Snow storm is coming. I can tell because it was beautiful today. Sixty degrees...sunshine...no wind...only enough clouds to make a lovely white and blue contrast. So batten down the hatches and pull on the boots, the ice man cometh...

Just reminds me that whether life is really good or really bad, it will change.

Where's the weekend?????

So, my Friday is my Saturday. Because I work on Sundays, my weekends start after work on Thursday, and because I go to school on Saturday, my weekend ends at the end of the day on Friday. So last Friday I am up at 5 (because I take after my crazy father who gets up at five instead of my crazy mother who goes to bed at five...both a.m.) and I read several chapters for class, empty the dishwasher, make coffee and breakfast, then I wash the dog, shower, and get ready for my day off.

I did have a nice cup of coffee with my husband, and then I hit the pharmacy and the grocery store before I went home to dust, vacuum, and do more homework.

That's not to say I dust and vacuum every day off. Sometimes I mow and rake. Sometimes I clean the garage. Sometimes I clean out closets or run errands.

What I can't seem to find is that idea of weekend that I thought I'd have when I was imagining what being an adult would be like:

• walking through lush green spinach and lettuce in a backdoor garden with delicious hot coffee (made, I'm sure by the butler/maid/husband) and smiling benevolently at the rabbits having a snack in your private produce department...
• reading the whole New York Times cover to cover with coffee (again), white terry robes, and a very handsome man (butler back? no husband!) in a luxurious bedroom with table and chairs, sofa, and of course, the mussed but beautiful bed with breakfast tray...
• sailing in a beautiful boat with good friends and good wine, beautiful tan and great hair...
• hiking the Appalachian Trail in very cool boots and shorts, slender legs--shaved and exfoliated...
• dinner parties in your backyard garden at big farmer's tables with tablecloths and plates overflowing with beautiful, home-grown, organic food, candles that don't attract suicidal moths, and no pile of dirty dishes waiting in the kitchen (butler again!)...
• add your fantasy here...

Sometimes I seek that in my faith. I want faith that allows my head to glow with a heavenly light and my eyes to glisten with just a hint of tears of joy and fulfillment. I want faith that allows me to turn water into wine and have a heck of a party with my 200 closest friends. I want faith that allows me to vanquish evil doers and straighten out this mess we call life in the real world. I want faith that is unquestionable and unquestioned, faith that allows me to float through my days in a peaceful, happy fog that touches those around me and spreads the love...allowing my children to do exactly the right things, my church to grow and thrive and not be able to find parking places on Sunday because so many are compelled by the aura to drive up the very long, very hidden drive...motivating teens to wear suits and ties and volunteer at the church in every spare minute they have, happily giving up their Wii's for shelving library books and scrubbing walls, and weeding flower beds...

But, on the weekend and in my faith I just get up and do what needs to be done, celebrating occasional cups of great coffee or great insight. The reality is, as I look around, most real adult people don't have weekends like I imagined, or faith like we have defined it. You can't show me where Mother Teresa's head glowed on a regular basis, and we learned after her death that she struggled every day to hold on to her faith. Moses glowed after coming off the mountain of God, but before and after that event he dealt with real people and real issues and made a boatload of mistakes. Jesus was crucified.

Faith and weekends seem to be much more about preparation and awareness, and the discipline of "keeping on" so that when the spirit of the luxurious moment does break through, we can see and celebrate.

My greatest frustration comes when I expect faith and/or weekends to be something they are not. Both are fully a part of real life and not separate from it. Both require work and persistence. Both hold great hope for the future (I still hope for that garden...and maybe the slender legs...) and both shape life in the coming days. And as frustrating as both can be, I wouldn't even consider living without them.

The First Shall be Last and the Last Shall be First

Karl Barth looks at the difficulty we have in reconciling our understanding of an all-powerful, all-perfect God with the reality of God in Jesus Christ as a fragile, non-powerful, very human being. We ask, "How can weakness and fragility be God? How can servanthood be God?" and we tend to separate God from Jesus...Jesus lived obediently, we say, then after he was killed God raised him from the dead and restored his ability to be all powerful and all perfect...

Barth stands firmly on the presupposition that "...in equal Godhead the one God is, in fact, the One and also Another, that He is indeed a First and a Second, One who rules and commands in majesty and One who obeys in humility. The one God is both the one and the other." If we buy the fact that God and Jesus are the same (despite the weakness of our theological language that separates the two) we really have to buy Barth's basic premise. That's not so hard in our practiced Christian lives. (Might be a lot harder if we were coming from a different religion.) But then Barth issues a challenge. Our way of "finding a lesser dignity and significance in what takes the second and subordinate place" must be rethought. Why do we automatically assume the subordinate place is the lesser place? It appears almost impossible for us to admit that assuming a subordinate role could be the more powerful position...even though we read it incessantly in the New Testament witness and give some lip service to the idea of Jesus the servant. The only thing that seems more impossible than us admitting that a subordinate role could be more powerful is us living into that charge.

How would the world change if we truly lived into 1) the complete obedience to God that Jesus modeled starting with love God and love your neighbor as yourself, and 2) the assumption that being a servant is not a lesser call than being the boss...but in fact a greater call... and 3) the understanding that service is for the other...and in no way should serve our own interests...

Would that fix congress????????

"There but by the grace of God, go I." The quote is accredited to John Bradford, a 16th century Anglican burned at the stake by Catholic Queen Mary when she ascended to the throne.

"It was the grace of God that saved me." "There by the grace of God..." "Here by the grace of God..."These quotes are credited to various people involved in the earthquake in Haiti that managed to escape from the sudden destruction with their lives.

"There by the grace of God..." the quote that makes my skin crawl for what it implies about who God is.

I think I understand the reason for the words--we fragile humans have escaped some perilous situation. Unlike James Bond and most TV detectives/agents/spies, we don't usually make it through a hail of bullets unscathed. When we do find ourselves in the surprising position of survivor and there is no apparent reason, it is easy to credit this divine power who loves us. But the unspoken message that follows "God saved me..." is that God didn't save someone else or that God didn't share God's grace with that other guy at the bottom of a crushed building.

When we escape with our lives, or get a second chance, or work out an insurmountable problem, and we can't figure out how we possibly did it, of course we would credit God. Does that mean we will blame God if we don't escape with our lives or get a second chance or work out our problems? Sometimes.

I remember when my children were young...they all went through this stage of blaming me or any other convenient person for whatever went wrong. A lot of adults never leave that phase. Certainly our culture's first response any bad happening is to find who to blame. We're human. Stuff happens. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Most of it is just stuff...no blame can be assigned.

So where is God in the stuff? I just can't picture God floating around the mess deciding who to bail out and who to let suffer. That is not the understanding of God I get from the biblical text. God is not the decider; God is the sufferer. God is simply with us. God doesn't lecture us on how we should have behaved. God doesn't wait for us to behave better before God is with us. God is just with us. Sometimes in joy, sometimes in suffering. Sometimes we know God is with us. Sometimes we don't know God is with us. But God is there...under the concrete or celebrating on the Today Show. God is there.

There by the grace of God go I....nope....

Here in the grace of God are we all...that I can buy.

Talked to my adult daughter yesterday about a conversation she had with her supervisor. He asked her how she felt and she "didn't know,"..."didn't want to talk about it"..."didn't think it was important"...or some iteration of the above. (We accuse my 80 year old mother of making stuff up all the time...I understand why she does...you can't remember the actual happenings!) Anyway, the point was that she didn't feel like her feelings were as important as other peoples...she didn't want to to burden people with her feelings...she would rather focus on others. Ummmmm...Mama's little girl. Didn't really mean to pass down that inheritance.

In our defense (because one's own position is always eminently defensible!), some of that is good. It is tiresome to hear incessantly how someone feels. I know our thought process...OK, so you feel that way...what are you going to do to improve/get over/move past/fix it! But I also get the idea that always denying your feelings as insignificant is not so good...

Felt plenty in worship Sunday. Magnificent Sunday...one of those services that surrounds you with reminders that the Spirit of God is at work in our lives and the world. Should have bought stock in Kleenex before the service. My mother just kept handing them to me...wish I could cry like movie stars with all tears and no snot...

We "remembered our baptism" which always takes me back to the baptism of our first child. I had always been taught that for a baptism to "take," it had to be chosen by an adult. Learning the reformed perspective of baptism as a sign that God has already chosen us...already acted on our behalf before we could act on our own behalf...that was (and is) one of the most powerful statements about God's grace ever. My salvation doesn't depend on me. (Whew!) God has taken care of it. Watching water being poured over my son's head was my life-changing moment.

We tied prayer quilts for three children who lost both parents to domestic violence. The prayer knots reminded me that God has them in God's heart already and always. We sang (or tried to sing in my case--singing and crying is difficult) a remarkable hymn that starts "I was there to hear you borning cry, I'll be there when you are old. I rejoiced the day you were baptized to see your life unfold." God is with us, already and always. The sermon was an artistic reminder that God loves us through our weaknesses and sees in us the complete, most beautiful self we are in his love. God loves us, already and always. We recalled the words spoken at baptism and watched a child of the church who is walking the path to ordination lead the liturgy. We touched the water that points us to new life as those who know God's love for them. We were sent into the world to be messengers of that good news for all people...God saves us, already and always.

I don't feel that intensity often...if my faith is up to what I feel, then it is on shaky ground. But I celebrate those intense reminders of how be-loved we are...the real us...inside out...to God what we feel and who we are is significant always. God's love is our foundation. God's love is real and lasting. God's love is real life and faith.

So, the question arises, "Can you be too ready for something?" At dinner Thursday evening, we planned our day off...and discussed the upcoming confirmation Sunday, which my mother pronounced "Sunday" and asked what we were bringing for the covered dish breakfast. My husband nodded knowingly and I added "set up tables and chairs to my list of things to do on my day off" because I had clearly forgotten to get it together.
After a long morning of delicious coffee and delightful conversation with said hubby, and several hours of grocery shopping, I negotiated a trip to Talbot's with a daughter in return for set-up assistance. We spent an hour setting up tables, steaming tablecloths and laying out placemats until it dawned slowly on my foggy brain that this week is Jesus' baptism and next week is CONFIRMATION!!! We went home.
OK, that's my real life. My mom was eager and my husband had discussed confirmation in his study group--only they work two weeks--so he gets credit for foggy-brain-syndrome as well. So now I think I am prepared for something that is not happening...
I wondered if we don't do that more significantly all the time...getting ourselves set up for an event that is not yet complete in God's time. Have we decided where God will sit in our churches and what God will wear and how we will run the show and who will be in charge, and how it's gonna go? What if it's not time yet for our agenda? What if God has something totally different in mind? What if we are looking at the wrong celebration or the wrong event, focused on what WE think should be happening and not what GOD has determined is happening. Are we missing the cool stuff today because we forgot to stop and think before we started setting up for the next thing?
The good news is that we're set up, more or less, for the Confirmation breakfast. And I promise that for me, tomorrow's pause to think about our baptism is going to be an exercise in living in the present...looking at the amazing gifts all around me in this faith community that is nurturing their children one more significant week before they become adult members of the Body of Christ. BTW...Confirmation breakfast is Jan. 17 at 9:30...join us...

Seminary classes start this Saturday, and I'm already behind. This hasn't been a good week to have a last minute assignment, which we have. Faith is trusting God has some grand idea behind being in seminary...real life is "are-you-kidding-me-you-want-me-to-do-what-by-when-while-I- am-doing-what-God-wants-or-at-least-what-I-think-God-wants-cause-anyone-doing-this- otherwise-would-be-crazy!" It mixes up all together and comes out this mash up of pain and growth and joy and sadness that puts life into a completely new perspective. God's work gets done in spite of an incomplete assignment, a frustrated committee moderator, an impatient young adult, a broken spot light, or any other impediment that makes us gasp and forget who God is.

So, I am going to plug in a piano and set up some chairs, take food to a school for children who aren't fed on the weekends, make a flyer, plan a meal, hit the grocery store at some point, send a Sunday school schedule, write some overdue notes, and keep breathing in and out...gratefully knowing that God is in charge of the world and not me...(even though my husband might disagree!)

first times...

Actually taking the step to commit to blogging crashes together life and faith like cars in an action movie...only without the box office take home pay. Putting words on the paper means having faith that it will be the slightest bit helpful to someone. Putting words on the paper means having faith that the words will come. Putting words on the paper means yanking myself into the 21st century because there's no paper here...only words...I only think I am "with it"...
I toyed with several titles for the blog and landed here because 1) it wasn't already taken and 2) usually what I have to spout off about is this idea of "real life" and faith intersecting. At times I expect that life is nice and easy and that faith will be part of that nice, easy existence. And without fail, life gets "real" instead and faith is part of the struggle and we're back to the action movie crash...and still without the box office pay...
We'll crash around together if you want.