A Week Later

“If you want to know about wolves and their feeding habits, you have to ask the deer.”[1]

Friday afternoon, I turned to the first page of my (now) gratitude journal to a collection of thoughts and quotes from my first year of seminary, almost 12 years ago. This one – a remnant from Bob Alber’s “Intro to Pastoral Care” class hadn’t particularly touched me since I’d written it, until today, until this week when The United Methodist Church upheld its 1972 ruling that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The Church I grew up in, the Church that is in my bones, did this!

Rhaynen[2] can talk about it at least somewhat dispassionately since she doesn’t value church. But what about Amy, J, D, B, J, B & K, D, R, and all the rest? 

Actually, as Rhaynen discovered, the Book of Discipline (so far) says nothing about transgender persons. Only sexuality is addressed. Guess it wasn’t on the denomination's radar in 1972. Maybe those who’re quite anti-gay don’t realize that gender and sexuality are not on the same spectrum. 

How could they do this?! I mean, I get it. I can easily understand that many faithful people aren’t there yet. But we’d hoped that the One Church plan would allay their fears about anyone trying to change “their” church while also affirming the acceptance and full inclusion that many others practice, or long to practice. 

I truly hadn’t realized that the One Church plan would be so distasteful to them. As a friend asked Tuesday evening, “Were we so naive?” I hadn’t thought so.

I grew up in a bubble and it pretty much lasted until I began my seminary experience twelve years ago. “How do I view GLBT?” is the question that became real during seminary. It was easily resolved as I sat in classes with and learned from fabulous, faith-filled, Spirit-led gay and lesbian persons. The question (now with a few more initials) became personal eighteen months ago. I love Rhaynen. I don’t know her well but her welfare, her fears and sorrows matter to me as much as my other three kids. I marvel at her courage in choosing the path that will, I pray, lead her to wholeness. 

I pray for all of us, but particularly for those wounded yet again by the Church. When someone says this isn’t a big deal, I think of the deer. I’m a wolf. It’s easy for me and my fellow wolves to think this isn’t important. But we’re not deer. We haven’t been chewed up by the institution that is supposed to represent God in the world.

Bishops and other leaders within the Connection counsel us to practice caution and patience. Yes, don’t decide anything rash. We humans tend not to think rationally when we’re grieving. Wait. Allow yourself to feel what you feel. Wait also for the Judicial Council which gathers April 23-25 to decide the constitutionality of the Conservative plan.

Still, I wonder, with many of you, “What will I do?”

God knows, but I do not. I’ll take one day at a time. I’ll listen. I’ll pray. I’ll offer people safe space to share their feelings. And one day when I’m feeling more prepared and less fragile, I trust I’ll know what to do. 

 If you enjoyed reading this, would you consider sharing it on your social media?

[1] I can find no validation for the reference I was given in 2007. Then we were told: Ruben Alvarez, 1979, Faith, Science, Future, World Council of Churches.
[2] Not her real name.

Iris & Mindfulness

 

It’s Saturday morning. I drink my second cup of coffee, chew walnuts and let chocolate chips dissolve on my tongue – a treat for my mindfulness practice. I'm not very good at this mindfulness thing. I've been practicing forever but it usually only lasts a few seconds. Still I try. 

Sip the coffee. Chew a small piece of nut. Notice the dry papery bit. Savor the taste. Pop a chocolate chip in my mouth and chew. Oops! Missed that time!

I try again, focusing my attention on sensations. Take the chocolate between the teeth. Notice its shape. Now on the tongue, notice the sweetness, the … experience of chocolate that I can't describe. Savor its liquid goodness as it slowly dissolves. Sip the cooling coffee. 

My relaxed gaze wanders the print on the living room wall as I practice. I've loved Vincent van Gogh's work since I first noticed to it. (Not an artistic type, that was probably college.) I love his vibrant use of color. 

The longer my eyes roam over the print, the more I see. Irises toward the background that I'd never noticed become visible. Is that one on the right really white and blue? I ponder those orange flowers. My mind says “calendula” but my calendula never had that many leaves.

Some people suggest that van Gogh was colorblind. I don't say anything when I hear it but I have my doubts. His perfection in capturing the irises is amazing. The delicate softness of the petals, the strappy green leaves. Yes, they're full of grays, greens, blues and yellows, but to my mind, it’s as if he captures the essence of what's there, breaking down the colors to their essential elements.

I look at the soil beneath the leaves and wonder, “Was this the color of the dirt there? Or was it some good gardener’s mulch?”

What does this painting tell me about Vincent? Every creative endeavor contains some of its creator. Is this too a self-portrait? Vincent’s was not a happy life. What would he want us to see?

In Disney's Aladdin, the young protagonist sings, “If only they'd look closer. Would they see a poor boy? ... They'd find out there's so much more to me.”

There's more to any of us than meets the eye. We can know someone intimately, spend decades with them, and still only scratch the surface of who they are. If we fail to go deeply, we can get lulled into believing we know all there is to know. How often do I assume I know what this one is thinking or that one will say? How often I'm surprised when I finally include them in the conversation. (“Wow, they listened better than I’d hoped.” Or “I never would have thought of it that way.”)

Thank you, Vincent. This is a good lesson for me to remember.

I pick up a chocolate chip and munch. Oh well, mindfulness is a practice not an immediate experience, right?

Hiatus?

Yes, it's been a while (months!) since I posted anything. I could make the excuse that working 50 hours a week and composing weekly sermons has depleted my creativity. (It has.) But beyond that, I was finding that the only topic that interested me was one I've already written about and I couldn't revisit it without fresh insights. So I waited, silent. Waited for something else to come to me. Waited, as I read through my list of blog seeds and found nothing that inspired me. Some of you waited too.

In early September, I thought, “Maybe this blog has run its course. Maybe I need to put together one more “Goodbye” entry and end it all.” But that didn’t happen. Again, it could have been the busyness. Or it could have been something else. In the weeks that followed the thought, I pondered that maybe Spirit God knew something I didn’t and I practiced compassion on myself as I continued to wait.

Thursday, I returned from Palestine where I’d joined a group on a Living Stones Pilgrimage (more on that another time). One evening midway through our time there, “First World Problems” popped into my head. I don’t remember in reference to what, but this’s how blog ideas have come to me in the past – as a possible title, a theme or a sentence to be fleshed out. And in that moment, I realized that I’m not finished here.

I have work to do.

I’ll come back to my favorite topic another time. (I already have an entry written and waiting.) I’ll probably write about those first world problems, too. But I expect I’ll also be writing about walls and reservations and apartheid. I may write about Wi’am. Or Tent of Nations. And refugee camps and settlements.

And, in season, gardening, of course...

Goodness!

Some people object to the phrase, “God is good,” and for good reasons. Others say, “God is good,” whenever something good comes their way, and this works for them.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I remember when Bishop Linda Lee led the Wisconsin Conference and how she would regularly (and often) pull us back to task.

Bishop: “God is good.”
Church: “All the time.”
Bishop: “All the time,”
Church: “God is good.” 

But is God good?

Yes, God is good – in the same sense that life is good and that burping when your stomach is distended is good. Neither example have any inherent goodness about them. Releasing GI pressure brings ease. As long as we don’t do it in an unacceptable space or moment – like during the community prayer at church or during the heart-wrenching death scene at the theatre – all is good. Life is good, as good as we choose to believe it to be with all the death, disease and injustice that abounds.

Yes, God is good. The Source of All that Is leads us to live as fully as we’re able, with a compassion- and justice-focused mindset. The One that is Beyond All Else empowers us to live abundantly, to trust that even with all the bad stuff that life throws at us living is still a gift, something worth doing as well as we can.

So God is good.

But is God really good?

No, not if you mean “good” as we might measure it on our own good/bad scale. We humans are each somewhere on that continuum, some of us more good, some more bad, while others are smack-dab in the middle.

The challenge to God’s goodness comes when we accept that God doesn’t fit on this continuum. God is neither good nor bad – not by any human definition. God is quite other. Not simply larger (tho’ that may be); instead God is different beyond our comprehension. To use an imperfect analogy, we can’t really compare apples, mallard ducks and rose crystal. They each have their merits. Each has its value. But equating one with the other? ... that’s tough.

Then is God good?

When my children were young, I tried to remind them often that they were perfect just as they were. They were exactly as a five- (or seven- or ten-) year-old ought to be. This idea also helped when I might otherwise have been frustrated by students at school. “They’re perfect examples of 7th graders. They’re acting just like 12- and 13-year olds should act.” 

Expecting that nine-year-old to act like a nine-year old and not like a little man is about perspective. It's helpful – for both of us. Not expecting God to act like a finite human being is also about perspective, and is similarly helpful. I honestly believe that God (however you define them) leads us – rocks, blowfish, and humans, all of us – toward a best way, if we will only accept guidance. The blowfish and rocks are better at following but with practice we can get pretty good too.