Love Is the Law

For a while now, I've been very lax in the laundry department in terms of ironing. This morning I realized my batik print tunic would need to be ironed if I wanted to wear it to church. It was under three t-shirts that also needed a press because I hadn't gotten them out of the dryer soon enough. Why not get them done too? So, I ironed out the wrinkles in my Love Is the Law t-shirt which I bought at the music event in downtown St. Paul after Gov. Dayton signed the same sex marriage bill into law. And I thought about the story behind the shirt while ironing, because ironing doesn't take a lot of brain activity.

Chan Poling, of the band The Suburbs, saw the phrase "love is the law" in a graffiti tag and liked the sound of it so he wrote a song for his band. Several years later it became the theme song for the marriage equality movement in Minnesota. Poling seemed to have this sense that this idea was significant, and perhaps under expressed, so was worthy of highlighting musically.

It certainly resonated this year. Not only in this campaign of course, for in many ways we hear of people's valuing of love, hopes that love would prevail, and stories of the power of love to restore, reconcile and heal. The thing is, that love is the law is not a new idea. It is at the core of what Jesus taught and lived. That popular culture comes up with this as a new idea, because it has not been manifested by the Church, points to a significant problem. Love for God, neighbor and self is the distillation of the Christian life. What would the world be like if love truly was the heart of faith and practice for Christians?

How did we get off track, distracted by behavioral control, dogma, social power, and so many other things?

It was then I thought of the kids on Wednesday night at church, how I talked about the temple King Solomon built before inviting them to use Legos to make part of that temple. Until 70 CE there was only one temple, that had significance for both Jews and Christians. Somehow, as Christianity separated from its roots in Judaism, and despite the biblical teaching about the people of the Church being the temple of the Holy Spirit, we started building many ornate worship spaces to be our temples. Money, status, stability, power--all of these help if one wants to build large centers for worship. And then the focus falls on the building, which becomes the church in the minds of many. Thus we forget that we as a community of the faithful are to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. We forget that love from God for the world is our missional identity and purpose.

The whole world is in need of the witness from the disciples of Jesus that we are called by love to love. We, as disciples, need to open our eyes to see how God is at work in this essential ministry, outside of, and even in spite of, the Church.

Milkweed and Monarchs

At first, they seemed harmless, those Common Milkweed plants in the 4' x 8' perennial bed. An occasional sprout would show up in the grass during my first few years here. And one year, the aphids attacked and sucked the life out of the whole bunch. Maybe that's when they became interested in taking over, some kind of milkweed evolution took place and activated an extensive root expansion and seed propagation program.

Just a few days ago, as I surveyed the milkweed-conquered territories of my yard, I thought about asking a master gardener for help in eradicating the plants. You might be wondering why I let them take over, while I am wondering how the previous owners/gardeners managed to keep them confined. My turn from accepting and managing the wily milkweed to considering its removal had a lot to do with the reason they're here in the first place. This year there are so few Monarch butterflies in my yard.

Let me take a moment to partially explain the expansion of the Common Milkweed into new territories around my house. The Monarchs lay their eggs on the tender leaves of new sprouts, or of older plants if no little ones are available. Thus, the onward march from that tenacious underground root system, springing up into baby plants would very quickly result in those plants being host to Monarch eggs. Yes, I did pull many of those and keep them alive in a vase until the eggs hatched (but the roots didn't go away). But there were many I let stand.

So, when the butterflies didn't return, the reason-for-being of the Milkweed for me, it led me to think I could regain some sense of order in my garden. I am fortunate in my neighbors because they have not strongly urged milkweed removal (yet)!

Yesterday, while harvesting a few tomatoes and some lovely raspberries, I spotted a mama Monarch (!) fluttering from plant to plant stopping to lay eggs (this is about a month later than usual). When I moved closer to watch I saw that her wings were faded, even nearly clear in spots, as a result of the long flight here from Texas. Sometimes she flopped over just a bit, but then righted herself and kept looking for the right plants in the tumult of my verdant gardens (everything does seem to grow exuberantly). Her doggedness over that long journey, finding my yard because her ancestors were born here, made me rethink how little effort by comparison I need to exert to keep these milkweed plants.

The Monarch butterfly population (state butterfly of Minnesota by the way) is at an all-time record low. This makes me sad. I've been hand-rearing some caterpillars every year so I get to see them transform via chrysalis into butterfly. Butterfly birthdays are wonderful, and I've been here for a lot of them. I just don't know how many more years we have.

For more information on Monarchs: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/index.html; http://www.monarchlab.org/

A Farmer Gene: Raspberries in the City

Ten years ago I moved into this house, anticipating a July raspberry harvest. Having enough room for my big dining room table somewhere near the kitchen inside and an existing raspberry patch outside being two reasons to buy this house. Sure, I'd picked berries before--wild strawberries in the ditch by my cousin's house when I was a kid, blackberries on an aunt's 40 acres in Wisconsin once (great jam, by the way), raspberries in another aunt's back yard in Duluth while fending off mosquitoes, blueberries and serviceberries in the Boundary Waters--but I'd never been the gardener for a 20x5 foot stretch of raspberries.

There were quite a few berries in 2003, so I asked my parents if they'd like to come over and pick some . My mom is a jam maker so this sounded great to her. That day I learned that her dad had a raspberry patch and he'd put on his farmer overalls, with a belt to hold the bucket handle, so he could go out and pick with both hands. Every year I'm out picking berries I think about my grandfather doing the same thing. I wonder if there's a farmer gene that gets passed from one generation to the next. When I was a teenager I got interested in our garden and my grandpa loaned me some of his Rodale magazines (organic gardening tips). There's something in me that helps me see the ripest berries, and even find them by touch alone, so I think about tuning sight to particular color, and touch to the just right softness, and maybe even smell to find those hidden berries. I learned pretty quickly that effective berry picking requires that one look at the plants from a variety of perspectives. It never fails; I think I've done a thorough job in a small area, move on, then look back and see raspberries I missed. There's my mini life lesson!

Ten years ago I didn't know much about tending a berry patch. Now I know there's a bit of work involved. After all the picking is done one waits for those fruit bearing canes to dry up just enough so they stand out in contrast to the new growth of next year's canes. Removing the dying ones makes room for strong new growth so that needs to be done in August or early September. In the early spring before any leaf buds open, I cut off about one-quarter of the cane from the top. I learned this a few years into my raspberry hobby and it increased my harvest...until the advent of the Japanese Beetles on the scene. Before things fill in too much there's some weeding to be done. Then, cheer on the pollinators! When the berries start ripening it is a daily task to keep up with the harvest, which becomes twice a day at the peak. One year I called on several people to come pick berries to take home, made two fresh glazed raspberry pies, and still had over eight gallon freezer bags full of deliciousness for jam and sorbet.

When I'm out harvesting this fabulous bounty in my Saint Paul neighborhood back yard I remember my dairy farming grandfather, I think about what it must be like to be a migrant farm worker working in fields all day instead of just for an hour, I see the variety of life that swirls around my berry patch and I am caught by the beauty of the aroma of ripening berries in the heat and sun.

Recently, my uncle and I were talking about what retirement could look like on a little hobby farm with some chickens, a big garden, and maybe a Dexter cow (he hadn't heard of that small breed) ... I think he wanted goats too. I think we both have that farmer gene.

The Social Body, Family Values and Jesus

In a "profound, earthy and funny" (from the book blurb by Paul J. Griffiths) book--Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels--by Rodney Clap I find inspiration for this piece. This all started when I decided to read the whole book, having read a few chapters a few years ago. You know how that is. By the way, it's an excellent book and is still available; I just checked the Baker/Brazos website.

As the host of a house church with some participants who are new to taking the Bible seriously, weekly prayer and communion, I find myself (lifelong Christian) thinking deeply about how to communicate effectively. And so, when I read the following in Tortured Wonders I brought this into our discussion about a healing story in Luke the next Sunday. These two excerpts are central to this essay.

Unlike any known culture before it, the modern West has seen individual physical bodies as the basis of the social body. The individual is real and primary, the social body a derivative fiction. The modern West has, in essence and contrary to the apostle Paul, said that individuals as "hands" or "feet" are most themselves in isolation from any social body of which they may be members. Premoderns saw matters differently. The individual, inasmuch as such a creature could be conceived [emphasis mine], was preceded by and dependent on the social body. The whole person exited only in community (72).

When I introduced the healing story, I invited people to think about how this played out for the whole community, not just the individuals, how healing might have taken place in the social fabric. I am going to be pondering this for a while, remembering that many of the second-person pronouns in the New Testament are second-person plural--which we lose in the English translation, and in our individualist mindset. OK, back to the topic at hand.

But still I have caught a glimpse of what St. Augustine called concupiscence, the darkness of disordered desire which would make of the self a god and of all other creatures (and even of God Almighty) means or tools of the self's satisfaction and aggrandizement (67).

 My impression is that this "disordered desire" has primarily been identified in the sphere of human sexual relations, however, does it not make sense in terms of much of human failing in other spheres as well?

A great deal of Christian rhetoric makes the news when it addresses family values, the constitution of a family, the parenting of children and marriage. On one side, people argue on behalf of what is commonly referred to as a conservative agenda, countered on the other hand by a so-called progressive agenda.
A: Marriage and family look like this... vs
B: No, marriage and family look like this.
Taking the Bible seriously leads to a close reading of the whole text (from Lot to Abraham to David particularly) and not finding a lot that supports a definition of family values that "conservatives" would affirm. And then there's that troublesome story about Jesus in Mark 3:31-35 (NRSV):

31 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” 33 And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” 

Proclamations from all sides of the family debate tend toward an expression of "concupiscence," in other words, what serves the individual self's satisfaction. Making biological/adoptive/chosen family a primary value apart from the will of God is a disordered desire. Echoing what Clapp says in terms of Christian spirituality not wanting to erase all differences between person (76); neither do followers of the Way of Jesus want to deny the existence and importance of families (variously defined). We are called to rightly order our desires (to use Augustinian language) and to recall that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 about the love that is to be found in Christian worshiping communities--which then would facilitate that love in all relationships, including marriage and family.

Because we post-moderns have lost this rootedness in communal ties in which premodern cultures were steeped, we desperately seek for alternatives and elevate them beyond the importance that is rightfully theirs. Nations, sports teams, corporations, families, political parties, etc--all are found wanting as social bodies to convey identity. At the same time, modern spirituality focuses on self-realization or self-fulfillment, which "in the terms of Christian spirituality [is] perversely making the fall its ideal. It puts forth the alienated and amputated individual as the highest and healthiest human condition. And--seen with Christian eyes--that is an illusion. The amputated limb is a dying limb" (Clapp, 77).

Death is all around us: addiction, violence, greed, species extinction, suicide, hatred.
For us to choose life, we must re-member the social body, and recognize that our choice for life in God's realm is a communal reality.

2013 Clergy Session Prayer

The context for this prayer: I have been the "shepherd" for candidates for ordained ministry during their interviews. When those who have been approved come before the Clergy Session at our United Methodist Annual Conference, the shepherd is called upon to offer a prayer before we vote in affirmation of the recommendations by the Board of Ordained Ministry (which comes from that day of interviews noted above). This is the prayer I wrote this year.

As your children, friends and partners in the gospel by the grace of baptism and sanctifying grace, O Lord we come to you in prayer for ourselves, for all your creatures and for your world.

Called and gifted for your service, we see the intersections of powers and principalities that cut and break lives and communities: greed, selfishness, lust for power, racism, sexism, hatred, violence and deception. Grant that we may participate in your healing and renewing of all creation, trusting that with you all things are possible.

Whether in small towns or large cities we see the shattering of your will in creation and blessing of all you have made. And we see the power of grace in enabling us to choose the good in so many ways: the countless people who deliver Meals on Wheels, who tutor in schools, who march and pray and write for justice and peace, who clean up the neighborhood park, who pray with their neighbors in illness or tragedy, who plant and share the abundance of their gardens, who understand their daily work as a vocation in service to you no matter the status conferred by the world. In these and more, your light shines as from many cities on many hills.

Bless these who stand before us, with grace in commissioning and ordaining, that they may join in your healing work and in proclaiming the good news of your realm that is both a present and hoped-for reality. In their strengths may they serve the flourishing of your kingdom with humility. In their weakness, may your strength carry them and make known your love and power more and more.

"Lead us in being a people that follow after the things that make for peace, love and unity. Pour your love into our lives, such that we shall love all and desire the good of all" (Margaret Fell Fox, 17th-century Quaker leader).


Amen.

One of those awkward moments

I just had one of those experiences when people in the room are saying, "White people are always.... You know, they're white so..... Why do they (white people) do that thing.....?"

The thing is, I'm Anglo. So it was a little odd. Due to my education and penchant for reading, I am aware of white privilege as something I get to walk around in like a protective shield or mobile force field. I am reading The New Jim Crow and I get so angry and discouraged at the same time that I can only read short sections before I need a break. I am not saying this to make myself out some kind of saint, or someone who deeply understands what it means to be Black in the USA. This is not about me wanting to take on some hip hop identity or co-opt Black culture....or save anybody.

Since I am just as culpable, take for instance what I think of white boys listening to misogynistic rap with the bass amp making the car bounce and sounding echoes off the houses on the road.... To visit that judgment for a moment, they could've picked country music, plenty of patriarchy and non-feminist texts there, so why the rap industrial complex? Maybe it speaks to something that they need, besides the overt wealth and hyper masculinity.

I just don't think we are going to get anywhere--from any 'side'--if we talk about those (identifier) people instead of meeting up with a person who has all sorts of complexity, including the construct of race. Or age, or immigration status, or gender, or sexual orientation, or weight, or education, or class, and so on. This is not some new mega-idea of course, but each of us can take ideas in our lives when they become needed and give them substance by pulling them into praxis.

Before you read the words below, which I wrote in December, I want anyone who reads this to know that my family and friends have been incredibly helpful, above and beyond what I have ever done for anyone else, so this is in no way a criticism of anyone in my circle of family and friends.

Unemployment and the Safety Net

As of July 1 I became one of the unemployed, but I don't know if I am even one of the statistics because my work was not for one of the companies or organizations that provides for unemployment insurance. How does anyone know to count me?

I was aware that the change was coming and had been looking for a new job, albeit with the constraints of spending time preparing for the transition at my current position and having spring/summer yard and garden tasks at home. My first withdrawal from some retirement savings to get me through the first few months was less than I anticipated due to some rules about the account...and it turned out that it was only going to be a loan which I immediately had to begin repaying. "Well,"I thought, "then I'll get some freelance work to supplement," except that the first option didn't pan out and the second didn't have the demand for which I hoped.

I immediately purchased a "bridge plan" for health insurance which didn't cover any pre-existing conditions, but would provide major medical coverage. This meant I began paying full price for my two prescriptions and stayed away from the clinic because anything covered under that three months would then be excluded if I bought another three-month policy. Luckily I was healthy and didn't fall from any ladders. I also continued to carry insurance on my car and my home because it seemed like the right thing to do, even though I wasn't earning any money.

You might ask where my emergency savings (not from retirement, which carries an early withdrawal penalty) were? Single, homeowner, non-profit employment, paying higher portion of health insurance and medical expenses, my car died a few years before I thought it would and I needed a reliable replacement...enough said!

Being optimistic at the beginning of the job search, having gotten affirmation from a career counselor, I didn't think to apply for assistance from my county or state because it wouldn't be long before I was back to work. It turns out I was wrong. In the fall I applied for SNAP (food stamps) and Medical Assistance and they have been life-savers. I receive $200 a month for food and have my medical and dental paid for 100%. It's great to not have those prescriptions come in around $100 each month with no income.

Now I'm ready to see if there's anything else the government can provide since it's December and it seems there are fewer positions I qualify for on the job posting site. Wait a minute, some might say. How about selling that expensive house and moving in with family or friends? Due to the timing of my need for a home, this house cost me more than I can sell it for and I don't know where I'd get the thousands to pay off the mortgage. I have listed a room for rent via an agency that screens potential renters, with no success so far. (In March I did receive energy assistance to pay for my winter heating bills, after applying in early December.)

Why rely on the government (aka taxpayers) when you have family and friends?! I have gotten some assistance from family and friends with some household supplies (which are not covered by SNAP). Meanwhile, I have noticed that some of my friends or family members continue to pay college tuition for their offspring, take international vacations, make home improvements, buy new electronics...and pay the taxes that provide the safety net I need right now. Replacing the income from a full-time, mid-level management job isn't easy.

Would you suggest they forego some of the luxuries and give the money to me instead? That this is how our country should operate? That this mutual support is not a part of the deep values of the U.S. is evidenced by the following: private property (including yards) that can be posted "no trespassing," the right to bear arms being closely tied to the right to protect one's home (a recent shooting of two teens breaking in to a home in MN as evidence), most churches teach tithing (giving 10%) but average closer between 1 and 2% of members' incomes--even a spiritual claim can't overcome the sense that what is mine is mine alone.

And yet, hurricanes, floods, fires and tornados engender outpourings of generosity...for a time. Perhaps we can sustain giving for a moment or an acute crisis, but not for the less visible chronic crises. Since 2008 unemployment has been dire and yet there are no huge public fund raisers nor mobilizations of support. That's why we need a civic, neutral, accessible,  non-personal method of financial assistance so that leaning on friends and family isn't the only option. I will admit that until this year I didn't have an empathetic sense for the difficulty and insecurity that plague so many people in this country. When I think about just this past week, with one more rejection e-mail that was like hitting the wall, and multiply that by all the people looking for work, that's a lot of pain and struggle.

A common suggestion is that people should work rather than receive public assistance. I have wrestled with that, but it's tough to figure out how to come out ahead in the trade-offs. If I earn some money to stretch my retirement withdrawals, once it gets over $700 a month I would lose Medical Assistance and have to pay for my own insurance again, and get back in the realm of prescription co-pays, exclusions for pre-existing conditions and deductibles. If my income from some part-time work would get up around $1200-1400 a month then I would not qualify for food stamps. By earning something I would end up spending more. Is there a calculator that can figure out the best course of action?

Meanwhile, if you hear of a good full-time job that'll cover my house, car, food, clothing, medical and taxes let me know. And I am willing to ride my bike to work...

A Long Absence, or When Everything Stopped

Some important things stopped for me in the summer of 2012, and it took me a while to even know it. In July I joined that great cloud of witnesses called "the unemployed." That same month, one of my cats started peeing on the furniture, and the vet hoped it was just a UTI, but thought it was probably bladder cancer. When the antibiotic ran its course and blood appeared along with the urine I couldn't see paying for the CT scan, couldn't see continuing to pay $10 a day for pain meds so I chose euthanasia. Even though it was another expense to adopt a new Humane Society kitten, a week after Jazmine's death I thought that would be a good bit of new life. The first kitten got a name "Contessa di Como," Tessa for short, and came in all beautiful, playful and delightful. She wasn't eating the next morning and just died on her cushioned chair early in the afternoon while I was frantically trying to find a vet who would see her.

I was getting into the rhythm of writing -- or thinking about writing -- for this blog; that stopped.
I was keeping up with balancing my checkbook, reviewing my credit card statements, and keeping track of everything in Quicken; that stopped.
I was optimistic about finding a rewarding career sort of job that would pay for my expenses as a homeowner, car owner, etc. Not so much any more.

When I ask Godde what it is I need to do, what Godde wants me to do, the word has been "write" for several months now. I even have had a short list of essay topics in my head, but I didn't start because I wasn't sure why those words would matter. The direction to write is still the answer.

Since I have successfully (I think) done some new things in this self-funded sabbatical--volunteering at a food shelf, becoming a member of the board of directors of a small non-profit focused on climate change, started learning Spanish (which came as another one of those Words from Godde)--I am embarking on doing the writing about those things that have been in my head for several months. The big, church-related topics, probably won't show up here but I do have one piece that I want to try out. OK, I'll post this on go find that saved file.

The grass is greener?

Yesterday I was mowing the front yard and forgot to turn off my brain. It wasn't a new train of thought, but seemed to have picked up speed or a new diesel engine. What is it with lawns? Why do we, who have lawns, plant these monocultures that absorb hours of precious time through mowing, weeding, aerating, raking, watering and fertilizing? Maybe you don't do all these things--I'm not either--but I do mow. Here's the question I had not thought of before: who has lawns, historically I mean? I suggest that lawns are an accessory found on the estates of the wealthy, the landed gentry, and so on. So when some American said, "A man's home is his castle," someone else figured they better come with an expanse of high maintenance green. The thing is, those who have the estates of the wealthy hire people to take care of that green stuff!

So here we are with this crazy situation. The ideal is a lush, consistently green carpet of grass, which is basically a monoculture even though there are a few varieties of grass seed mixed in that bag you find at your neighborhood hardware store. Monocultures are hard to maintain because every plant is vulnerable to the same environmental risks or conditions. Then I realized that the only other people who plant monocultures do so to make money by selling that product, or people who want to eat what is produced (perhaps through the intermediary of a grazing animal). So far I haven't heard of any way to have financial gain through the care and feeding of a lawn!

When farmers plant crops to sell, they rotate what's planted to avoid depleting the soil nutrients. In the good old days it used to be a four year rotation, but now it's often just two, with fertilizer taking up the load of what is lost by not having a year of alfalfa growing in a field. Again with the craziness since lawns accept no rotation whatsoever. And did you know that clover used to be acceptable in one's yard until an herbicide was developed that could take out clover and leave the grass? Personally, I like the clover in my yard.

Unfortunately, gardens require just as much, or maybe more, maintenance.

House Church: Step 1

This is my first draft - the first invited participants will help to craft the way the house church will take shape. Eventually this will also be a 'zine...at least that's what I think now!

Vision: Damascus Road United Methodist Church

In a few simple words the writer describes life in the first-century church, where the followers of the Way of Jesus met to learn and practice life in the kingdom (realm, reign) of God.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

Just two verses further on, we learn more: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people” (Acts 2:44-47a).

A

s a United Methodist Christian and pastor—now free on Sundays to consider what sort of church I want to be part of—the idea of starting a house church seemed right for this time. I am not alone in this thinking as others have noticed a rising interest in small churches, in “new monasticism” in urban settings, in spending less on property or staff and more on serving with and for neighbors and the world. Part of the United Methodist influence comes in the proposed name. Early in this particular part of Christian history, Methodist chapels were named for the street on which they were built. I thought back to the two-millennia-old story of an awakening, repentance and turning to the way of Jesus that began on the road to Damascus. Our willingness to hear God, to be transformed, renewed and communicate with others is needed now. Perhaps we won’t have to fall off a horse like Paul did on that road, but the truth of Jesus speaking to each of as a risen and living Lord does make an impact!

When the first generations of followers of the Way of Jesus met together they weren’t able to meet in large groups or buildings because the ‘new’ religion was regarded with some superstition and there were periods of persecution. Paul, one messenger of the good news, wrote letters to groups of Christians in cities around the Mediterranean region of the Roman Empire to help them work out how they would live and work and worship. In the book of Acts in the New Testament we learn some of the ways he and others did their teaching and what the new faith communities were like. We can read in some of Paul’s letters that the reality didn’t always live up to those words above from Acts 2. And yet, the power of those small groups became a movement strong enough to sustain people in the face of persecution, even death.

E

nough history already…it is fascinating and there are lots of books, letters and documents preserved from those first centuries that you can look up if you wish.

H

ere’s what I’m envisioning for this old/new form of being church. A small group will meet together in a home on Sundays at a time chosen by the participants. To start we will meet at my home, which is at 935 Iowa Ave. W., in Saint Paul. This church will be especially open to people who are new to Christian faith or have been away from church for a while.

O

ur worship time together will be about an hour, in three parts, beginning with group examen and prayer (thinking back to the previous week with an eye to feeling close to God or distant), moving into conversational/experiential reading and study of a passage from the Bible, and concluding with communion (sharing in the breaking of bread and cup as Jesus did with his disciples). Like the early followers of the Way of Jesus we will gather around the table after worship and eat a simple meal together (potluck style), taking turns providing the main course.

While skipping around reading randomly from my blog list I found this from Julie Clawson on www.julieclawson.com, in her post titled “Worship confession”:

“Is worship simply about encountering God or should it also involve participating in God? Watching a show and being moved to see God seems like a mere shadow of worship compared to making of ourselves living sacrifices and being caught up in the work of God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven….It is only in the messy and faltering attempts to be the body of Christ—to give of ourselves as we are instead of in a role someone expects of us—that I not only experience God but feel that I am participating in God’s work in the world.”

This is what I hope Damascus Road worship can be about, there will be no show to watch, we will be coming together for the beauty of a gathering in the pursuit of faithful lives and “being caught up in the work of God’s kingdom come.”

I

n addition to weekly public worship we will set as a goal daily examen, private prayer and/or Bible reading. If someone is in a twelve-step program that daily practice of Big Book devotions, etc., fulfills this of course! Public and private worship is the framework of this house church. There are two more structural elements: serving people who are poor, disenfranchised, imprisoned, hungry and/or homeless in the Twin Cities together at a frequency and place the group will decide upon; and, third, an expectation and practice of generous giving of financial resources using the tradition of the tithe (one-tenth) as a guide. All three practices will support our reorienting of priorities from self to God and the world. We will decide together where to send our financial gifts. It is my hope that we will decide on a project or program that serves in Christ’s name and that we can become knowledgeable about as we watch the impact of our giving.

T

he Vision for Damascus Road UM House Church has roots in the Methodist-Wesleyan tradition, brings some Ignatian-Jesuit-Catholic practices into our daily lives and worship (like the examen),* identifies the gathering as GLBTQ-friendly…and cat friendly, proceeds with mutuality in decision-making, holds confidentiality, and respects the spirituality of 12-step programs. *Each household will receive a copy of Sleeping with Bread, which will serve as a guide to what the examen is all about.

I like this guide to communal decision-making. “Confirmation comes after the process of deciding, not before. It is a four-step process: prayer, discernment conversation, decision, and then confirmation. Make the decision first and then see if there is confirmation, not the other way around. If it's not confirmed, you need to go back to the group and work on the decision some more and bring it back out for more holy conversation” (Bob Farr [2011-05-01], Renovate or Die: 10 Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission [Kindle Locations 1552-1555], Abingdon Press, Kindle Edition.)

John 4:23-24 (MSG)

"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

Pastors' Prayer at Clergy Session

Holy God, You've cast your net and drawn us in to this mess of fish, You've touched our lips with the fire of your love and it burns in our bones, You've called our names as friends and as servants of your church and your world. Our eyes, ears and hearts are catapulted into awareness. Forgive us for times we keep our own nets rolled up, or go too often to our favorite fishing spot, or think we're the ones in charge of sorting the catch. Forgive us for words spoken without conviction, for easy truisms, for times we forget the love that made us, drew us in, called us and kindled gifts within us. Forgive us for the times we don't show up as servant-leaders, when we dial it in, when we draw the world small instead of wide and full of your surprising glory. This call to ordained ministry is marvelous and awful--in the best sense of both words. By your grace, which offers more than we could ever ask or imagine, renew our hearts, restore our spirits, turn us each day to you. For these we receive into our fellowship today, we pray that you will bring strength in weakness, the necessary word in writer's block, light in darkness, clarity in confusion, joy in dailiness, community and love in new places, assurance for doubt, and faithfulness in all things. As the body of Christ, we pray. Amen.

Secret Millionaire

For some reason about a week ago, there were repeated promos for a show called Secret Millionaire. I was knitting while watching TV so was trying to ignore the commercials in general. After the fifth preview of the upcoming show I couldn't take it anymore. In case you missed that night on whatever channel, the premise is that a millionaire goes undercover and slums it among the rest of us with $34 in walking around money for a week. In some ways it's like Undercover Boss I think. At the end there's a big reveal and people like us are thrilled to have been in the presence of a millionaire, and so impressed by her or his humanitarian impulse to leave behind the privileges of wealth. The promo had a soundbite about some millionaire giving $150,000 to a community program...and o-o-oh, what a difference that was going to make. As a pastor and fan of the non-profit world I'm all in favor of charitable giving. But what is it about making so much money via our system of unequal access, privilege and loopholes for the wealthy that gives those with the money the right to determine which needs are valid? This is heightened when it comes to the whole tax-sheltered foundation charitable industrial complex. (Please help with a better name for it!) Putting money into a foundation shelters it from any tax liability, meaning that taxes from that wealth don't flow into the government coffers which provide for the common good (social safety net, education, public safety, environmental regulation, diplomacy, etc., etc.). Instead, having deprived the public of choosing funding via the democratic electoral process, wealthy individuals and families can decide which causes they think are worthy. No one elected them to run programs for the public good! This dynamic is present in the US and around the world. The Gates Foundation is addressing some huge needs in Africa, for example: malaria, HIV, women's education. There's some attention to infrastructure, but very little I'm assuming to equalizing the playing field in developmental innovation for those countries. It's the exceptionalism that concerns me, and how that's fostered by shows like Secret Millionaire and Undercover Boss. Those shows are small potatoes compared to the non-elected rule exercised by multi-national corporations, their CEOs and the foundations that keep wealth under their control.

Cypress Watch

Even though we humans get caught time after time with 20/20 hindsight, it's hard to move from short-term to long-term thinking. This happens to me when I make a plan to get up early and go to the Y three times a week for the future goal of being fitness-ready for biking, and then more immediate thoughts of sleeping in for another half hour take precedence. Or, that container of chocolate chip cookie dough looks good now, and I forget my one sugar treat a week goal. I smile now as I resolve one more time to be loving and encouraging of myself even if I feel like a middle-aged matron! When the circle of long-term avoidance goes global it's more of a concern. The consequences are vast. Each spring I see mountains of cypress mulch and am reminded of how actions separated from consequences can be destructive. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast some of the damage came from the loss of cypress forests protecting coastal areas. A study tells us that a cypress grove reduces the force of a storm surge by 90%. And yet, logging is taking that protection away. No human-made levees can take the place of what nature has put in place. There is no way the market value of bags of mulch at your local hardware store or garden center can compensate for what is lost in the long term. Look for another option for your gardens and love our home well.

Poetry Sampler


Birch 10.12.2010


Sere, curling
A shiver and three
leaves fall
Gold leafing the lawn
Flick and flash
chickadee flight
to feed and cache
one more seed
Earth, tree and wing
bear morning light.


Cats 10.17.2010


A flip of the tongue
Roll and breathe
Out utterance
Has devolved
Into purrs
And raspy meows
On my part
Intertwined with morning news
And inquiries
"More food?"


Blank Page 4.6.11
An entry in St. Paul's sidewalk poetry contest--wasn't chosen


Let this page blow
into the chain link fence
lose shape
in sun and rain
darkly curl, disassemble
into dust


Oriole Wish  4.12.11


O tangerine
and arc of coal
sweet dusk
of grape
jelled
on outstretched
perch
calling and waiting
for you

Light for the Nations

8-2-2009

© Donna J. Martinson

A light for the nations

Light, irrepressible light

One flash, one blink, a moment of light

Just one second

and the light in particle energy

packets

wavelengths of light

has flown away

Three hundred hundred-meter dashes

laid end to end

run in one second – illumined

transected by a beam of light

How far can we see in this light?

Light, refracted and reflected

Light, broken for you

into colors so you may see

how various, how splendid, how interesting is this world

an indigo bunting wing has no color but the light

bent through feather into iridescent blue

and how blue . . . or green,

grey or brown,

are the eyes of the peoples

of the nations

Light for the nations

see the shimmering of youth

see the translucence of age

see the hues of skin and sky

metropolis and village

Salvation to the ends of the earth

And now we know the ends

from National Geographic and Nova

sometimes, it is not salvation we bring

oh, Lord, hear our prayer

Salvation

Wholeness

Shalom

Healing

Forgiveness

Good news

Freedom from oppression, from want, from fear, from death

Light in which to see everyone as sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, cousin, neighbor

for now we know the ends of the earth…

Oh, Lord, hear our prayer for salvation

We are to be a light for the nations

Hear the word of the Lord.

God said, “Let there be light and there was light. And God saw that the light was good” (Genesis 1).

The Lord led them with a pillar of fire by night, to give them light (Exodus).

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness---on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2).

Arise, shine, for your light has come (Isaiah 60:1).

You are the light of the world.

A city built on a hill cannot hide. Don’t hide your light under a basket. Let your light shine so others may see your good works and give glory to God (Matthew 5:14-16).

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:5).

God is light and in God there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

Light, irrepressible light

Invisible yet visible fuel

for the growth of plant life on land and in the sea

photosynthesis!

Enough light if solar panels could power us and warm us

with energy to spare

Speed of light

measures greatness of the universe

Light overflowing from sun and stars

Light for us - light in us

light through us

Praise the word of the Lord

Communion and the Priesthood of All Believers

Maybe some of you have been in that awkward place with communion that I've known a few times. When I was in my local church internship during seminary, the pastor was going to be on vacation on a communion Sunday. I was ordained as a probationary elder at the time, but not appointed to that church. The pastor wanted me to serve communion, and just to be sure it was going to be right he blessed the elements the day before. I wish I remembered the details of our conversation now, after 15 years, but my brain doesn't work that way.

When I was a church camp counselor in college we learned all about Love Feasts since we couldn't have communion without a pastor there. I didn't question that rule then. Now that I am an elder in the United Methodist Church--ordained to Word, Order and Sacrament (the addition of Service was after 2001)--I wonder about the wall around the table. In reading some Roman Catholic church history dealing with the development of Eucharistic theology and practice, I began to see how our practice as United Methodists is not representing our theology. How we preside at the table, how we offer the bread and cup, who says what and where, communicates powerfully about what is taking place in the Lord's Supper, and these do so in ways we need to change. Our current dominant practice is enshrined in our Book of Worship, where the rubrics for communion repeat: "the pastor says," "the pastor takes," "the pastor says."

When I asked a United Methodist systematic theologian, and then a friend who wrote great ordination papers, whether we believed that the pastor saying the Great Thanksgiving, words of institution and epiklesis was necessary for efficacy, they both said no. Our job in ordering the life of the church and sacramental authority is exercised in presence and not in incantational power. Then why is the BOW written as it is? And what do people take away from the image and function as it stands? Wouldn't congregants assume a necessary link between the function of the pastor and the grace of the Eucharist?

If you would like a copy of the whole bit let me know. Please use this space for comments, ideas, questions. Thanks!