You: Uh, no.
Me: He got a little behind in his work! (I laugh hysterically while you roll your eyes.)
Hoo - gets me everytime.

If I must tag someone, I think I'll choose Tera.

2007-01-19T04:26:00.000Z

I was pushing a rather serious post through my mind this evening... until lil' Russell saved me from my sober thoughts! He forwarded absurd winter pictures and made me laugh instead! (Aren't little brothers fabulous?!) In light of our recent unabated wintry weather, I thought these pics especially appropriate:

Don't you just want to run up and slide a pillow underneath this lady?! (I guess photographer didn't think so!)

Serene cenobites turned snowball-wielding holy terrors! YES!!! (Sort of makes me want to hang out with them.) Has anyone seen those "Nuns Having Fun" calendars? I've been thinking about how great one would look in the ol' library study room... Did I see them at Target? Or was it a bookstore? In Abilene or Atlanta? Hmm...

I also liked this one:

I mean, who needs a fridge anyway?! I'm glad I live in Texas where it doesn't snow quite that much! How much does it snow in New Hampshire? Maybe DPS will be sending us pictures like these sometime soon?!

2007-01-16T05:50:00.000Z

This week I took a January short course on worship with Jack Reese. The class was long, but the content was great! It really has me thinking more deeply about the way churches worship and how that worship impacts their formation into the image of Christ. I also found myself thinking about all the arguments, and sometimes church splits, we have over worship and worship styles. For a long time, I’ve thought that choices about worship styles were indifferent, but I’ve grown to believe that the way we settle “worship wars” has great significance for our lives as a community shaped by the Gospel.

It’s not about whether a church decides for contemporary songs or hymns or a mix of both (a compromise which may end up pleasing no one). One group prefers “the way we’ve always done it.” The other seeks “gospel” freedom to worship more expressively with upbeat contemporary songs. For both, the key factor in decisions about worship is personal preference: “Because I like ____.” Both have reasons to dislike the preference of the other.

But should the content of worship be decided in a similar manner to ordering a Big Mac? With pickles or without, depending on one’s preference or current appetite? So long as worship is oriented to please personal preference, we may use the name of Jesus all we want, but he will not be the one we are worshipping. We are then dancing to the tune of a consumerist culture with its focus on the wants of the individual “customer.”

Of course, Christians in every age have reflected the spirit of their times – it’s not surprising that we do too. But we come together to worship on Sunday to be reminded that we are supposed to be a people shaped by the ethic of the Kingdom of God. In this Kingdom, it’s not about me getting my way or you getting yours. There is no “us” and “them,” but all are one in Christ Jesus. The ethic of the Kingdom of God is that of renouncing privilege, not asserting it (Phil. 2). It may be immaterial whether a church chooses hymns or contemporary songs, but the way we treat one another in the process of making that choice matters a great deal. We have the opportunity to reconcile our differences in a way that demonstrates the unique story that we live by: one of love, mercy, sacrifice, resurrection.

Cruisin' the Southeast

2007-01-07T03:14:00.000Z

It's that time again - I've got the back-to-school-blues. This morning I left my house in Georgia at 8:30 am or so, and tore up the highway until arriving (unexpectedly) at my aunt's door in Irving, Texas at around 8:30 pm. I sort of sprung that one on her at the last minute. It went something like, "Hi, Aunt Jana, I'm driving through Monroe, Louisiana right now... mind if I sleep at your house tonight?!" Anyway, here's my January 2007 Southeast Travelogue:

I listened to exactly 200 songs over 800 miles. And bellowed my own poor version of the lyrics (or uncertain mumbles when I didn't know them). With a little funky dancing here and there. (Well, funky for me.) At this rate, I'll have listened/bellowed to around 250 when I roll into Abilene tomorrow afternoon. (I realize that this is a silly, obscure fact about my trip, but stupid little details can really become fascinating when you're keeping yourself company in a confined space all day. Anything to keep the sleepies at bay!)

In the state of Alabama, I heard quite possibly the most extreme Southern accent that I have ever heard. I'm from the South, but I'd never heard someone whose real accent sounds like he's doing a Larry the Cable Guy impression. He was in line behind me at Arby's talking to another guy about construction. His profession is "framin', buildin' houses." At this point, I almost turned around to join in with, "Oh, my brother's in construction." I stopped myself just in time by picturing the scene - me rattling off my random interjection, having nothing else to say when they looked at me in consternation, giving a tight-lipped smile and turning back around. I ordered an Arby's sandwich instead, and thought, "It's only noon, and I've already been alone too long."

The Mississippi Welcome sign assured me that entering their state is "like coming home." (It's decidedly not - in fact, today it was quite the opposite!) Still, the magnolias planted by the road are nice. Mississippi wins the "Worse Roads in the Southeast Award" for about the 18th year in a row. (And there's really some steep competition.) It's like a roller coaster... only monotonous instead of put-your-hands-in-the-air exciting.

Finally, there was Louisiana. I try not to stop in that state. I'm still not totally sure why - must be some deep-seated prejudice that I haven't eradicated yet. And something to do with filthy convenience station toilets. I don't know which state thought of putting magnolias by the road, but Louisiana does it too - it's like Mississippi and Louisiana are vying over who has more right to the magnolia as their state tree (or is it flower?). Either way, roadside magnolias are nice. If the rivalry ends up meaning that 300 miles of road are lined with magnolia trees, may the fight live on. Apparently there is an epidemic being spread among Louisiana drivers: they speed up to pass you, swing in front of you, and then slooooooowwwwww back down. Way slower than you were going. Then when you try to pass them, they speed back up so you can't pass. Grr. It drives me crazy!

Once I hit Texas, I really felt like I'd accomplished something. I might even have given a little, gleeful rebel yell. (That's what driving through the Deep South does to you.) Then I realized that a full third of the 1,000 mile journey is in Texas alone. It's such a tease. Oh, well. Texans also have a distinctive driving... let's call it a "talent." One minute, there would not be a soul on the mile-long stretch behind me as I shifted lanes to pass a truck. The next minute, the bright headlights of a lifted pick-up would be blinding me in the rearview mirror. How do they do that?

If you've made it this far through this meandering post, you are a true friend! Thanks!

The Beginning, Pt. 1

2007-01-05T19:40:00.001Z

I've been thinking a lot about creation stories lately, mostly due to conversations I've had with Mom lately. She teaches fourth grade at a large private school in the metro Atlanta area, and lately they've been talking a lot about evolution vs. creation. Actually, one of her fellow teachers has been devouring information from groups like the Apologetics Press and decided to spearhead an effort to debunk evolution. The middle school and high school chose not to participate in the workshop, but the elementary school kids will be getting a full dose of creationist polemics.

I think this is a pretty bad idea. Mom agrees, but she can't voice her disagreement at school. Several years ago, a few teachers were let go because they believed in evolution, and everyone's been skirting the issue since. There's an eerie silence among the teachers - they must all take their classes to the workshop, but they are obviously unenthused about it. This week, they watched a video preview of the workshop during their teacher workday. Apparently, it was mostly full of anecdotal "evidence" against evolution and unconvincing logical arguments. One of the arguments went something like, "If the creation story is not taken as a literal 6 day event then the reliability of the whole Bible is called into question, allowing room for all kinds of immorality and faithlessness, and Christianity falls to pieces." The speaker on the video went on to link all the things that are wrong with contemporary society with belief in the theory of evolution.

Now, I don't mind someone holding or sharing honest doubts about evolution. I'd probably have a few too, if I actually took some time to study up on it. Biology isn't my area of expertise or interest; my frustration with the apologetics material is more along the lines of theology, biblical interpretation, and Christian discipleship. Is it really beneficial to make such an egregious overstatement about the importance of the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2? Does the truth of the Bible, of the Christian faith really hinge on this? Placing the blame for all the evils of society on the theory of evolution makes about as much sense as using The DaVinci Code as a history textbook. I don't think that the best way to teach people, young or old, to follow Jesus is by loading them up with arguments and strategies for aggressively confronting people who don't believe.

Here's something that I think creationists are right about: the creation story matters. Stories of origin have an impact on how we see the world and our place in it. I think it's important for Christians to continue asserting that God is Creator and that God created human beings, both male and female, in God's image. The way the creation story describes God the Creator matters, too. It is not an option to simply scrap the opening chapters of the Bible (or any part of the Scriptures for that matter!) and accept whatever theory of origins is in vogue for the time being. However, I don't think that a literal interpretation is the only faithful option for Christians. More to come on this topic in the future...

2007-01-03T21:30:00.000Z

At the same worship service as mentioned in my previous post, I got to spend a brief moment talking with Ike Reeser. Ike is the children's minister at Northlake, and he's played a special role in my spiritual formation, well beyond my years in the children's ministry. Worship had been, as I've mentioned, refreshing and discouraging all at once. Ike enhanced the refreshment.

Ike asked me the "What's next?" question. Now, sometimes this question functions as a glorified "How are you?" - a sort of polite greeting/conversation starter. But not with Ike. I responded the way I usually do - with uncertainty - and he offered some words that were blessedly reorienting. It was something like, "We worry a lot about discerning God's will for our lives, but maybe it's better to seek God's will for the world and find a way to fit into that."

This is not a landmark statement, of course. I've heard it before, from more than one person. I've repeated it to myself and even heard myself say it to others. But isn't that the way good news is sometimes? You've heard it before, maybe all your life, but somehow repetition is not wearisome, but rather it spurs you on, reaping the fruit of seeds sown long ago. Through the gentle words of a friend, you again hear the summons of God. That is a beautiful thing.

It's as if God gently whispered in my ear, "I love you, child, but you're not at the center of my plans for the world. You can be a participant in my plans - partnership is the way I like to work! But if you want to seek my will, you're going to have to get over yourself." An invitation to stop obsessing over myself: what liberating, welcome news!

Incidentally, that leads me to think about making some "A Few Days After New Year's" Resolutions involving ascetical disciplines...

2006-12-31T23:03:00.000Z

New Year's Eve - what better time for a reflection on planning for the future?

Going back to the church where I grew up means a bundle of mixed emotions to me. I love the Northlake Church of Christ - these folks modeled the way of Christ for me in such a compelling manner that I knew I wanted to throw myself into it too. Still, there's nothing like the distance of a 1,000 miles and seven and a half years to hamper our reunion. As graduation quickly (and yet slowly) approaches, there is a significant increase in the number of people who ask that question I don't know how to answer yet: "So, after you graduate, what's next?" I respond with a goofy grin and flashy, hope-the-parachute-works-cause- I'm-jumping-anyway eyes and say, "I don't know yet." Like most major life changes, this one fills me with excitement and dread all at the same time. Ever the optimist, I try to let the excitement triumph over the dread.

This was a somewhat more difficult to pull off this morning because I was feeling a little discouraged. Our service was centered around the communion table. In so many ways it was refreshing. The seats were arranged so that you could see most people in the room. We read the whole book of Ruth in lieu of a sermon, highlighting the way that the Lord provided abundantly for Naomi and showed steadfast love through Ruth and Boaz. The repeated references to grain and Bethlehem made the connection with the Lord's Supper natural. We participated together in our Great Story of God's faithfulness in Jesus Christ. I'm still thinking about it... and yet, it was discouraging too.

Like every other worship service at Northlake, this one was led exclusively by men. (And Northlake has always been a moderately progressive congregation.) A few years ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. This time it stood out like a brightly festooned, strutting peacock in the middle of a multi-laned highway. It strikes me, nearly every time I'm in church, that the most important criterion in whether a person can play an active role in the worship service is not age, spiritual maturity, competence, or thoughtful preparation. It's gender. Maleness is the common denominator. What seems to me to be the most arbitrary consideration of them all is the deciding factor.

The table is a crucial moment in worship, one which is, among other things, an expression of our unity in Jesus Christ. And yet, we do not approach the table as equals. Well, we do in theory, but our practice suggests otherwise. In Matthew, Jesus says, "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." Usually we proof-text this passage when we're discussing holy speech. But it further suggests that our concrete actions correlate to the inner reality. Jesus' teaching conflates mind, body, and soul over against the faulty distinctions we make between them. What we do outwardly matters as a tangible expression of who we really are, what we really believe. Regardless of what we might say we believe about gender equality, our practice at the Lord's Supper, indeed at anytime in worship, reveals that as a corporate body we believe that men are inherently spiritually superior.

Anyway, this renewed realization gave me pause as my graduation date approaches. "What's next?" they ask with genuine interest. Giving my normal response aloud, I silently wonder to myself, "What indeed?" Maybe the best answer is to rely on the same loving-kindness that the Lord showed to Naomi (without renaming myself "bitter" in the meantime!). Thus, a single worship service delivers discouragement while also giving significant impetus to press on with hope and trust. I'd like to hold to the latter without being smothered by the former, but for that task, my anamcharas, I will need you!

You know what I hate? It seems like every time I start to write something about my future plans, it ends up being a complaint about my battle with the suffocatingly low glass ceiling. I'm sure my friends and family are as weary of this topic as I am. This isn't the post I thought I was sitting down to write. Perhaps I'll try again tomorrow. After all, if there's any day for reflecting on future plans, it's New Year's Day, right?

2006-12-26T23:25:00.000Z

This sums up the joys of Christmas for the Bryant (and Henricksen) family this year:

How was yours?

coming soon...

2006-12-21T02:39:00.000Z

My silly little blog has been in need of a makeover/transformation, for quite some time. I just happen to have a little window of time for making such changes, so it's coming soon, perhaps before my next post. This might even include a new name, new colors, and perhaps a little refocusing and reframing. Dare I go as far as including a profile picture?! I don't know... I generally assume the world's better off without my highly unphotogenic face floating around in cyberspace... but maybe, just maybe...

God speaks? Really?!

2006-12-20T13:44:00.000Z

On my way home from Abilene to Atlanta, I kept a tally of how many Christian billboards I saw. I don't have a final count (I'm too absent-minded to produce a good count anyway), but I do have a small complaint. I had several hours of lonely, mind-numbing driving to think about this. Mind if I vent?

Maybe you’ve seen these signs too: solid black with white messages signed “- God.” Some of them are kind of okay, but most of them make me cringe. They're as obnoxious as insulting t-shirts! (One of my biggest pet peeves.) The one on my way out of Abilene says, “If you must curse, use your own name.” Another quips, “They’re commandments, not suggestions.” Still another (my least favorite): “Don’t make me come down there.” (Sort of turns the spirit of Advent upside down, doesn't it?)

Um… what is the point of these?! At best, they make God sound like a condescending, even petulant, parent. They're a sort of heavenly “Don’t make me pull this car over.” At worst, they remind me of the retorts of a sassy teenage girl who’s being shunned by the in-crowd, struggling to pull herself out of the social margins. They're like bad bumper stickers on steroids.

I realize that some churches may consider these billboards a part of their outreach and evangelism. I really wish they’d reconsider. None of these fiesty quotes actually has content that can properly be called Good News. Besides, are moralistic threats on highway billboards really the best way to go? That's a lot of money to throw away on signs that make non-Christians roll their eyes. Why would they want to be associated with a faith that casts judgment on the passengers of every car that drives down the highway? And do we really want to advertise Christianity in the same way that the used car lot down the street promotes their product? One of these things is not like the other! Following Christ is not and should not be a consumer product, so why stoop to using the methods of commercialism?

Let's be honest: these signs are more for the sake of self-expression than they are for evangelism. We are the ones who feel increasingly marginalized by our culture. (That might be true in parts of the country, but still smacks a bit of religious hypochondria in West Texas.) If God is concerned about us always being in the majority, then God's choice of people in the Bible is quite baffling! Cultural marginalization shouldn't be our greatest fear - it's nothing new for Christians across the globe and throughout the centuries. The New Testament presupposes that Christians are a (persecuted) minority. Instead of fighting marginalization, what if we focused on how to faithfully live out the Gospel regardless of what our social status is? That might just be the best evangelistic move we can make.

2006-12-13T17:55:00.000Z

Restoration History final submitted: check!
Fall 2006 semester completed: check!

Total credit hours completed toward a Master of Divinity: 65

19 credit hours to go...

2006-12-13T03:01:00.000Z

Wow! My little (well, younger) brother just called me! (Thanks, Russ - I love you too! And I'm looking forward to seeing you this weekend!!!) This happens rarely, so I always feel extra special when it does.

Even when the main reason for the call is to try to set me up with one of our mutual friends back home. For some reason, he's more concerned about my love life (or lack thereof) than I am. Whatever.

Still, I'm very thankful for my "loving little brother's" phone call.

Speaking of phone calls I've received from my brother, here's an excerpt from my favorite one. During my senior year, on a chilly, rainy day in January, I forgot to pick him up from his J. V. wrestling practice. (I've never been the best at remembering scheduling details like that.) He left me the following message on our answering machine. It made me laugh so hard that I listened to it over and over so I could transcript his exact phrases. When I read it, I can still hear his voice speaking the words:

Kelli, this is your loving little brother THAT YOU FORGOT ABOUT. Listen, I'm turning into an icicle. It is cold-and-wet-out-here. [staccato pronunciation of every syllable] You were supposed to be here an hour - 60 minutes - ago! I am very ticked off!!! Get here now! [Slight growl in his commanding voice.] It's cold. (pause) I'm lonely. [Did his voice just crack?] AND I'M REALLY MAD!!!...

That's about half of his lengthy, irrate message. What's really precious is that he was mad because it was Wednesday and my faulty memory made us late for church. Even though I should be over it by now, it still makes me laugh until my cheeks hurt. Especially the emotionally manipulative "I'm lonely" line. Oh, Russ, how I love you!

2006-12-11T02:50:00.000Z

I'm supposed to be studying for a final.

But all I feel like doing is buying new music on iTunes.

I finally convinced myself that I don't have money for that, so I closed iTunes and now I'm writing this post.

I'm not the only one using the internet as a crutch to avoid studying - Tera H. even joined Facebook!!

And now I'm wondering why I'm still sitting at home alone when I could be procrastinating with other people. Procrastination en masse is always more fun...

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-24T05:05:00.000Z

Here are my favorite Bryant family Thanksgiving traditions:

Russell and Dad cook the turkey in a trash can in the backyard. Everyone wins - the turkey's juicy, it only takes an hour and a half, and the boys get to play with fire. Beautiful. Here's Russ basting the turkey before setting the can over it and covering it with coals. (I think that's his "whistling face."):

The baked bird: Ta-da!

Mom has a collection of Christmas plates - she gets a new plate, saucer and cup each year. Starting at Thanksgiving, we start using Christmas dishes instead of the normal plates. At some point, we break out the games and play for hours. Playful banter begins... usually culminating in Russ accusing Mom of cheating (which we all know is not true... that makes it more fun). By the middle of this game she was laughing so hard at his antics that she sprayed the table (including the game pieces and "the opposition") with the left-over roll she was eating. Oops! The boys soundly beat us, but there's always next year!
Kitchen towel wars aren't exactly a Thanksgiving tradition at our house, but why not...

It's good to be home.

To all my friends and family out there: Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-21T20:02:00.000Z

Look what Alley got today:

Good kitty.

I hit it with a shovel just to make sure - yep, she got it all right!
Glad I got to it before she could try eating it. (Ick!)

Grandpa always said, "The only good snake's a dead snake."
I think this one was harmless (but I'm still glad it's dead).

Mouse to Mousse: a random commentary on my week

2006-11-19T05:56:00.000Z

Well, Alley (our cat) has officially lived up to our expectations! I arrived home today from spending the weekend hanging out with family and friends to discover grey and brown tufts of fur all over the front porch (and some unidentifiable brown junk - I don't even want to hazard a guess as to what that was). It was about the right color and amount of fur to be a mouse... but there was no body (!), so it's hard to tell what type of small mammal she devoured in our absence. So, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt and calling it her first official mouse! Yea, Alley! This is just what we got you for! What a swell kitty!

***

I was fortunate enough to get to spend part of this week at my grandparent's house with my sister and my nephew. Here are some updated pictures of Janis and Quint, and Quint charming his great-grandparents:

(Janis made that shirt for herself - she's talented in so many ways!)

***

I was also fortunate to be able to spend Friday night and Saturday catching up with some of my best girlfriends from undergrad. We didn't have any elaborate plans - we just punctuated our constant conversation with meals, spending most of our time lounging around in various rooms of Tera's house. We laughed, we reminisced, we dreamed, we cried. I love seeing the beautiful women my friends are becoming and the way God is constantly shaping them. Friends are such a blessing!

***

In case you were wondering, this is what I look like with straight hair:

Now we know. Here's what I like about straight hair: I can run my fingers through it as much as I want to and not worry about being mistaken for Simba later. Here's what I don't like: it took us about an hour to straighten it. My normal time commitment is about 2 minutes - just long enough to towel it dry and apply mousse. (Not quite worth the trade on a daily basis!)

quick soap box: unity and diversity

2006-11-15T02:26:00.000Z

As normally happens when I'm supposed to be writing a lengthy paper on some scholarly topic, my mind is wandering. So, I'll share my thoughts quickly:

Today I moderated a reflection group for some undergrad students who have been working on a spiritual covenant/service project together. The topics mentioned included the dynamics of diverse teams working with one another to serve Christ and others. Tonight at the Simpson-Clancy-Taylor abode, our rambling conversation stumbled again onto topics of diversity. Essentially, wonderful John the Noble noted that people always tend to gravitate to others who are just like them. When asked about who the best sorts of people are, folks tend to footnote people who look an awful lot like themselves.

And this, I think, is bad news for the church. That is, it's bad news if we fit the trend described by John. In fact, if our churches look like homogenous conglomerations of people (let's face it - too often they do!), I think we've probably missed the point of that whole Good News of Jesus Christ thing. We are not a body united by political affiliation, social class, mother tongue, marital status, educational level, skin color, or any other arbitrary boundary that human beings erect to distinguish the in-crowd from the outsiders. We are united by one thing: the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord. This makes radical communion with the other (the other who is different, perhaps, in nearly every other respect) possible in a way that every other human endeavor fails to accomplish. Democracy won't do it for us - we're currently striving to keep people out rather than welcome them in. Open-mindedness doesn't cut it - sometimes it becomes an excuse to exclude those who just aren't as philosophically flexible. Education, frankly, can be more of a deterent to acceptance and equality than we usually like to admit.

What we have in the catholic Christian faith is unique - an open door for unity of all peoples on the basis of faith in Christ. I know - there are complicated reasons for the ages-old fracture in Christian communion. We've all contributed to the problem, even those of us who seek to keep tests of fellowship minimal. I know - it's probably unfair for me to complain about how Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. It's complicated, I know. But I also know that it's not in sync with the Gospel. Let's live the message we proclaim. Just a thought.

Now, back to my Restoration History paper...

Daffy Duck Reads Barton W. Stone

2006-11-11T00:41:00.000Z

Today I whiled my afternoon away in front of a microfiche machine reading old texts from the early nineteenth century. Here’s a little piece of random information for you: in certain documents from the early 1800’s, any ‘s’ except the final ‘s’ in a word looks like an ‘f.’ And let me tell you, this can lead to fubfantial amounts of confufion, as I’m fure you’ll fee by the end of this poft.

For thofe of you who have enjoyed (or ftill enjoy) the occafional Looney Tunes epifode, you know exactly why I have chofen the title for this poft. When you replace ‘s’ with ‘f’ it founds a lot like filly Daffy Duck reading the old manufcript. As I have not yet rid myfelf of what dear Dr. Fofter calls an elementary fchool habit of reading aloud in my head, hours of this leads to an afternoon of near hyfteria. As if people aren’t fufpicious enough about your fanity (or at leaft your level of focial fkills) when they fee you hunkered down for hours on end in front of the microfiche reader, if they also fpy you giggling like a feventh grader in fex ed clafs, they really begin to fufpect that all’s not fo well upftairs.

Who came up with this lame idea of replacing the middle ‘s’ with ‘f’? Furely, this can only lead to maffive confufion! I realize that context plays a ferious role in all reading anyway, but honeftly! Talk about facrificing clarity for the fake of aefthetics!*

Fo, I juft decided to play a little game with myfelf (alfo harkening back to middle fchool years): how would the titles of fongs in the hymnal be different if we followed this convention prefently? Let me give you a teenfy fampling of my experiment: “Be Ftill My Foul,” “My Fins, My Fins, My Favior,” “Fervant Fong,” “When All of God’s Fingers Get Home,” “You Are the Fong That I Fing.” I’ve got more, but I’d love to hear what you might contribute (if you’re not feeling highly offended by my infantile antics)!

* Allow me to alfo note that it’s a good thing that the verb contemporarily ufed to defcribe devouring a lollipop does not often come up while perufing literature about Ftone’s view of the Atonement. Perhaps they would have thrown fanciful publifhing conventions out the window in that cafe! Although it did crofs my mind that doing refearch on a funny Friday afternoon, uh, ftinks.

Unlearning

2006-10-31T13:41:00.000Z

Most of the time when I think about my graduate school experience, I take note of the many things that I’m learning. (And the plethora of things I’ve yet to learn!) But, there are also attitudes, assumptions, beliefs and behaviors that need unlearning. I think these are probably the hardest lessons for all of us, the lessons of unlearning. It came to my attention this week that one of the areas we struggle with most in this respect is our web of beliefs about gender. This isn’t just a problem that the men have either; my experiences this week have made me realize how often I also enable sexist systems and beliefs in my own communities.

Let me share a little bit about my experiences this week. I started a similar post earlier, but my description of these events was angry and demonizing (and very funny, which is how I justified it to myself). But that’s not really helpful, other than being an outlet for my own frustration. Both instances involve sexist jokes in the context of a Christian setting. Sunday night, an elder at our church was praying a blessing over a couple who are expecting a child, and he made a sexist joke in the middle of the prayer. Muffled chuckles were heard throughout the room; they were loud enough to drown out my shocked gasp. I left church that night thinking, “Why am I even a member of this church? Of this denomination?” The other incident happened in a seminary classroom. A peer of mine made a crack about women being excessively emotional. When he realized I was in the room (the only female present), he said a quick, insincere, “I was just kidding. No offense.” I gave him a tight-lipped smile, muttered that it was fine (a huge lie), and shoved my books into my bag a little too forcefully. The other boys in the room either smiled sheepishly or didn’t respond at all (either because they didn’t hear the joke or because they wished they hadn’t). I left school wondering if that’s how our male peers talk about us when we’re not in the room.

A quick word about jokes: my mother used to tell me that there’s a little bit of truth to every joke. Before, I’ve doubted that this broad generalization is always true, but in this case, I think it’s dead on. Jokes make a truth claim. This claim is what makes them funny. If a person makes a joke about how women are overly emotional, that person is assuming that the person receiving the joke agrees that women are too emotional. In the seemingly innocuous form of a joke, a sexist stereotype is reinforced. Furthermore, it’s bad form to be mad about a joke. In the statement, “I’m just joking,” the speaker makes a power play. Now if someone gets offended and confronts the other person, he or she is a jerk. “Can’t she take a joke?”

There are several things for us to unlearn as we strive to get along with one another. In our Christian communities, these kinds of sexist jokes have been considered acceptable. Whole generations of people have been brought up to believe that there’s nothing wrong with this. And so, the men, who are the only ones with a public voice, continue to make hurtful statements. And the women continue to take it. Like me, passive-aggressively slamming my books around while saying it’s not a big deal, women have remained silent. Some are genuinely not offended. “Boys will be boys,” they say as they shrug it off. Others seethe on the inside, but rarely say anything about the hurt such comments cause. When they do speak up, their complaints are often disregarded. Or, perhaps they are received cordially, and forgotten over the ensuing weeks. Men aren’t the only ones who make sexist comments; women are also guilty, and that is just as unacceptable.

We all have learned behaviors and attitudes to unlearn here; there are more lessons to draw from this than I intend to include here. But I will highlight one area that I think is crucial. In both cases, the Christian community failed to use speech wisely. We, as a community, need to practice spiritual disciplines that help us learn to manage and reform our thought and speech. (This is why I scrapped my earlier, vindictive post!) Thought comes first; it is out of the overflow of our hearts that our mouths speak. If we are going to speak hospitably and justly to one another, we must learn to think hospitably and justly about one another. In addition to guarding our speech, we need to know when to speak up. Sometimes we remain silent to keep the peace, but our silence often simply enables injustice. This clearly is a communal discipline: we have to practice it together as a people bound by love in Jesus Christ. We are going to make mistakes on this journey, but the solution is not to justify them as acceptable or to sweep them under the rug. (Or to break fellowship and start over.) We must learn to speak honestly and charitably to one another as we grow up together in Christ.

2006-10-28T01:08:00.000+01:00

So, I'm not much of a photographer, but sometimes I give it a shot anyway. Like tonight - I saw this lovely play of late afternoon light across my living room wall, and I just had try to capture it. Now, I know my artistic friends are rolling their eyes at me. But I am confident that they'll love me even at my most mediocre moments, so here's my favorite picture of the afternoon:

This artwork is a print of Bonnie Buchanan's painting "The Joy of Solitude." A graceful, lone bird lifts its head into a beam of light in the midst of encroaching, threating shadows. (I love this piece. You get the sense that the bird's not so alone after all.) In the glorious afternoon sunlight, this painting reflects the surroundings of the room: the front door, a floor lamp, and the southern windows of our home. I found this striking today, and wanted to share it with you even though the picture doesn't do it justice.

***

Does it crack anybody else up when Donald calls the M. Div. degree a "Master in Division"? It makes me laugh every time! (Maybe that's why he doesn't mind hanging out with me!)

**Correction: DPS informs me that he cannot be credited with coining "Master in Division." That distinction belongs solely to David "Thunder Chunk"/"the Taylorizer" Taylor. Those boys on Washington Blvd. - they repeat each other over and over, so it's hard to keep it all straight!

Sleeping for Jesus

2006-10-26T00:48:00.000+01:00

There comes a time every semester when Tera and I joke about becoming modern Messalians. For the most part, no one really knows much about the Messalians – most of what we know about them comes from reports and condemnations of 4th and 5th century church councils and synods. Out of the murky waters of second-hand (probably none too generous) descriptions of their beliefs, there is one basic tenet of the movement that rises to the surface: all you have to do to obtain salvation is pray without ceasing. (Emphasis on the "without ceasing.") All those other practices, like fasting, receiving the sacraments or being a part of the church, are worthless according to these guys and gals. (They were a co-ed bunch.) So – all that salvation requires is constant prayer. Now, it’s not uncommon to find people throughout the history of the church emphasizing various ways of practicing continuous prayer. It’s one of the Messalians’ distinct prayer techniques that makes them interesting to us... well, at least interesting enough joke about defecting to their now non-existent ranks.

“Since their goal was unceasing prayer, some groups determined that dreams were a form of prayer. One can only dream while asleep, so excessive sleep was considered a spiritual discipline and this ‘discipline’ was conducted anywhere at any time, even in the open streets of Antioch.”
(From Robert Kitchen’s introduction to the Liber Graduum)

Sleep? As a spiritual discipline?!?! Sign me up!!! (At least we’d be well-rested heretics…)

It sounded so good... and then I discovered that one of the major leaders of the Messalians was named Alexander the Sleepless. I guess that other Messalians held the other extreme and said that no one should sleep at all because they need to be praying 24-7. Perhaps the “sleeping for Jesus” folks were reacting against that, and spiritualizing their decision to “sell-out” a bit. (“Sleeping for Jesus” – wouldn’t that make a great t-shirt?) We Christians just can't seem to help but do that pendulum swing thing, can we? Alas, maybe it’s not as appealing an option as I thought…

Come to think of it, few of my dreams would qualify as prayers anyway. That would be a (large!) stretch. Well, it’s still kind of fun to laud the Messalian sleepers around midterm time!

Show and Tell

2006-10-19T00:11:00.000+01:00

There are several things that I've seen this week that I want to share with everyone:

First of all, for a brief three days, the monarch butterflies hovered in our yard during their annual migration. It's nice, just for a few days, to be greeted by clouds of excitable butterflies when you walk through the yard!

On my way to capture the monarchs in action, I ran across my cat. You can see that she likes morning about as much as I do:

Finally, as if I needed more evidence that my roommate is the epitome of forbearance, check out what I left in the fridge for way too long:

(It used to be rice. Ick.)

***

Today in chapel we sang songs from the Taize community. Since the Taize spirit is in the air, I thought I'd share a quote from Brother Roger's book of meditations, Peace of Heart in All Things.

Every human being yearns to be loved as well as to love. It is not for nothing that the Gospel alerts us about not becoming locked up in isolation.

When we are listened to, obstacles created by frustrations of the heart and wounds from a recent or distant past fall away. Being listened to is the beginning of a healing of the soul.

And the breath of a trust arises... and a gateway to freedom begins to open up.