My husband is at a conference thrown by a bunch of Presbyterians who think the church is "deathly ill." Perhaps. Many people are saying that denominations as we know them are dead. Duh...
Truth is, today's denomination is nothing like the presbyterian church of the 1950's or the 1900's or--pick a year. We expect life-as-we-know-it. And when we don't get life-as-we-know-it, we are distressed.
I'm not sure where this life-as-we-know-it comes from. OK...fall in love and get married? Is that life as we know it? Not in my house. Married just led to day after day of wait-this-isn't-what-I-expected. Perhaps it was job, moving, honey-I'm-pregnant, going back to school, who is supposed to empty the dishwasher or take out trash. Perhaps it was look, I cooked dinner (ok, it wasn't), or bought you roses, or spread your mulch, or absorbed your tears and snot. Whatever it was, it was never "life as we know it."
What is this need to define and then live only life-as-we-know-it? It only frustrates us. Because inevitably, trying to define life-as-we-know-it is most significantly a reflection of self...a definition of the world in all the ways we think would make us happy.
Challenge to self this week...stop defining life-as-we-know-it and grieving when it isn't life-as-we-know-it. Start looking at life-as-it-is and celebrating the gifts we are being given...even when those gifts don't look like what we expect or think we want. Life-as-it-is may be exactly what we need.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
And Another Pet Peeve...
For those of you that listen to the national Fox News station (can't speak for the local stations so much), here's my opinion. And, for that matter, MSNBC and any other 24 hour news station.
Regardless of what you think, your mother should have taught you to say it better. Your tonalities are rude and judgmental. They insinuate evil and conspiracy, incompetence and stupidity. My mother never let me talk that way to anyone, even if they were the most evil, incompetent, stupid person on the face of the earth. They still were human beings, children of God, and as such were to be treated with respect.
Watch something else for awhile...or watch nothing. Give it enough time to make a difference. Read your news for a month and then check your level of irritation with the world. It might improve. Language and tonalities make a difference. We can be better than this.
Stepping off the soapbox and going back to work now...
Regardless of what you think, your mother should have taught you to say it better. Your tonalities are rude and judgmental. They insinuate evil and conspiracy, incompetence and stupidity. My mother never let me talk that way to anyone, even if they were the most evil, incompetent, stupid person on the face of the earth. They still were human beings, children of God, and as such were to be treated with respect.
Watch something else for awhile...or watch nothing. Give it enough time to make a difference. Read your news for a month and then check your level of irritation with the world. It might improve. Language and tonalities make a difference. We can be better than this.
Stepping off the soapbox and going back to work now...
Blessed are the Poor?...
John Stewart committed a whole show to Warren Buffet's op ed on taxing the super-rich. I guess I should have expected the vitriolic response, but it still surprises me--especially in our "Christian" nation. One response... "The top 1% already pay 40% of the taxes and the bottom 52% pay nothing. Talk about fair?? If Buffet wants to pay more taxes he can write a check anytime he wants. The heck with distributing the money from the rich to the lazy do-nothings that wouldn’t work in a pie shop if you gave them a piece of each pie!!! "
My son used to feel that way...until he tried to support himself (and only himself) on a minimum wage job. It was all he could get, and he actually made a little over minimum wage. He worked as a dishwasher/delivery guy/cook/and do whatever needs to be done at a little restaurant in downtown High Point. Six months into working harder than he had ever imagined, he gave it up and moved back home. There was no way to make it all work. A roof over his head and a little food, gas money, and that was about it. No insurance. No savings. No security. He met a bunch of people much like himself. Hard-working, long hours, do it every day...
My son used to feel that way...until he tried to support himself (and only himself) on a minimum wage job. It was all he could get, and he actually made a little over minimum wage. He worked as a dishwasher/delivery guy/cook/and do whatever needs to be done at a little restaurant in downtown High Point. Six months into working harder than he had ever imagined, he gave it up and moved back home. There was no way to make it all work. A roof over his head and a little food, gas money, and that was about it. No insurance. No savings. No security. He met a bunch of people much like himself. Hard-working, long hours, do it every day...
My son was lucky enough to have a scholarship to college and the ability to use that education to hopefully, some day, get a job that provided stability and security. But his parents were lucky enough to have an education and a job that provided security and stability
. We spent a lot of time with him and his siblings, reading and coaching and teaching. Partly, we were able to do that because Carl's one job paid enough for me to stay home. We lived on a very tight budget in those early years, but it was a living wage and provided health insurance and retirement benefits. After my son's excursion into the world of minimum wage work, he-who-espoused-the-poor-are-moochers-sentiment decided he had been wrong. The assumption that poor equals lazy is not accurate. Rich people are hard working and productive. Poor people are hard working and productive. Rich people can be lazy and worthless. So can poor. Money is not the determining factor...neither is assistance--government or otherwise.
. We spent a lot of time with him and his siblings, reading and coaching and teaching. Partly, we were able to do that because Carl's one job paid enough for me to stay home. We lived on a very tight budget in those early years, but it was a living wage and provided health insurance and retirement benefits. After my son's excursion into the world of minimum wage work, he-who-espoused-the-poor-are-moochers-sentiment decided he had been wrong. The assumption that poor equals lazy is not accurate. Rich people are hard working and productive. Poor people are hard working and productive. Rich people can be lazy and worthless. So can poor. Money is not the determining factor...neither is assistance--government or otherwise.
I read plenty of biblical passages commanding us to care for the poor...challenging us to serve them, provide for them, insure justice for them (and justice means the ability to provide a secure life for themselves and their families.) Nowhere do I read a "criteria" for which poor we are supposed to serve. Jesus didn't determine a set of criteria for those "worthy" of God's grace. He served all; he didn't even require them to change before he helped them. Change, if suggested or challenged, came after the grace.
Watch this Stewart episode. Why is it outrageous that "poor" people have refrigerators, microwaves, air conditioning? Why would we expect that they wouldn't have a phone? Some have cable...but we don't know who or how...and again, if they can pay for cable for some relaxation and enjoyment (cause I bet they don't spend much time going out to eat or to movies) why is that bad? (And it's not like stopping a $60 cable bill will enable them to buy insurance for their family...) Laura Ingram calls people on welfare "animals." I'm not sure that super-rich who argue they can't raise salaries because their companies "can't afford it" while they live on as much as 1 billion dollars a year salary are not the animals. After listening to these privileged folks rant, we looked at a NYT article on families that spend $30-200,000 on playhouses for their children. Guess what...the little girl's playhouse had running water and...a refrigerator. (Explain that one to Haitians living under plastic in this hurricane season...or the family in Mississippi that still doesn't have running water.)
OK...I've probably offended everyone now. But is this the society we are called to embrace? A society that assume rich means good and poor means bad? A society that gives every break to those who already have every break--and removes all help from those who struggle to get a break, assigning them fault for being born into disadvantaged circumstances. Have we forgotten that God came as the poorest of the poor? being born into the most insignificant and powerless position possible?
Sunday, we stuffed backpacks for school children who cannot afford school supplies. But we won't have done the job we are called to do until we live in a society that doesn't have school children who can't afford supplies. When everyone has a job that pays enough to support a family, meeting basic needs and providing enough to have some savings, retirement, and insurance...then we might live in the kingdom of God...
We will always give a hand to someone who doesn't appreciate it, who doesn't take advantage of it, who, perhaps, doesn't deserve it. But isn't that the very definition of self-sacrifice? And if serving a few undeserving means we live in a world where all have the opportunity to be secure, line them up at the pie shop and give them pie. Our job is to answer God's call to care for the poor, the alien, the widow and the orphan...all those who cannot care for themselves. And, when we respond to that call...God changes the world.
We will always give a hand to someone who doesn't appreciate it, who doesn't take advantage of it, who, perhaps, doesn't deserve it. But isn't that the very definition of self-sacrifice? And if serving a few undeserving means we live in a world where all have the opportunity to be secure, line them up at the pie shop and give them pie. Our job is to answer God's call to care for the poor, the alien, the widow and the orphan...all those who cannot care for themselves. And, when we respond to that call...God changes the world.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
It Can Only Be Found Here...
So, I'm thinking it has been perhaps 3 or 4 days since my last post...what happens to the time. Maybe that's why I'm so old...I only spend 3 days and 6 go by!
I heard a comment this morning that a particular kind of nurturing community could only happen at "our church." And, while I'll tell anyone that Forest Hills Presbyterian in High Point, NC is one of the strongest environments for the spiritual nurture of children and youth that I have ever experienced, the possibility for nurture is never limited to one place. God self-limited in Jesus to a particular time and place, but then after Jesus died, God at work in the Holy Spirit calls and enables all Christians to work as Jesus did. We don't often do it as well, but that is the miracle of God's work. Somehow, through our limitation and weakness, God's work happens.
But my thought as our young people are moving to college this week and next, or moving into the working world, or into mission service, is that what they describe as our "particular kind of nurturing" is now moving out into the world. Each of them, each of us, has benefitted from the spiritual nurture and the community support of our congregations. And each of us is called from that community back into a world that is hungry for that nurture.
Instead of lamenting that we wish everyone would come in and experience nurture, we are called to take that nurture out into the world. That often requires more of us than we want to give...and it removes that "special status" that we so enjoy. Each Christian community has particular gifts and strengths. No Christian community is the sole proprietor of any aspect of God's grace.
So, we give thanks for the gifts we have been given. But we better know we are given those gifts to go out and share. The only thing that makes us different and special from the rest of the world is that we have a job to do.
I heard a comment this morning that a particular kind of nurturing community could only happen at "our church." And, while I'll tell anyone that Forest Hills Presbyterian in High Point, NC is one of the strongest environments for the spiritual nurture of children and youth that I have ever experienced, the possibility for nurture is never limited to one place. God self-limited in Jesus to a particular time and place, but then after Jesus died, God at work in the Holy Spirit calls and enables all Christians to work as Jesus did. We don't often do it as well, but that is the miracle of God's work. Somehow, through our limitation and weakness, God's work happens.
But my thought as our young people are moving to college this week and next, or moving into the working world, or into mission service, is that what they describe as our "particular kind of nurturing" is now moving out into the world. Each of them, each of us, has benefitted from the spiritual nurture and the community support of our congregations. And each of us is called from that community back into a world that is hungry for that nurture.
Instead of lamenting that we wish everyone would come in and experience nurture, we are called to take that nurture out into the world. That often requires more of us than we want to give...and it removes that "special status" that we so enjoy. Each Christian community has particular gifts and strengths. No Christian community is the sole proprietor of any aspect of God's grace.
So, we give thanks for the gifts we have been given. But we better know we are given those gifts to go out and share. The only thing that makes us different and special from the rest of the world is that we have a job to do.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Hoh...
Today, I have mostly recovered from my week at "church camp." Something about my age and no sleep requires a few days of less than stellar thinking before I return to what some might argue is less than stellar thinking. On this trip, my friend Tom told me about a trip he took to the Hoh rainforest in Oregon. Trees grow in straight lines in this forest...a direct result of death.
You see, a tree falls in the forest (insert old joke here...). Then the tree begins to rot. Seedlings sprout in the decaying trunk and begin to grow on the top of the old tree. The roots of the massive trees spread over the trunk, which then finishes decaying, all the time fertilizing the young trees and helping them grow strong and straight. Mature trees have an odd look, however...the roots start well above ground and have clear space under the trees. (Click here for a great picture of this.)
You always wonder if you are making a difference in the world, especially when you work with children and youth. You certainly can't always see the impact you have. But when I think back on those saints who nurtured me, they have most certainly shaped who I am. I have roots that grow in a Mrs. Parker shape, in a Mrs. Diehl shape, in grandmother and grandaddy shapes. I have roots that grow in bus ministry shapes and youth trip shapes. None of those people or things still exist in my life, but they have shaped who I am.
I think the Hoh rainforest is going to be on my bucket list--a place where all people can actually see the impact of generations which have gone before...
You always wonder if you are making a difference in the world, especially when you work with children and youth. You certainly can't always see the impact you have. But when I think back on those saints who nurtured me, they have most certainly shaped who I am. I have roots that grow in a Mrs. Parker shape, in a Mrs. Diehl shape, in grandmother and grandaddy shapes. I have roots that grow in bus ministry shapes and youth trip shapes. None of those people or things still exist in my life, but they have shaped who I am.
I think the Hoh rainforest is going to be on my bucket list--a place where all people can actually see the impact of generations which have gone before...
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