the caffeinated priest

What's Not Left Behind

2011-05-22T17:48:00.003-05:00

Easter 5A
22 May, 2011

Well here we are. All of us. Safe and sound and on the ground. Did anyone have a family member or friend get raptured last night? I confess I’ve followed the rapture buzz online quite closely. I find the rapture culture fascinating. Having grown up in the land of “in the event of the rapture, this car will be unmanned” bumperstickers, the whole notion of a group of people suddenly disappearing into nowhere brings out my inner sci-fi geek. Did you know that there’s a place, where, in the event of the Raputre, for a mere $135, atheists will provide care and a home for your pets, including not only cats and dogs, but also donkeys and llamas. The buzz about the rapture is everywhere.

If you haven’t been following all the buzz here’s what you need to know: there’s a fundamentalist group that has, for sometime now, been reading the Bible as a time map, and has marked May 21 (that’d be yesterday) as the date of the rapture, the day when all faithful followers of Jesus are suddenly swept up into heaven, leaving a palpable void on the earth. And yet, here we sit.

The Rapture is an interesting enough concept, but one that is relatively new to the Church--just a couple of centuries old, cherry picked together from a few pieces of Scripture. The word “rapture” does not appear in the Bible and it’s a 19th Century invention. Based in part on a verse from First Thessalonians (4:17): Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, the concept is that Jesus will have not one, but two second comings. In the first, the dead will be raised with Christ and then those of us who believe in Christ will be lifted up. There are many different camps and schools of thought on the details of how and when and why this will happen. Within recent memory, the Tim LaHaye books, the Left Behind Series, have brought our sacred text, the Revelation of St. John, into popular culture with the authors of this series playing with the text and taking it from a vision and turning it into a supposed literal prophecy. The Rapture is big business and good insurance to make sure we churches don’t go out of business anytime soon. For if you get left behind, not only are you not hanging out in the great bye and bye with Jesus, but those of us left behind (and by all accounts, I’ll likely be left behind--Episcopalians don’t rank real high on the “getting raptured” list), those of us left behind are in for a world in pain and tribulation.

If you hear a note (or two) of skepticism and annoyance in my voice, you’re picking up on my frustration with this concept. Beyond that it’s become a comic money maker for Atheists and a scare tactic for some fundamentalist preachers, the problem I have with the rapture and the way it has been presented to our society is that it is counter-intuitive to what Jesus himself has taught.

The famous monk and writer Thomas Merton once wrote: “For eschatology [conversation about the end things] is not finis and punishment, the winding up of accounts and the closing of books: it is the final beginning, the definitive birth into a new creation. It is not the last gasp of exhausted possibilities but the first taste of all that is beyond conceiving as actual.”

This marries right into the Gospel today where Jesus says: In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. Jesus speaks these words at the end of his life to the people he loves most. Words to teach them how to walk through this world once he is gone. The Gospel we hear today is a classic text that we use in funerals, words to comfort and remind the bereaved that Jesus has gone to prepare a place, that Jesus waits for us with joy and with love. A place, we are told, that is big, with many dwelling places, or in the King James translation, many mansions. We hear similar echoes in a different funeral reading where Jesus reminds his disciples that he is the Good Shepherd and that he, the Good Shepherd, has other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold.

At the risk of speaking heresy, Jesus is teaching that there’s more to God’s reign, more to God’s Kingdom than we can see in this mortal coil. We are so quick to try and understand the mind and the depth of God. Jesus seems to be telling the disciples and us to stop limiting ourselves, to stop trying to predict and set the boundaries of God. Thanks be to God, we can see the power and love of God, made manifest in Jesus, and, in the same breath, there are many dwelling places or mansions, many sheep outside our sheepfold, that probably don’t look like us or like what we’ve decided God looks like. As we walk this earth, we are just beginning to understand, beginning to see the wideness and wildness of God.

The problem with the rapture, is that it takes Jesus and tries to make Jesus, make God, so narrow, so scarce, that one must submit in perfect form and fear to be found acceptable. The motivator is fear, is being left behind. Lost in the hype of the Rapture is the generosity, the abundance, the irrational love that was, that is Jesus Christ. Notions like the rapture tell us that there isn’t enough--not enough time, not enough belief, not enough worship. Jesus, in contrast, tell us that there is plenty, there is more than enough. There is profound love, life-giving love. Jesus tells us not to worship him, but to follow him, out into the world, out into the places that need not the fear of death and destruction but the healing and balm that is the way of the Saviour of the World. Jesus says to his disciples: Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these. Jesus is in fact calling us to go out into the world, to be that love, to pour out hope and grace and kindness to a world that broken and weary and worn. Jesus calls us to out do him, to do greater works than the ones he has done. Pure and simple, we are called, as ones who follow, to love in that abundant and pure and life-changing way that Jesus loves us.

Beginning to understand the movement of love, the Sufi mystic Rumi wrote: Love is recklessness not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed. Yet in the midst of suffering, Love proceeds like a millstone, hard-surfaced and straight forward. Having died to self-interest, she risks everything and asks for nothing.

While Rumi was not writing about Jesus, Rumi’s description of the recklessness of Love, so beautifully describes the way Jesus lived his life, the way Jesus died his death. Incarnate Love danced into the world with joy and abandon. Incarnate Love that walked and with every step offered hope and healing. And Incarnate Love poured itself out, fully and completely, without thought of consequence.

So what do we make of the great non-event of yesterday? Former President Jimmy Carter once said “We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.” I think that’s pretty good advice. To live our lives, prepare our hearts and souls, to live into the promise and command of Jesus: Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these. And perhaps what we can take away from this event that never happened, perhaps what we need to remember most is what has truly been left behind: the reckless, transforming love of the Risen Christ, that flows for you and for me. Love that can not and will not be contained, but insists on pouring itself out, in heaven and right here on earth.

The best part of waking up?

2010-12-17T12:23:00.001-06:00

Wow. Just wow.

Snow and Santa

2010-12-03T12:02:00.001-06:00

How the heck did this Southern girl end up in Chicago? Don't get me wrong. I love this city, but I'm sitting by my window, trying to crank out a sermon, and my coffee has gone cold because the outside air is effecting the temperature inside. Oh well. At least the radiators are working.

Tomorrow I will don a Santa hat and beard (don't tell the Advent Police) and run my first 5K in over a decade in the Santa Hustle. I'm really excited, a little nervous about my ability to finish, delighted that 4 of my friends are also running and terrified about the fact that there will be snow falling as I run by the lake in this Windy City.

I've been using the C25K (Couch to 5K) app on my iPhone. A better app has never been created. I love, love, love it. I've gone from being able to run for 2 minutes to being able to run 25 in less than 6 weeks. Amazing. I never thought I'd get there again.

It seems appropriate that it falls in Advent--a time of rebirth, of expectation, the new liturgical year, for those of us who do liturgical cycles. I asked my congregation last week (in my sermon) what they were waiting for, watching for, expecting. I've been sitting with the question myself--still no real answer. Maybe there doesn't have to be something. I mean, it's good, I suppose, just to learn to wait. Especially for me (I'm a terrible wait-er). In the mean time, there are sermons to write and recipes to make (mango black beans and rice is simmering on the stove. Moroccan chicken a little bit later!) and Presiding Bishops to dine with later tonight (just me and the rest of the clergy of the Diocese).

At any rate, it's good to be writing a bit. It's good to have day off. And it's good, ready or not, for Santa hats in the snow!

Jesus and Puffy Cheeks

2010-04-11T15:17:00.002-05:00

We don't have a ton of kids at my church. Two who are regular. A few more (several babies!!) who come every couple of weeks. But one regular 5-year-old Sunday School participant, who, weekly, gets a lesson, a lot of stories and always arts and crafts (which, when I'm teaching, usually means Play-dough and Crayons).

Today we had a ball. We told the story of the disciples, hidden away and scared in the upper room, and Jesus coming and breathing on them and saying "Peace." The story went something like this:

Me: The disciples were very
5-Year-old: SCARED!
Me: But then someone came to see them. Who was it?
5-Year-old: Jesus.
Me: And what did Jesus do?
5-Year-old: [here you have to imagine the 5-Year-old and me both blowing with very exaggerated, very full, very puffy cheeks].
Me: And what did Jesus say to them?
5-Year-old: Peace be with you!
Me: And then were they still scared?
5-Year-old: No!

So we went into the church where the altar guild, the deacons, and the flower guild were all working and told the story to each of them. Then we found the treasurer and the Senior warden and told them. And then to the 5-Year-old's mom. And now I'm telling you. It was great fun. So if you're feeling scared and aren't sure what to do, just imagine Jesus, with big, puffy cheeks, blowing on you and saying Peace!

Here are some pictures of my play-dough renditions of the scene. Jesus is orange, in case you're wondering.

Clark

2010-04-07T22:02:00.004-05:00

I feel humbled. And sad. And wishing that I was a lottery winner or the inventor of something brilliant and money worthy.

I have a parishioner, who I'll call Clark. Clark is an older man, with a couple of illnesses. He moves from tenement to tenement, looking for places that are safe, drug free and affordable--an unlikely trinity in this city. He's currently homeless (for another 2 hours and 10 minutes). He came up for communion tonight and unlike his usual response after I commune him of "God Bless you, Sarah," tonight Clark stumbled. He took the bread from me. And the wine from the deacon. And then the deacon gave the wine back to me for me to finish. He walked back and said to me: "I didn't get a good sip," so I gave him the chalice again. And he sipped a small sip. And then he stumbled. "Are you okay?" I asked. "Yes, I'm okay. Good night, Sarah," he said.

I walked out of the church, down the side aisle and found him lying on the back pew. A few minutes later our deacon/nurse and I sat with him and began to sort out his life. He can't cash a check until midnight, so for 4 hours, he will ride the El until then to keep warm. Then he will rent a room at a less than lovely hotel, but he'll be off the streets tonight. Tomorrow he will get back on the meds he's been off for a month because he hasn't been able to afford the monthly CTA pass to get to the center where he gets his meds. I bought him dinner, so he has a full belly.

I can't do much for many with my limited means. But Clark is a long time member, who knows the liturgy better than most anybody. And a dear man. And as I sit at home, in my comfy PJs, having eaten some leftover steak, I find myself thinking about him. It's cold. And Christ is Risen. Here's the rub, we are an Easter people. Redemption has come and yet the work--the work remains.

Easter 1978

2010-04-03T23:56:00.000-05:00

Children who grow up in the Episcopal Church today probably don't remember their first communion. Our theology today is one that includes children at this family meal from the time of their baptism, which is frequently done when they are infants. And I love that children never remember a time when they weren't welcome, when communion was not part of what church and God and community mean. That said, I grew up at a time when first Communion was a big deal, and not done on the day of baptism, but when you were a bit older. There were classes of preparation, days, weeks, months of anticipation all for this tiny crumb of bread and sip of wine. I remember my own first communion and the excitement that went on around it. My mother took me shopping for a dress, I imagine, but most certainly for an Easter bonnet. She bought silk flowers for it and we wove them in and out of the holes in the straw hat in the week before Easter Sunday, the day that would mark my first communion.

That Easter morning, my father went, as was his custom, to the early church service to read. My mother and I ate a lazy breakfast and were getting dressed. I remember the distress in his voice as he entered the house, calling my mother's name. Calling her name, over and over, until we both came running. "The church," he said. "the church is on fire." Easter morning and the church was burning. (To be precise, it was the Christian Formation building, but still, the Church).

We arrived at the church, like so many others, a silent vigil, watching in horror as hoses full of water broke through windows, as orange and red flames spit out of that beloved space. As the fire began to die down, word came that we would have our Easter Day mass at the Baptist Church around the corner at one o'clock.

I imagine how strange all of it must have been for my parents. Not just not having Easter in the Church, not just the horror of watching helplessly as that sacred space burned, but the strangeness of watching their daughter take her first communion not in the familiar marble altar rail, but in a rather generic worship space, without the smells of incense and the colours of the stained glass windows, without the comfort of what was, at that time, home. And yet, even in the different space, it worked. It was Easter. The community of the faithful was gathered and fed. Hymns were sung and Alleluias proclaimed. And we returned to our home, gratefully, the next week.

As for me, of that day, I remember very little. Except for kneeling at a rail, filled with expectation, curious and excited all at once. My eyes fixed on Father Ferguson, and I stretched forth my hands to receive that funny piece of bread. And it was good.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! Happy Easter.

A note for Mom & Papa

2010-04-02T22:53:00.001-05:00

New sermons up on the sermon site. I love y'all.
xoxo

Good Friday/Holy Saturday playlist

2010-04-02T21:30:00.000-05:00

Tunes to help survive the Triduum (in no particular order):

A long time favorite, set to the tune of "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded" is Paul Simon's "American Tune." Beautiful and haunting. Totally Good Friday.

This has become my Holy Saturday tune. I love it on a million different levels, but am always struck by the line "Now I'm walking again / To the beat of a drum / And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart./Only shadows ahead/barely clearing the roof/ get to know the feeling of liberation and release."

Crowded House: Don't dream it's over

And today, back and forth between the labor of the watch of Maundy Thursday, waiting in the Garden, preparing for Good Friday, writing an Easter sermon (talk about a time warp), I walked to an from work a couple of times. And this is what was on my iPod. Not sure exactly why, but it felt appropriate.

And then there's REM. I could list a whole bunch of them here that fit and work, but here's what I walked home to after Good Friday Mass.

Had I more time and energy, I'd add more, but that's it for now. Time to make dinner and then to bed. What's on your Triduum play list?

Good Friday

2010-04-02T16:08:00.000-05:00

"The Coming" by R.S. Thomas

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As though through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows; a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.

On a bare
Hill, a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

(Thanks to WMP+ over at I are a writer who posted this on her Facebook page earlier today)

playing

2010-04-01T00:18:00.000-05:00

i should so be in bed. but i'm playing with the new template. let me know what you think. i know the type is smaller (sorry papa!). but it's kind of fun. and, if you blog, and i've lost you in the transfer of blog lists (which was a giant PITA), let me know that too, okay?

goodnight!

Seven whole days, not one in seven

2010-03-31T13:59:00.003-05:00

Sad news has come forth this week about my seminary. General, like so many other Episcopal seminaries, is struggling. Heck, it, like so many churches, is struggling. I get the realities. We live in a post-Christendom world. A place where people are "spiritual but not religious." The church of the 1950s is dying and we're clinging to it as if it was/were/is our only way of life. So, of course, it makes sense that our institutions are struggling. Reimagining, rediscovering who the Church is, who the Church will become, is no longer optional--but all that is another post. This is a post about a place I love more than just about anywhere (if you asked me to rank Athens GA, Israel/Palestine and General Seminary--it'd be a tough job).

General Seminary is the first seminary of the Episcopal Church. Its beautiful campus is a respite in the concrete jungle of New York City. Its chapel, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, is the place where so many priests (including me) have been shaped and formed and begun to understand what this vocation is all about. And now General finds itself in severe financial crisis. There are emails flying in and out of my box today--all filled with the details about a meeting that happened yesterday with the Board of Trustees. This press release puts a nice spin on it. I suspect the meeting was a bit more challenging. The thought of General not being General, of priests not being formed, of it not being that place of joy (and gossip and sometime pure annoyance--all the human condition is wrapped up in that place for me), it's just incomprehensible. A friend just posted on Facebook that he feels like he's been hit in the stomach. I get it. It's beyond understanding.

I sit and type this as Sojo looks out the window and Lucy is curled up beside me. My first day on the Close (the seminary campus), after the movers had left, after one of the smiling and wonderful maintenance men had installed my new air conditioner, I opened the closet door to let Lucy and Sojo finally run free in their new domain. Out came Sojo but Lucy was nowhere to be seen. I searched high and low for her. Everywhere I could imagine. She was gone. Someone called the front office to alert the staff to be on the lookout for a very lost cat from Georgia. My heart sank. One day out of Georgia and into NYC, and I had lost my beloved, declawed, defenseless cat. I sat there and questioned the decision to move to NYC, to start seminary, to become a priest at all. Somehow this seemed a horrid omen and all I wanted to do was pack up my Uhaul and head back home.

And then, on a lark, or perhaps out of sheer desperation, I got down on the floor, one last time and crawled under my bed. Lucy had always loved to hide in the box springs, and although I had already checked 4 times, I found myself looking again. She wasn't easy to see. In the move, more fabric must have come loose and she had taken her hiding place to a whole new level. But there she was. Hidden away from the chaos of boxes and packing tape. Not yet ready to come out, but safe and sound.

I don't really tend to believe in "signs," but that day stands as one of the markers in my memory of knowing it was going to be okay. In the days that followed, things happened. Strangers knocking on my door with a "hey, I'm new here too--let's go find the grocery store" suggestion, building-mates would share wine and bad reality television, study-mates would become life-long friends and classmates who always sat in the same seat at chapel, day-in-day-out, helped me grow into who I am.

I can not imagine my world or myself, who I would be, without the sacred ground of General Seminary. Here's hoping I don't have to.

King of glory, King of peace,
I will love Thee;
And that love may never cease,
I will move Thee.
Thou hast granted my request,
Thou hast heard me;
Thou didst note my working breast,
Thou hast spared me.

Wherefore with my utmost art
I will sing Thee,
And the cream of all my heart
I will bring Thee.
Though my sins against me cried,
Thou alone didst clear me;
And alone, when they replied,
Thou didst hear me.

Seven whole days, not one in seven,
I will praise Thee;
In my heart, though not in Heaven,
I can raise Thee.
Small it is, in this poor sort
To enroll Thee:
E’en eternity’s too short
To extol Thee.

Holy Week and disappearing blog posts

2010-03-30T18:48:00.001-05:00

Hi there. I'm still here, I've just been hiding a little bit. Lots going on and none of it terribly interesting. My last blog post was a story. A family story. And my mom ~~made me~~ politely asked me to remove it as it referenced family members who wear inappropriate swimwear (read: tiny Speedos on old men) and some of the more colourful characters in my family. The blog post will reappear (perhaps this week it would be more appropriate to say it will be resurrected) at a later date. With some edits.

Anyhow. It's Holy Week. This year I'm lucky because I have this totally amazing intern who preaches like a rock star. So she's got Good Friday covered, leaving me with Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday (I use St. John Chrysostom's Easter Sermon for the Great Vigil). And I think (just maybe) that I'm about done with Maundy Thursday.

Preaching Easter Sunday is hard. I mean, double the attendance and folks that you never see and you've got this one shot to "get it right." Of course, there is no perfect getting it right. There's only preaching the Gospel. There's only unpacking some tidbit of truth that is hidden or not-so-hidden in the Gospel. The truth is that no one comes for the preaching. They come for the music and the flowers and a whole lot of them come because their mom promises to take them out for brunch if they go with. And yet, we all know a good sermon when we hear it. We all know the power it can have to help re-frame a familiar story, taking it to a whole new level. So I play with words and wonder what that key nugget of truth is.

This week has been hard. I miss Jerusalem. Which always catches me off guard. Not that "oh, it'd be nice to get back" kind of missing, but an actual ache. Which sounds corny and silly. But there is something about that land, that soil, that air that I miss at a visceral level. So I find myself blubbering like an idiot that I'm stuck in Chicago and not in a war-torn country where my politics are not appreciated by the reigning government.

So...Tuesday in Holy Week. At the coffee shop. Shawn Colvin is singing "Steady On" on the jukebox. I was fed a delicious breakfast by my Bible Study group. My assistant is a copying fool and things are good there. And one sermon is (almost) done. So things are pretty good. Exhaustion is inevitable. But I'm well prepared (you should see my organized refrigerator!). More to come...

Blek

2010-03-17T09:49:00.000-05:00

Things have been a little wonky lately. Between Daylight Savings Time, my insane (for me) travel with my grandmother's funeral, negotiating stuff that at work that has to be negotiated, like tuck pointing and boiler maintenance and voicemail mailboxes and other less than Gospel-centric things, and oh, yeah, the season of Lent--I'm having trouble keeping up. I'm seriously tired, y'all. That kind of how-do-I-manage-my-life, how-do-I-keep-this-up tired. It's the tired that comes not from not getting enough sleep, but from not having enough whatever-it-is in me to do what needs to be done. I haven't been to the gym in forever. I am, on the bright side, doing pretty well in terms of eating and cooking, but the sort of basic self care? That's out the window.

It's a phase, a season, and it will pass, but right now, getting dressed and out the door is like the biggest task of the day.

On the bookshelf: By Grief Transformed

2010-03-12T21:29:00.000-06:00

So I'm knee deep into this book, By Grief Transformed: Dream and the Mourning Process. It's written by Jungian analyst (and one of my mom's BFF's) Susan Olson. The truth is that I'm not much of a reader--I have a gazillion books, but ever since I got out of seminary, save some trashy mysteries and the weekly need to read commentaries, my literary intake has been minimal. I listen to tons of books (thanks to Audible.com), but in terms of paper books, I'm just not that much of a reader. My mom sent me the book and I got it Wednesday afternoon. I peeked at it just before our Wednesday Night Forum began and got hooked. It's a strange book to be "hooked" on and yet I am having trouble putting it down. In it, Susan writes about the death of her daughter, Elizabeth, who was a vital and vibrant part of my childhood. Susan writes about dreams and archetypes and it is so captivating, that I've had a hard time putting the book down. It's not exactly a "feel good" book--I mean it's all about death, dying and grief. But it is, I think, a book about resurrection, although that's my terminology, not Susan's (at least to the point I've reached).

It is strange, all these years later, to read about Elizabeth's death. I never knew my father's parents. And when my biological grandmother died (on my father's side), I was 7 years old. The funeral and the time around her death are vivid, but I didn't hurt, I didn't experience the loss that death brings with her death. I was, I think, for the most part, unmarked by the sting of death until that March 3rd of my Junior year in High School. My high school pal Dan and I had gone ice skating in Atlanta. It was long before the advent of cell phones. We stopped on the side of the road and watched a KKK rally, horrified and fascinated, hiding at a safe distance. And then we went back to his house, where my mother had been calling and calling, waiting for me to get from Atlanta, urgency in her voice. She wanted me back at home. The horror, the unexpectedness, the capture of death had shaken her, as news of Elizabeth's death moved throughout the town. I remember it as if it was yesterday. And so I read, all these years later, the story, the unimaginable heartbreak of a mother who has lost a child and yet has found, through dreams and myth and the strange weavings of God a place of life and goodness. It is captivating, I know, in part, for me because I knew Elizabeth. But more than the individual knowledge, this book opens a gateway, opens a lens, opens a door, for seeing the transformative power of both dreams and death. It's not an easy read--it is filled with emotion that is real and sometimes raw. But it's a good read. Okay. Enough writing. Back to reading....

Wednesday Afternoon Recipe Blogging

2010-03-10T16:23:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I wrote a whole long blog post only to erase it by accident. Grr. Argh! And I haven't had time to sit down and write a replacement. So instead, I'll offer this:

I'm working late tonight and had some space in my schedule to comehome a do a bit of cooking. In a Weight Watchers meeting last week, someone tried a recipe for Butternut Squash Ricotta Baked Pasta. It's a Weight Watchers recipe and I decided to give it a shot today.

The recipe lists the dish as one that takes "moderate" skills. It took a few pans, but was super easy to make (I think it's listed as "Moderate" because of the multiple pans).

Here are my thoughts--I love garlic, but I've made this sauce twice and somehow the garlic seems to clash a bit with the flavor of the faux rue. So I'd cut down, if not cut out, the garlic in this.

And...Trader Joe's now has canned butternut squash puree. I suspect this would work as well as doing the work of cutting, baking and mashing the squash.

For what it's worth--the walnuts and the ricotta make this dish very delicious! Enjoy!!

2 spray(s) cooking spray
20 oz butternut squash, fresh, peeled and cubed
1/8 tsp table salt, for cooking pasta
12 oz uncooked whole-wheat pasta, penne
1 1/4 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
2 Tbsp white all-purpose flour
2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground, or to taste
1 Tbsp thyme, fresh, chopped, divided
1/2 cup(s) part-skim ricotta cheese
1/3 cup(s) grated Parmesan cheese, Parmigiano-Reggiano recommended
1/4 cup(s) chopped walnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray. Coat a 2 1/2- to 3-quart baking dish with cooking spray. Place squash on prepared baking sheet; roast until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes. Place in a large bowl and mash. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. After squash has been roasting for about 10 minutes, cook pasta according to package directions; drain and return to pot. In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, flour, garlic, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, whisking frequently; reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring often, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in mashed squash and 2 1/2 teaspoons of thyme. Add sauce to pasta; toss to mix and coat. Transfer pasta mixture to prepared baking dish; dot with spoonfuls of ricotta and then sprinkle with Parmesan and walnuts. Bake until top is lightly browned in a few spots, about 15 to 20 minutes; remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 teaspoon of thyme. Yields about 1 cup per serving.

Here

2010-03-04T19:13:00.002-06:00

I'm here. In Athens. Eulogy written. I'll post it under sermons sometime later this week. It's long by my standards. And not a sermon, but a eulogy. But I'll post it there anyway.

I'm drinking wine and eating pie. I don't need my coat on outside. I'll sleep well tonight.

The calm before the...

2010-03-03T15:28:00.000-06:00

I head back to Athens tomorrow. My uncle began texting me at 3:31 AM this morning (I know because I sleep with my phone beside my bed). 3:31, y'all. I think the family has officially gone insane. Like my grandmother dies, and no one knows how to function (yes, I'm being dramatic. No one is really that crazy. Yet.) I am up to my eyeballs in bulletins for the burial, sticky-notes with reminders to pick up the dry-cleaning and alterations, pastoral care meetings and oh, yes, the ever present need to do laundry. Sigh. I'll get home around 8:30 tonight and start on laundry, do the much over-due dishes in the sink, pack and try to write this damn eulogy.

I'm used to last minute writing. Most of my sermons are written on Saturday evenings. I do lots of reading during the week, some study, maybe even jot down an idea or two, but somehow the big writing part seems to wait until the very.last.minute. Always. I'm hoping the same is true here.

I don't often write about him here, but I'm overwhelmed by the goodness of my partner in crime. The guy I work with, who serves both as organist and parish administrator. Out of the sheer goodness of his heart, he's formatting and printing the burial office bulletins for me. And he--honest-to-God--he offered to fly down and play my grandmother's funeral. But more than all that, he can handle my moody frustration and laughs appropriately when I tell family stories and actually knows and (sort-of) likes the Church in the Wildwood (one of the more odd hymn choices that we're going with on Friday). It's good to have good people around.

The other good news: I found my Coach purse. It's the only "dress" purse I have, the only purse I have that doesn't look like it came from a store that sells to drag-queens and hookers (that's where I usually buy my purses). So at least that's covered.

I hated Finding Nemo, but I'm singing the song today. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....

Correction

2010-03-02T17:19:00.000-06:00

So my father informs me that the recipe I included in yesterday's blog entry is not for the slow cooker but to be cooked up in the skillet! Apologies!

As for me...I'm working on my grandmother's eulogy. Still. It's so damn hard. Going nowhere fast. I need to get over the idea that I'll cover all 90 of her years in one piece. Add to it some of the chaos of family and trying to include all of their stories in mine and I'm looking at a colossal mess. Blek. There's a reason I encourage family members not to do this!

A random blog entry on food

2010-03-01T09:17:00.001-06:00

I've been doing a lot of cooking lately. Less than what your average housewife or mom (of which I fall into neither category) does, but a lot more than I usually do. It's been for a multitude of reasons: to save money, because I'm doing Weight Watchers, because I'm eating less meat. But also, I like to cook. I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy it when I can. What I have trouble with is putting it all together. I mean, I can cook a dish, but I have more trouble creating a meal. Or a menu for the week. It feels like pulling teeth. And I am so jealous of my friends who seem to be able to pull it all together and make it seem effortless.

Growing up, both my parents did a fair amount of cooking. My father made this amazing and deliciously spicy pasta sauce (which, Papa, if you're reading this, would you email that recipe to me?). In fact, my father used to cook all kinds of amazing stuff. As a kid, I know I was a total a-hole about his food because it wasn't generic. I mean, I think I wanted what I now refer to as "middle America" food: bottled salad dressing, Mac & Cheese out of a box, hotdogs and hamburgers. I didn't grow up on that stuff. I grew up on big salads (my mom makes the most amazing salads on the planet. I can run a close second when I try, but nobody puts together salads like she does. And she always makes her own creative dressings.), very spicy food, usually with minimal meat. Or rather, meat not as the center. You know, meat and a veggie and a starch as the generic meal--ours never looked like that. Way more heavy on the veggies. I can remember being embarrassed when friends would come over because it wasn't food like you'd see advertised on TV, like Shake and Bake or Hamburger Helper (that would be added to the repertoire at my father's house when he married his third wife. That and breaking up the spaghetti so that it could no longer be twirled--the true scandal of my youth).

When my mom and my step-dad married, suddenly there were teen and pre-teen kids living in one house. So not only were they negotiating what married life meant, but we were an instant, not-well-mixed, kinda lumpy blended family. Food was a huge issue: my step-sister drank Coke in insane quantities. My step-brother only liked canned spinach. My primarily vegetarian mother and I ate a lot of funny looking food that didn't go over terribly well with the other half of the family. Food was a source of stress. And so we began to go out a lot. I think at least 3 nights out of the week, the "family dinner table" was at the local pizza joint. So in some ways, eating out feels more like the family dinner table than anywhere else.

So now I'm trying to return to the times of my youth--when food was eaten at a table, prepared by members of the family. It sounds kinda corny here, but there's something great about peeling a butternut squash and talking about your day. I'm also in love with slow cooker recipes. I'm making this bbq tofu chili weight watchers recipe and it's insane how good it is (and I'm not even that big of a tofu fan). And if you're curious about one of my father's insanely delicious and spicy recipes, here's an easy one, ~~fashioned for a crock pot~~, cook in a skillet, all together:

Picadilo:

1 pound ground beef

1 chopped green pepper

1 garlic clove, chopped

2 onions, chopped

1 large can of tomatoes

½ cup of raisins

1 cup of olives

1 tablespoon of capers

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar

Cook it up and serve it over rice…++

home to home to home

2010-02-27T16:23:00.002-06:00

So dear readers...y'all will cut me a little slack on my "write everyday during Lent" promise, given the whole bit with my grandma dying, right? I have no brain at all right now, but here's what's been happening...

Flew out from Chicago to Athens. Flew back 41 hours later. Went flat out the entire time. That include what I'm affectionately referring to at the Fisher-Shoemaker Shopping Olympics. My step-dad is hands down the world's best shopping buddy. In under two hours we purchased a suit (originally $272, marked down to $79--gorgeous buttons and piping), a dress (originally $115, marked down to $38, with plenty o' wear left this season--it helps to buy clothes for Chicago in GA--spring comes sooner there!) and a shell for under the suit ($22, marked down to $11). Did I mention we did this in under 2 hours and that 5 stores were involved? Okay, three were at the mall, but still....

I digress. Although the relief I felt to have a non-clergy outfit, appropriate for the occasion, was palpable. I sat down in the car after our trip and felt massive amounts of tension leave my shoulders. This was after I spent the morning with the pastor from my uncle's Methodist church. Um...this woman? A-fricking-mazing. PhD from Harvard in Hebrew Scripture, taught at Duke, now at UGA, has twins, and in her spare time--manages to pastor a church. Yeah, a total rock-star pastor. More than that, she gave me lessons--true lessons--in the gift of flexibility and pastoral care. For all my rigidity about the liturgy, music, what is acceptable and what is not, this woman handed my family the gift of flow. Willing to use the Episcopal liturgy in the Methodist church, securing for us my grandmother's old church, the constant mantra of "whatever will mean the most for your family." It was a gift. It's not that I'll totally change my somewhat rigid ways, but I do think I can appreciate, at a deeper level, having been on the other side of the pastoral care desk, what a gift her willingness to move into the potential battlefield of our multi-denomination, politically and theologically...um..."diverse" family. Her flexibility allowed room for some grace and some common ground. Again, brain dead, so not sure if any of this is making any sense.

After meeting with Pastor Beth, I went to Lord and Stephens, the funeral home. I've known Tom Lord, one of the owners, for years. He used to work out at the gym where my massage practice was first housed. Such a good man. They buried my grandfather and my aunt. And I always knew they were good. And then I moved to Chicago and started dealing with funeral homes up here. Lord have mercy...y'all...there is just no place like home or like Lord and Stephens. I never thought I'd feel "spoiled" by a funeral home (probably a poor choice of words), but they, like Pastor Beth, offer some of the best pastoral care out there. Anyhoo...we spend for-fricking-ever going over every possible detail, from where our cars would be parked at the chuch to what music would be on the DVD "memorial" (NB: When I die, or when I turn 40, please do not make one of these for me. And if you do, please do not include "Love can build a bridge" by the Judds. I know my grandma loved it, but lawsy...the Judds? Really? Y'all can pray for me that my Southern graciousness--it's in there somewhere--will come out while the video is on.)

The best part of my whirl wind trip was, of course, last night with the family. My cousins, my auntie Lynn and my uncle Bill, mom & step-daddy. All good. Max, my cousin, is now driving. And is obsessed with Failblog. So in the midst of conversations and remembrances of my grandmother, was the much needed comic relief of that. And that he wouldn't let my Mom or his mom see some of them, but that I was "cool enough" to see, despite my priestly and older status, was kinda great.

Step-daddy and I got up at 3:30 and left for the airport. I always love the still of that time of day. Had coffee and breakfast with him before I left through security. And I sat between two women going to a conference on a sardine packed plane. They were a riot. I was too. So it was all good.

Today has been about alterations to the new suit and finding the perfect scarf to go with said suit. Sitting down for the first time, I find myself lost. I'm writing her "eulogy." I don't quite know how to do that. And while I suspect the Gospel text will frame it some, it feels so overwhelming. Do I include the part about her favorite dumb joke, the monkey joke? Do I leave out the fact that her carrot cake is the closest thing to heaven you'll ever taste? Do I talk about the family or her work? How do I weave in all those stories? The story I want to tell--for that's what it is--me, trying and failing, but trying none the less, to weave together one strand of the story of her life--the story I want to tell is too big. And I suspect, at some level, I spent the rest of my life trying to write it down, to etch it on me. So...where to go from here? And how to get there?

I have until Thursday morning, when I pick up and head back to the airport for round two. Stay tuned....

Emily Carol Callaway McDonald

2010-02-24T23:04:00.000-06:00

Grandmother

Mother

Wife

Beloved of God

Rest Eternal Grant unto her and let light perpetual shine upon her.

May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God

Rest in peace.

waiting

2010-02-23T11:48:00.000-06:00

I'm away at a clergy day, at the Morton Arboretum. It is beyond beautiful. Like those Christmas Card images of snow on trees and vast amounts of space. A winter wonderland, untouched by the city stains that turn snow to sludge to mush to gross. We spent the morning singing and in prayer, and, ever the skeptic, I expected to be annoyed by the singing. To my shock and delight, it was actually pretty great. And moments of stillness filtered in and space opened and coffee made its way to me and all was right with the world.

When I saw my mother had left a voice mail on my cellphone, my heart instantly leapt to my grandmother. Lent seems to be her dying season. This time last year we got the "she's dying tomorrow, get your ass home" rally cry. Not only did she not die, but she got, if not better, she got stable. She has remained under hospice care.

The hospice nurse called my mom, who is understandably in shock. She thinks my grandmother has maybe a day or two left. I am looking at plane fares. Debating between church responsibilities and questions of the needs of my soul, my heart to see that face just once more.

She has let go of me, in her memory. But I have not let go of her. Bloated and changed, helpless and different as she looks in a hospital bed, she is still the face that showed me what joy looks like, that etched on me my belovedness. Hers is still the face of heartbreak and wondering what could've been done differently, of wondering how to fix a person who is broken. Hers is the face of love, of patience, of despair and of hope. Hers is the face of a grandmother.

Spiritual Exercises for the 40 Days (Part III)

2010-02-22T19:59:00.017-06:00

Day Twenty Six: Remember your baptism. Remember the promises you made in baptism, or the promises made on your behalf. Write them down. Carry them in your pocket. Figure out which ones you struggle with and which ones give you life. Remember who you are.

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

I will, with God’s help.

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

I will, with God’s help.

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

I will, with God’s help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

I will, with God’s help.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I will, with God’s help.

Day Twenty-Seven: Write a prayer. One relatively easy was is to write a collect, which follows pretty simple formula: 1. Address to God with an attribute (Blessed are you, all Holy God, source of Life and giver of good thing). 2. Name your need or thanksgiving (Grant to your people peace in a time of war, joy in a time of sorrow, comfort in the midst of struggle) 3. A statement of intention or result of the need or thanksgiving (that we might show forth your glory in all the world) 4. Closing (All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ, the light of the world and the hope of our salvation Amen).

N.B.: I write this having spent a good part of the day crafting a liturgy and adapting post-communion prayer from the St.Basil (which now looks remarkably un-like St. Basil's original intent!). Anyway...this exercise, at least for me, helps me get in touch with my own deeper needs.

Day Twenty-Eight: Watch a movie in your PJs. Or something like this. The point is Sabbath. It's a huge part of the Jewish tradition and theoretically of the Christian faith as well, but somehow we seem to miss the mark. So take make dinner the night before in the crock pot, turn off your cell phone, pour a glass of wine and snuggle up with your honey. Rest and be restored.

Day Twenty-Nine: Read. I'm reading Brian McClaren's Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. It's all about returning to the ancient practices that have been part of our faith since the time of Abraham and discovering how they can still shape and form us.

Day Thirty: Light a candle. Watch the flame. For those of us who move a lot and find it hard to meditate, focusing on the flame is a wonderful way to slow down and be still.

Day Thirty-One: Give. Stewardship is one of the most basic parts of the Christian life but the church has lost sight of the transformative power of true stewardship. What do you give? Why do you give? How has your giving changed you and the way you look at the world? Do you live in the fear of scarcity or the joy of abundance? More from me on stewardship later, because it's a topic near and dear to my heart, but for now, from the 26th chapter of Deuteronomy: The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.

Oh, and this: TENS, the Episcopal Network for Stewardship. Their conference changed my life and the way I see giving.

Day Thirty-Two: Engage in body prayer--yoga or swimming or simply walking. Create sacred space in yourself.

Day Thirty-Three: Read the psalms. They contain so much of the human experience, from rejoicing to lamenting. Ever wonder if it's okay to get mad with God? Look no further than the psalms. I love the first part of psalm 139. I'm working towards memorizing it by Easter. What psalm speaks to your heart?

Day Thirty-Four: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Or, plan for the future and get your affairs in order. I was sitting in a hospital room with a woman on life support. They expected her to be dead by 10:00 AM. At 4:00 in the afternoon, she was still alive, but only because her daughter had no idea what to do. She was a vegetable, for all intensive purposes, breathing only by machine, growing more bloated by the minute as her organs shut down. I've seen it now more times than I'd like.

This week, my father sent me a request to be listed as one of the people who will make decisions about his health care if he or his beloved are unable to do so. He gave me about 25 ways to say "no I don't want to do this." And the truth is, I don't want to do it, but I am grateful that I have the option to oversee his care, to ensure that, if that time comes, he will be treated compassionately and in accordance to his wishes, which are clearly spelled out.

Likewise, I laugh at my mom every time she comes to visit. She brings addendums to this HUGE notebook. But in that notebook, which sits nicely on my bookshelf, is every last thing I could ever need to know about how to care for her, should she be unable to care for herself, and what kind of burial she wants. Codes to the safe, keys to the safety deposit box, health records for the dogs and hymns to be sung--all are listed.

I say all this because it's helpful to know not only what you want, but to make sure those who love you know what you want. Because we are dust and to dust we shall return.

Day Thirty Five: Find the sacred in the secular. It's all around us. Anyone who knows me or has heard me preach knows that I think Buffy has some of the best theology as well as imagery of the divine in our ordinary lives. But there are a million other places too. At the risk of sounding like a religious nut, there are times when I've turned on the radio and I could swear it was the voice of God singing to me (usually through Michael Stipe). Music, books, television, movies. Find the places where God hides in our world and recognize those places for who they really are.

Day Thirty Six: Tell stories. We are a people of the Book, which is to say, we are a people of stories. Long before The Bible was tucked away in cheap motels as a gift from the Gideons, long before St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, long before it was written down, it was told. Stories passed from generation to generation. Tell stories. Stories of who you are. Listen to stories, stories of where you came from.

Day Thirty-Seven: Blessed are those whose strength is in You. They have set their hearts on pilgrimage (Psalm 84:5). Make a pilgrimage. More than a trip, a pilgrimage is a journey, one with significance, one that informs our faith. There are pilgrimages that are about exploring the destination, like Jerusalem or Rome. And there are pilgrimages that are more about the journey itself, like the Camino de Santiago. Pilgrimage is both internal and external and somewhere in that mix, God steps in and moves us in a unexpected ways.

Day Thirty-Eight: Find Jesus at the Wal-Greens. Or at Starbucks. Or sitting alone on the steps of the church. All these people, created in the image of God, walking past us, noticed and unnoticed, day in, day out. Can you see the light of Christ radiating from them?

Day Thirty- Nine: Recycle. Save water. Carpool. Walk to work. Take care of God's creation and remember those who will live come after us.

Day Forty: Look for resurrection. We are a resurrection people. All that we do, especially in this season of Lent, can really only be understood through the lens of resurrection. So look for it. And dance with joy when it is found.

Coffee is Sexy

2010-02-21T14:16:00.000-06:00

Before he was Buffy's watcher, he was just a sexy, coffee drinking man. Here's the first in the famous series of coffee adverts. Enjoy!

Saturday Night

2010-02-20T23:14:00.000-06:00

I'm still recovering from Ash Wednesday. Three services (the first starting at 7:00 AM--gah), constantly reminding people of their mortality, just gets exhausting. I slept in on Friday and felt like I never fully woke up. And then today hit: Eucharist, followed by leading a sort-of "how to" writing workshop for folks who are writing mediations for our Easter booklet, followed by a funeral, followed by a hospital visit to the former rector who's about to undergo heart surgery, followed by writing a sermon. I'm beat. But I've also just had 3 cups of coffee, so I'm not ready to sleep yet. So I'm watching Buffy. And tweaking my sermon. And hoping that within the hour I'll be asleep.

Someday I'll figure out how to pace this whole priestly life thing. But right now I'm feeling swamped and ineffective. The good news is that I'm not alone. Tonight my friend Kevin & I spent the evening at the coffee shop working on our sermons. Life is better when it's not done in isolation. Tomorrow I'll get up and my congregation will teach me something. And the snow will fall (boo!!!) and the week will come and somehow the things that need to happen will happen and the things that can wait will wait. One day at a time, even when they're really long days like today.

Spiritual Exercises for the 40 Days (part II)

2010-02-19T15:05:00.001-06:00

Well day one into Lent and I've already fallen down on the whole write every day thing. Sigh. In fairness to me, I had a couple of things happen, one of which included a minor pastoral emergency and the second is that when I sat down to truly write, my internet was down.

So...on to the list.

Day Sixteen: Be still. The Psalmist calls us to "Be still, and know that I am God!" and yet stillness is so hard to come by. A day without the internet or television, a day with space to listen. A day may be too much, so maybe a morning or a few hours will do, to get the space open.

Day Seventeen: Hang out in God's handiwork. Try the Botanical Gardens or the mountain you want to hike. I realize this may be challenging for those of us who live in colder climates. Sneak a peek at the newborns at your local hospital or better yet, take dinner to friends with a new baby and hold the baby while they eat (I did this on Valentine's Day--a great way to celebrate!).

Day Eighteen: Say grace or give thanks before you eat. Here are a few out of the Book of Common Prayer (1979), but there are plenty of others out there. And of course, you can always make up your own.
Give us grateful hearts, our Father, for all thy mercies, and make us mindful of the needs of others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

or this

Bless, O Lord, thy gifts to our use and us to thy service; for Christ's sake. Amen.

or this

Blessed are you, O Lord God, King of the Universe, for you give us food to sustain our lives and make our hearts glad; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

or this

For these and all his mercies, God's holy Name be blessed and praised; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Day Nineteen: Pray in the shower. It's short and sweet and to the point. If you need extra time, condition your hair twice.

Day Twenty: Try a new posture at church. Do you always stand during the Eucharistic prayer? Try kneeling. Do you always kneel? Try standing. Sing louder than you normally would, or, if you're like me, sing more quietly. We approach God, through our worship, with all that we are, body, mind, spirit and voice. Sometimes moving in a new way helps us free ourselves up to hear and be with God in a new way.

Day Twenty-one: I can hear people who know me laughing at this one, but try to grow something. A small plant or seedlings that can sprout. I may be going with a Chia pet. The idea is pretty simple--watch how God can use dirt and time and little tiny seeds and make something pretty amazing. If God can do that with seeds, what can God do with us?

Day Twenty-two: Get involved. Is there a local community group that cares for the needs of the neighborhood? In my neck of the woods, it's the Lakeview Action Coalition. Go to a meeting or just call and ask--what are the concerns in your part of the world? Through the eyes of Lakeview Action Coalition, I am more aware of the needs of homeless youth. In the entire city of Chicago, there are only 37 beds available for homeless youth. What is the Gospel response?

Day Twenty-three: Say or walk the Stations of the Cross. You can do it online, or at a church, or search for the hidden and not-so-hidden modern day realities that make up the Stations in your neighborhood.

Day Twenty-four: Spend your day looking for places of grace. When you find one, write it down.

Day Twenty-five: Spend time with someone you love, someone you haven't seen for awhile. How better do we experience the extravagant love of God than by being with those around us, those people who remind us of our belovedness, those people who reflect the love of God back to us. And we, hopefully, in turn, do the same for them.

More to come...

Spiritual Exercises for the 40 Days (part I)

2010-02-17T17:02:00.025-06:00

Next week, for our Wednesday Night Forum at my church, we're doing a class/workshop on exploring spiritual disciplines or exercises. So my head has been turning around the different ways that we can explore the who we are as beloved of God, and how we can go deeper in relationship with Christ. A fellow blogger, Melissa, over at Sacred Screaming did a list of 40 Spiritual Practices for Lent. I really liked her ideas! And I wanted to take a stab at making my own list.

I've really struggled, over the years, at keeping up a Spiritual Discipline or Practice during the season of Lent. When I've succeeded, it's often been more like a "religious diet," where I abstain from chocolate or sugar for the season, but then, as soon as the Easter Vigil is over go head first into a fountain filled with chocolate a la the Vicar of Dibley. So I wanted this list to be something that I can draw from (and maybe you can too!) that offers a way in rather than a cutting off of. The idea being that if these work, great, but if they don't, that's okay too. An invitation rather than a checklist, expansion rather than restriction. It's now almost 11:30PM on Ash Wednesday and I need to go to bed, so the list is just a starter, getting through Day 15. If you've got ideas I should add in the coming days, give a shout out in the comments section! And away we go...

Day One: Be present. For the season, for the ashes, for worship. The season of Lent, like all of our liturgical year, can only begin to be understood through the lens that we are a resurrected people. We believe that new life comes forth from places of death. So be present to the places that are dying or need to die, and offer them up the season, to see how God may create new life.

Day Two: Pray the Daily Office. For Episcopalians, it is at the core of our liturgical life. Praying it, over time, is a wonderful way to be formed, to be shaped by the liturgy and by prayer. If you have a Book of Common Prayer and a Bible, you're good to go. If you don't, or prefer to pray online, you can do that too.

Day Three: Walk. Go for a walk around the block, to clear your head, to listen for God, to be present with God's creation.

Day Four: Follow “Journey to the Cross” an online special devotional for Lent/Easter, sponsored in part by the Episcopal Church . Journey to the Cross features Scripture, music and a brief meditation.

Day Five: Practice the art of forgiveness. Easier said that done. And in my brief experience, it is best done over time. Forgive us our sins and we forgive those who sin against us, so the prayer goes. The best way I know to forgive is to pray for the people with whom we struggle. Someone I heard recently suggested that you imagine the person whom you need to forgive as a small helpless child, and make that part of the focus of your prayer, remembering the child, the innocence and innate goodness that is found in all people, especially as children.

Day Six: Let go. Give away some of your books. Clean out a closet. Get rid of some of that extra stuff that can weigh a life down. John the Baptist reminds us that if we have two coats to give one away (I have upwards of 7, but hey, I live in Chicago). Lord I am preaching to myself here.

Day Seven: Listen for God in the Scripture. An easy way to delve into the Scripture is using the technique of Lectio Divina, which is Latin for divine or spiritual reading or "holy reading." Pick a passage. Read it the first time, asking yourself what word or phrase jumps out at you. Then do it again. After another reading, ask yourself what it may be saying to your life. There are a gazillion websites out there on Lectio Divina. And there's not a right or wrong way to do this, just a way to begin.

Day Eight: Fast. Abstain from something for a season or for a day. Chocolate, alcohol or time-sucking websites come to mind. Spend the fasting time doing something life giving like reading or calling a friend.

Day Nine: Use what you already have. My cabinets are full to the brim with Trader Joe's cans of black beans, diced tomatoes and cornbread mix. Make dinner out of what's already in the pantry. Donate the money you would've spent to a charity like Episcopal Relief and Development, which is doing work in many parts of the world, like Haiti.

Day Ten: Read Matthew 4: 25-5:10, the Beatitudes.

Day Eleven: Journal. In Katherine Stockett's book, The Help, one of the characters keeps a prayer journal, writing all her prayers to God. I love this idea. But prayer journal or just plain old journal, I think the act of writing allows us to get in touch with a deeper sense of self and God.

Day Twelve: Find a new ministry or volunteer somewhere--in the church, in the neighborhood, do something to be of service to the Body of Christ, or to people who may see Christ through your actions. For those of us who love Disney, there's even a reward for serving!

Day Thirteen: In all honesty, I don't know how good these meditations are, but a cyber pal says they are good. Inner Divine Spirit is a website by a Jungian analyst. You can read on the site or have her meditations on Scriptures from a Jungian viewpoint emailed directly to your mailbox (I signed up for them today).

Day Fourteen: Put on your favorite music and sing and dance! (I recommend replacing the harp/lyre with the kazoo.)
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. (Psalm 98)

Day Fifteen: Watch Buffy, Season 5, the last episode, The Gift. A beautiful story of the power of self-sacrifice. I see Jesus on the cross every time I watch this. Seriously. I think of it, in many ways, as a modern version of the stations of the cross (it has been used in a pop-culture telling/showing of the Stations). If you don't know the back story of Buffy or of Season 5, let me know--I'll happily fill you in!

More to come...

Lent

2010-02-17T14:01:00.002-06:00

So...for the past few years I've failed to really do any sort of Lenten discipline. This year I want to be more intentional. I'm giving up surfing the internet (specifically a few mindless sites that I tend to frequent at home, at night while avoiding sleep or any real thought process, like Lamebook and Yelp's Talk section). I toyed with a Facebook fast, but I use it a lot for work. So I'm not going to do that.

I am going to take on a few things. I'm going to pray the Daily Office at least once a day. I haven't done that for awhile and I miss it. I'll probably pray it in paper form, but it's nice to have the online one as well. And I'm going to try and write. Daily. Here. I make no promises to the quality of the writing or the content, only that I'm going to try and be faithful. Because I think I function a bit better in this world when I do.

So there it is. I have my first project in my head. I'm going to break my fast (I really don't think I can make it through 3 services today with nothing to eat) and settle in a bit and then get to writing something a bit more real. But that's the plan. We'll see how it goes.

After the Fire

2010-02-16T09:57:00.004-06:00

It's been almost seven years since the fire. Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday. Sometimes it feels a lifetime ago and an ocean away. I don't jump anymore when the firetrucks come. I don't panic when I see a building on fire. The physical responses have changed. The emotional ones have subsided, but not gone away.

Sometimes I think about her, my aunt, and wonder not what could have been--the reality of her life was that this kind of dramatic, explosive death was part of the path she walked. But I think of her now with more compassion and more empathy--feelings, tools, gifts I wish I could've had earlier, I wish I could've given while she was alive.

She was complicated. And it was and is hard to know if she ever felt truly loved. I suspect there were times that she did. But I also think those times were fleeting. It's no wonder, I guess, that she adopted cats. Not quite a crazy cat lady, but close. I don't remember a time when she didn't have cats. And when I was little, her love for cats was second to only one thing--her love for me. So I suppose I can rest in that--we loved each other, for a time, when I was young. And maybe that helped.

I curl up, these winter days, with my own cats. They purr and my anxiety about money, about tuck pointing for my old church building, about what comes next--that anxiety is assuaged for a bit. They are good companions. And my heart is bigger for them. And so I get it--why my aunt always had them, why they made the best and closest friends for her.

The morning after the fire, my mom and I went to look at what remained. The stuffing from the sofa, a tattered copy of Gone with the Wind, a plaster bird, covered in gold paint, and a tiny tacky statue of two cats curled up together, that live among my things, covered in soot, precious beyond words. We looked for the remains of "Lil Girl," her cat. We never found her. Mom holds out hope that she got out and in the days and weeks that followed, my mom tried to find her, to bring her into her own home, to welcome that part of my aunt that was the icon of her love. Lil Girl was never found.

I confess, I hope, that Lil Girl died with my aunt in the fire, not because I want for a cat to have died, but because I like to think, unrealistic as it may be, that my aunt died asleep, with a cat nearby, purring. I like to think that she died, knowing she was loved. Unlikely? Yes. But it's the image I hold onto, all these years, after the fire.

snowy days and mondays

2010-01-25T17:20:00.005-06:00

It's snowing. Nothing new for Chicago, but it's snowing. After a really warm and rainy weekend (highs in the 40s, y'all!), it's back to being cold and snowy. It won't stick. But damn it's cold. I left for work without checking the forecast and returned home. I left for work in my leather jacket that I wear in GA and returned home to get mittens and the walking-sofa-of-coat that is my winter down coat. It's cold. And snowing. And for some reason, I'm having a cranky pants day. Nothing in particular. I'm just having a bad day. A day full of emails and office work. A day without interfacing with people. A bit lonely in this big, cold building. Thankfully my brand new Presto Heat Dish is keeping me warm.

So anyway...I head out to the Wal-greens, which is just across the street for some much needed Diet Coke and Resse's therapy. And y'all, it's cold. And so I make my way up and down the aisles of the store, debating between sales and calories, calculating the money in my account until payday, grateful for the bright florescent lights of distraction that are the world of retail. The check out guy was really friendly. We talked about the differences in Arctic Mint flavored gum and Mango flavored gum (settled on the Arctic Mint). And I zipped up my coat because as I may have mentioned, it's damn cold out.

As I breezed out of the false safe haven of the brilliant store lights into the snowy dark of the Chicago dusk, I saw him. An old man with crooked teeth and yellowing eyes, grey hair and a worn burgundy sweatshirt. He sits in the chair by the door, seeking, I suspect, a respite from the weather, waiting until he's stayed too long, until the clerk or manager tells him it's time to go. I don't stare. I keep going. And on my way to the sidewalk, with my back to her, I hear the crazy lady who makes her home the parking lot of Wal-greens. She's there most days, talking to whoever it is that she sees that the rest of us can't. She's yelling at him or her or it. And I don't blame her. It's cold and there's not a lot of places where she can go. And then my mind drifts, as it has so often, these past days, weeks, to Haiti, where there is no bright florescent lit store with chocolate and H1N1 vaccines on demand. And I find myself feeling--what? Hopeless, fortunate, ashamed, helpless? Maybe a bit of each.

Yesterday, in a sermon, I was reminded that when we pray, we are never alone. That, for example, in those words of the Lord's Prayer, when we say it or the rosary, we are never alone. Someone, somewhere joins in the praying of it. Likewise, when I lift my tiny prayer of "For the people of Haiti, Lord have mercy," which I have been trying to pray on the hour since the quake, when I lift that little prayer, there is no telling how many other prayers and pray-ers (people who are praying) pray with me. I am not alone. You are not alone. We are not alone.

Y'all it's cold here. And it's broken in Haiti. And there's a plane that went down filled with people who were brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and lovers and friends. The list goes on. For those of us who pray, let us pray without ceasing, let us pray together. Cause it's cold outside. And none of us can make it alone.

Post Vacation Train Wreck

2010-01-11T16:53:00.005-06:00

So my fabulous assistant (and also our choirmaster) said to me today "I thought Church yesterday was really fun!" I peered out of my office and looked at him. "Really?" I said, "Cause I thought it was a train wreck." "Well," he replies, "the part when you COMPLETELY FORGOT THE ABSOLUTION was pretty funny. " I blush. It's true. Yesterday was one of those complete messes of a day. One of those days where way more goes wrong than goes right. The last page of my sermon somehow didn't make it into the pulpit. So the sermon ended with me saying..."So...let's renew our baptismal vows! Now! Amen!" And I literally lost my breath 4 times in the service--once in the sermon and 3 times during the Eucharist, which made me sound oh-so-unpleasantly flat. And then, there was, that absolution. Sigh. So I left the Mass, made it through the pat-the-preacher line and expected to hear about my horribleness.

But here's the thing: they were just glad I was back. Maybe it was only small talk, to cover for the fact that my sermon ended abruptly and I clearly forgot important words and that for once I didn't have enough hot air in me, but whatever it was, I was grateful. And glad to be home. Grace and forgiveness--when we are lucky enough to recognize them (and even when we are not)--are delightful gifts.

Happy Epiphany

2010-01-06T10:14:00.003-06:00

A blessed Epiphany to everyone! Now the work of Christmas begins...

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry,
to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…

Then the work of Christmas begins.

-- Howard Thurman

Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T11:33:00.011-06:00

It's been so long--it's hard to finally pull the trigger and sit down and write. Writing is, after all, such a discipline. But it's Christmas Eve, and for better or worse, I think the sermon is done. I'll probably edit it a few more times, look for a few different adjectives, but all in all, it's done. And Christmas Day's sermon is in my head, trusting that the words will tumble out of my mouth at the right time and place. Presents? Wrapped. Breakfast? Eaten. Coffee? Hot. So what's left to do but write?

This year I started a Wednesday night Contemplative Eucharist--i.e. one that has less talk and a lot of silence (which for those who know me, know that means a great big challenge). And it's been a wonderful experience. All these people are coming (17, which doesn't sound big, but let me tell you, for a church with 80 people on Sunday, that's a good number). Some of them are regular Sunday folk, but some, I daresay, most are people who I've never seen on a Sunday morning. People who have snuck in the door, hoping to be anonymous, looking, I suspect for a little space, a little quiet, a little light in the darkness.

One of the best features of our church is our ability to play with light and dark. The lights are set so low that you can barely read the text, yet somehow we do. And in that darkness are candles and incense and chants. And then there is the Eucharistic prayer itself. My favorite, the one I use most of the time is from Iona. There are tweeks that my liturgical inner-geek has to do to make it appropriate, but on the whole, it's a gorgeous piece of work, playing with the mystery of Christ and the incarnation. Perhaps my favorite part of the prayer is the bidding prayer which goes something like this:

So come to this table
You who have much faith and you who would like to have have more
You who have been to this sacrament often and you who have not been in a long time
You who have tried to follow Christ and you who have failed.
Come. It is Christ who invites us to meet him here.

Perhaps more than anything, this prayer has shaped my year. The constant reminder that Christ calls us and at the same time Christ meets us right where we are, full of faith, full of doubt, full of hope, full of despair, or, like many of us, a lovely blend of it all--the beauty and tenderness of the human condition. Luther said that Christmas is for children and Easter is for adults and I understand that. But I think that he was off a bit. Christmas, for adults, allows us to remember the mystery of Christ coming close to us and us coming close to Christ (a line borrowed from that Eucharistic prayer, by the way). Christ comes close in the form of a baby, Christ comes close in a form that we both adore and fear. For what parent hasn't shaken, just a little bit, with the realization of what parenthood means, what care it calls for? And yet, in that crib, lies the hope of all humanity, the hope of innocence, the hope of new beginnings, the hope of goodness that all babies have. And the mystery of what the tableau all means. Beyond the pageants, beyond the carols, beyond the presents and the tree, there is the hope of an irrational, wild love that descends, ready or not, for us.

A joyful Christmas tide to all. In the new year I promise to try and be more faithful. In the mean time, I'll leave you with this, my favorite set of words for this season, from Madeline L'Engle:
This is the irrational season/ When love blooms bright and wild/ For if Mary had been filled with reason/ There’d have been no room for the child.

PS: Photo credit: me! This is taken in Palestine at the Church of the Resurrection (also known as Holy Sepulcher), outside of the chapel of the empty tomb. The photo serves as the image used with our Contemplative Eucharist.

i'm still here!

2009-08-15T19:20:00.013-05:00

Hi y'all (if anyone is still out there!):
I'm still here.
I went away on vacation in mid July--hands down one of the best vacations in years. If I can't get out of the States to go trail-blazing in Spain or hit the Holy Land to get a little closer to those roads that JC walked, send me to my native land of fried okra and heirloom tomatoes out of my parents' garden. Leaving Athens, driving to Florida (private frickin' beach, off season, y'all--I saw 4 other people on the entire beach while I was there--paradise), the cooler was packed with veggies out of my mom & step-dad's garden, as well as veggies from my papa & his beloved's garden. It was heaven. We had cold cucumbers and tomatoes for lunch for days and it made my heart happy. Almost as happy as seeing all the people I love.

On my last day (last hour) in Athens, I sang happy birthday to my grandmother, on her 90th birthday. We sang it 6 times and each time it was new to her and she was delighted. "Sarah, hurry up and cut me some of that cake. I'm hungry!" (And how great does my mom look?)

I also spent a little bit of time in Decatur and saw a friends from college that I haven't seen in years, which made me unbelievably happy. And a really bad movie: A Simple Plan. Don't watch it. It's awful. I mean really bad.

And there was the beach--books and dolphins and sand dollars and blueberry pie and wine and sun and Monopoly and no internet (save my iPhone--but even so, no email for 12 days!) and sea kayaking and a lost $300 pair of Rx sunglasses and seashells and green beans and coffee and no mosquito's and coconuts from the trees and the priest at Mass who forgot to consecrate anything but the priest's host and figured no one would notice if he just threw some unconsecrated wafers in the ciborium (I noticed), Scrabble and margaritas and sunsets and it was all over far too soon.

Since I've gotten back it's been work and life. I'm turning over story ideas in my head which I have yet to get on paper. I'm a bit homesick for the South, which, having been so eager to leave, always suprises me a bit. Pepper, a 5 month old black lab spent the weekend and I remembered with joy how much fun it is to have a dog around, and also, bittersweetly, knew the loss of Micah even more deeply. I'm not ready--not yet--for another dog. But I'm open to the possibility. In time.

There's more to write, but not now. For now I drink coffee and wonder about Stewardship and the Virgin Mary (not as far apart as you might think!) and step forward, one foot in front of the other, in this strange land I call home.

In the name of Love

2009-07-03T21:52:00.003-05:00

Last weekend marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. It's the weekend Chicago traditionally celebrates gay Pride weekend. My parish has a long tradition of offering hospitality during the Pride parade. Giving out bottled water to parade goers has been going on for many years. And this year we joined the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches and many folks actually marched in the parade.

For me, it was a powerful experience. I missed the step off (and took the picture above) but jumped in the parade a bit later. What amazed me most, standing on the sidelines and watching, was the sheer increase in volume that happened when the church groups walked by. The joyful and exuberant crowd took their jubilee to a whole new level. Cheering, yelling thank you. In the midst of floats with barely dressed men, drag queens and beer adverts (there were a lot of beer floats), the church groups stand out. And I think it's a visible witness that God's love is there for all, not only for the few.

But the most moving experience was actually being in the parade. Walking down the street in a collar on that day--people kept reaching out to grab a hand, yelling God bless you. I was reminded of the importance of being a symbol bearer, of what it means, as a priest, to stand In Persona Christi, (that Wikipedia link is not the best description, btw, but it'll have to do for now) to a group of people who the church has, for so long injured and dismissed, or worse, damned. So to be out with the people who have so long been cast to the margins, standing and proclaiming a message of God's unfailing, all encompassing, never ending love--that seemed pretty important to me.

And then the most amazing thing happened. The parade route got backed up. Just as the Coalition for Welcoming Churches was passing by the very small but very vocal group of protesters. As they stood with huge signs about the wages of sin and the doomed state of the world, we stood with signs that said God loves you and You are welcome in God's house. And the parade came to a stand still. And people from about 22 churches--pastors and people--moved in together and turned and faced the protesters and their signs. No words were said. And, I suspect, no minds were changed, although I can't help but wonder if there's not some basic desire for understanding on both sides. And we stood and looked, eye to eye, at people who profess to love the same Lord and Savior and then, started, once again, to march.

It's the problem with being created in God's image but not being God. We are all flawed and not one of us is perfect and Jesus calls us to look for the Christ in each person. I'd be lying if I said I saw the Christ in those protesters. But I believe my Lord and my God enough to trust that despite all our differences, that somewhere the heart of God lives in them too.

There are no easy answers. And so we march on, one foot in front of the other, seeking the good, seeking God and hoping that just maybe, if we are lucky, the light of Christ will shine out from us, to illumine the world that can be so dark.

Farewell to a good friend

2009-06-24T12:50:00.003-05:00

Someday I'll write something real about her. For now I'm just incredibly sad. The house is too quiet and her favorite squeaky toy lies under the chair and I don't know what to do with it.

Sweet, sweet Micah. Thank you for being such a loyal friend and companion on the journey. I miss you.

Micah: June 11, 1998-June 24, 2009

she's not dead yet...on Job and cats and pacemakers and dogs and, oh, yeah, God.

2009-06-20T18:48:00.008-05:00

This week I had to choose between three Old Testament Scriptures for the bulletin and for my sermon, to go with the story of Jesus calming the Sea while the disciples freak out. One of the text choices was David and Goliath. I really, really, really wanted to preach on David and Goliath. But for a myriad of other reasons, including some boring practical ones, I chose Job. Despite my whining, it's a great passage. If you want to read it, click away. Job, after endless trial and torment finally cries out to God in frustration, to which God replies: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? " God goes on to remind Job of the vastness of creation--the limits, the measures, the boundaries of all that God has created. And while, in someways, it comes across as God yelling and being, frankly, kind of mean to Job, there is in the midst of this conversation, incredible beauty in all that God says.

I write all this feeling incredibly detached. There is so much death and illness surrounding people I love right now. And I'm remarkably calm. The calm in the midst of many storms, for a moment, perhaps. The crazy includes pacemakers becoming part of my vocabulary as are the realities of parents that grow older. You already know about Alzheimer's, lung cancer and grandmothers. And of course there's the Athens GA house of aging animals, AKA my mom and step-dad's home. They've lost three (the third of whom was put down today) of their four cats in 6 months. Today Sam, the three-legged wonder cat, used up the last of his nine lives. Losing a leg, but beating cancer, he learned to move so quickly on three legs. But today it came to an end when a blood disease finally had its way with his small body. In my world here in Chicago, the puppy I've loved like she's my own for almost 11 years has a return of cancer and it's moving quickly, aggressively and cruelly. I watch her bleed and can't imagine my life without her in it. And know that day is coming soon--but it's not here, not just yet.

So I find myself thinking about Job. My trials are nothing like his. I know that. I have a job and a family and people who love me. I have a coffee shop and decent coffee and free wifi. I have sunshine and books and a volleyball team. Yes, I am not Job. And neither are any of the people who are far more directly affected by all the ailments listed above. And yet, in the midst of heartache and struggle and pain, it's hard not to lift up our hands and cry out to God.

Hail Mary, full of Grace. Help me find a parking place. It's a prayer I use at least once a day in this city. I work with someone who really believes that it's a legitimate prayer--that God has some control, some say in where we park our cars. That if we are good and pleasing, a parking space will open up. If our intentions are less than ideal, not spot will appear. That God answers that kind of prayer directly. I don't believe that, although I pray it all the time. Same as I'm not really convinced the St. Joseph statue I buried in the front yard of the Russian Spy's house will actually help the sale of said house. But I hope.

It's why I don't pray "please make the cancer go away" or "please make my Father be 60 instead of almost 78." I'm not convinced God works like that. And I kinda think that's what God is saying to Job. Something along the lines of "it's a bit more complicated than your individual speck of drama. I've got a whole planet to look out for." Which leaves us where? Comfortless? Helpless? Alone? No. In all of this we are more than abandoned children. God moves into the boat, the storming sea, the raging lake that storms and finds the places of calm and brings us to them. A friend of Bishop Gene Robinson said to him once "Sometimes God calms the storm and sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms the child."

"Where were you when I laid the foundaition of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone whe teh morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?"

I trust, call it childlike, call it foolish, but I trust, that God was there. And that God is here. With a little black cat as he left this earth, and with my hurting parents as they held him and said goodbye. With my grandmother as she sings Frank Sinatra and wonders who her daughter is. With my father as he discovers the joys of MRIs. With my dog as she sneezes up blood. And wtih me as I watch, frozen in fear of what it to come.

facing fears

2009-05-30T21:06:00.004-05:00

I stood, in blue gym shorts and the pale t-shirt, featuring the Clarke Middle School owl, on the grassy field that was, in 1982, the spot for gym class volleyball. Mrs. Cook had imparted all that she could to us--the way to hold your fist when serving the ball, how to bump, how to set, how to keep score. Now all that was left was actually playing. There were enough girls lining the court that it was a fairly safe bet that I wouldn't have to actually hit the ball, that if it came towards me, I could duck out of the way and let the more athletically inclined girls do the heavy hitting.

Dodging the ball, steering clear of it's fast descent into my personal space, was a skill I developed. And while I could usually serve the ball and even get it over the net on occasion, volleyball, like so many other sports in my life, stood as an icon of fear. Because unlike mini-golf, where failure to hit the ball where it belongs only impacts me, team sports such as volleyball, impact other people--people who have hopes and expectations that revolve around the concept of my being able to return a serve or get a ball over the net. And perhaps even worse, is that in volleyball, once the opposing team discovers that I suck, I become a target. Hit the ball to the pudgy one in pigtales--she can't hit it back they say. And suddenly ball, after ball, after ball comes flying over the net, right into my little corner of the world, while I stand, helplessly ducking.

You'd think I'd have remembered all this when I said yes. You'd think it would've stopped me. But when two of my favorite boys on the planet suggested that I join their beach volleyball team, I said yes before the floodgate of memories had the chance to surface. I paid for my team insurance and Ms. Cook's class never crossed my mind. I loaded up on tacos at our team fiesta before the start of the season and only noticed how great the team shirts were. No, memories of the 6th grade volleyball experience were buried deep in my unconscious...until yesterday.

Yesterday, I donned a new uniform--black sweats and a red t-shirt with a new logo: the Deviled Eggs. And I took my bare feet down to the beach and in the Chicago cold of May found myself playing volleyball. And I missed a lot of balls. And the boys on one team--they did target me. But this time it was different. Because my teammates cheered when I hit the ball, even when it went flying off the court. And because I served 5 serves that they couldn't return. And earned us a total of 6 points. Take that Clarke Middle School!

In the end, the Deviled Eggs won all 4 games we played. (Take that boys who targeted me!) And it was great fun. And I was still scared shitless. But I did it. And next Friday I'll do it again. And step by step, volley by volley, those old voices, those old fears, grow quieter and move farther and farther away. Step by step, volley by volley, I find I'm less inclined to duck.

you can't go home again

2009-05-24T09:42:00.014-05:00

Hi. I'm still here. A little ashamed as I've been gone for such a long time. My apologies. I'll try not to let it happen again...

About the last post--the Julia Child meets the Great 50 Days of Easter project--it bombed. I spent a lot of time with the cookbook at Barnes and Noble and realized it's just not the kind of food I want to invest my time in right now. While the classics are undoubtedly classics, the temptation to make pea salads circa 1970 is just too high, so I had to take a pass on that. I'm looking for another project. I'll let you know when I find it.

So that's the business I needed to take care of.
Here's the story I want to tell you...

I've written before about my friends AJS, CA & SWD. They're good enough friends that they deserve cute bloggy names, so I'm re-naming them now. AJS becomes St. Mochta, the non-existent but good candidate for Patron Saint of Weight Watchers. The internet oh-so-reliably tells me that St. Mochta never ate a bite of fat (yes, I am aware that is not the key to healthy weight loss. I still think the name is clever) . Based on nothing more than that tidbit, I'll offer that name to my friend. She's the rock star of Weight Watchers (over 70 pounds in less than a fricking year). And I hereby give CA, my motorcycle riding friend, the name Miss Ezekiel. Why Ezekiel? From the first chapter: And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up... for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. And lastly, SWD becomes Hot Chip. Because she loves the band. And it fits her.

So, St. Mochta, Miss Ezekiel and Hot Chip were part of a writing class I took many moons ago. In the class I worked on my fiction skills, played with words, crafted a story line or two and it was all good. But at the end of the class, something miraculous happened. I got asked out for drinks. Okay, in truth the entire class was invited, but only 4 of us ended up going out. I almost declined but I figured I had nothing to lose, so off I went. That night a friendship was born and the four of us began to meet weekly. Although we remain in touch, Hot Chip has since moved away. This year she sent me for Christmas the autobiography of Andy Taylor from Duran Duran. I will forever love this woman. And those of us left behind in Chicago, St. Mochta & Miss Ezekiel & me, we continue to go out for dinner, drinks (we've pretty much ditched writing, which was our original reason to meet) and I consider them some of my dearest friends.

Of late Miss Ezekiel, St. Mochta & I have taken to going out for Trivia Night. Someday, dear reader, I will be brave enough to relive the story of the Hell Burger I tried to eat during Trivia Night. But not today. Today is a story about trying to go back to the old things. This week we decided to go back to where it all started for us, our little artsy-restaurant-bar-oasis where we first drank wine and told stories. It's been over a year since we've been there, our once weekly meeting place. All week I had waited for their Ambrosia, a strange but delicious mix of vegetables and capers, balsamic vinegar, bread and cheese (sounds weird but so good). But moreover I was looking forward to sitting in the familiar space catching up with friends, telling stories.

There was a band playing, and they came around to the table (after we had ordered) and told us to pony up $7 each for cover. I knew it was coming and didn't mind (much). Our waitress smelled like Love's Baby Soft and pushed cocktails rather than devulge stories of travels and adventures as previous servers had. And then the Ambrosia came out. And it was just wrong. All wrong. No capers, no punch, no bite. Just blah. But even so, it was okay. Until the owner came in. After the inital "how wonderful to see you again"s, she went outside for her obligitory smoke. Walking in, before the door even closed, she turned to us and shhhed us, telling us to be quiet for the show. I know I'm loud, but the floor wasn't mine and we weren't loud and it just felt odd. This place that had so been a haven wasn't mine, wasn't ours anymore. It was different. It felt wrong. We were out of place in what had felt like home. And there's no one to blame but us--we are the ones who left, but it felt strange and I was irritated. And so we paid our check and got up to leave, people around us being much louder with no librarian-esqe fussing. And headed out into the (not so) cold.

We planned for coffee but then we saw it. I imagine it must have been akin to what Lucy felt when she first felt the snow crunch under her feet as the wardrobe turned into the land of Narnia. Disbelief mixed with delight as this oasis on Irving Park appeared. Into the woods we went, this small, strange hole in the wall lounge with Hockey on the big screen and girly but delicous martinis made of pear and vodka. It was the perfect spot--the place to talk over drinks, keep up with important scores and meet the characters that will make it into the novels you'll never write.

The bartender, Latkia (name modified to protect the truth), pours this martini that's like heaven in a glass (and at $15 a drink, well it should be). But better than the drinks are the stories she tells--tales of crappy customers who don't appreciate the art of her wares, the stories of creation and inspiration that take the form of pear, of bananna (really), of chocolate martinis. They really were different from what you'll find at most bars--cleaner, all alcohol and she swears that if you don't drink before or after you leave, you will never get a hangover from her drinks. Latkia didn't care if we talked loudly or cheered when the non-Chicago team won. Latkia just wanted to make art in liquid form and share the art with her eagar "art" patrons. We were, of course, happy to oblige.

So you can't go home again, but you can always make a new one.

easter project (presented a little early)

2009-04-04T19:17:00.003-05:00

so everybody is looking forward to easter, the end of those lenten disciplines, chocolate and liquor returning to the everyday routine of life.

have i mentioned what i gave up this year? i haven't? oh. that's because i didn't. i haven't done the give something up for lent thing in awhile. i'm all about being in relationship with god and nurturing my spirituality and living into the lenten wilderness journey, but i'm just not good at the giving things up. i used to try taking things on, but now i don't even do that. it's too much like new year's resolution, too much like an attempt to make a diet "holy." so, while i am soooo looking forward to easter for a bunch of reasons, i am not looking forward to a return of some forbidden food or drink or habit to my life.

that said, i've decided to take on a new project for the season of easter, the great 50 days. my parents were (are?) great cooks. i didn't know it as a kid. i just thought our food was different. while my friends had bologna and bread for their lunches, bottled salad dressings in the fridge and potpie for dinner, i didn't. my mother would make these dream salads and pack them for me in high school, along with crudités (my high school friends elizabeth & tanya, from france, would top that with escargot, but still) and fresh pineapple. my father made dishes rich in spice and flavor (always hot!) and they, simply put, didn't look like middle america meals. i'm told they got a lot of inspiration from julia. true or not, i imagine their bible to have been one of her cookbooks. and i love to cook, even thought i'm not terribly skilled at it. so....

i'm buying myself this book for easter. and my goal is to make a dish a week. i'll photo it and post it here and tell you how delicious or awful it was. that's the plan. of course my follow through can be iffy, so, dear readers, hold me to it!! this should start in the easter season!!

but for now, hit your knees and say your prayers. holy week, the holiest week of the year, begins in 12 short hours.

On Mark, Chapter 1 (just the first 20 verses)

2009-03-31T11:55:00.003-05:00

Wild John watches
As Word becomes Flesh
As Flesh descends to water
As water parts with sky
As sky and Voice combine to cry
You are Beloved!

God's Beloved waits
As angels attend
As beasts breathe
As Satan sulks and stomps his tiny little feet
As time ticks by, forty days, forty nights
As Word made Beloved Flesh prepares to proclaim
God has come near!

Village women wonder
As wet with water and wild, he walks
As son leaves father along the water's way
As fishermen drop their nets to foolishly follow
As dancing he says with glee
Fish for people!

And as the world wakes...all eyes chase Him
He who is all things
Wild, wet, walking, wandering, waiting, wanting, whimsy, wonder
Beloved come to play!

all ready...not yet

2009-03-24T23:07:00.002-05:00

Last week I got the "all hands on deck" call, also known as the "rally the troops" call. You know, the one that says she's dying today, come hell or high water, and if you want to see her, you'd best get your booty here. So I arrived in Athens late Sunday night (really Monday morning) and made my way out to Hospice House, which is nothing short of a miracle place. And there I saw my grandmother, who is sick and dying, but not today. And not this week. Probably not this month. I mean--who knows for sure, but they're already looking at discharging her from the Hospice back to the Nursing Home (which kinda sucks just because Hospice is soooo much nicer).

Today was hard. She spent hours just screaming. I suspect it is the dementia coupled with pain. I was exhausted watching her--she must have been just plain exhausted. I went back tonight and watched Dancing with the Stars and the Real Housewives of New York City while she snored away. It was kinda nice and quiet.

In the morning I head back to Chicago. I'll get off the plane, get my car and drive to work for our Wednesday Night program and Eucharist. And my life will return to normal. And I feel so strange leaving. I had an agenda when I arrived--it was to say goodbye to my grandmother. And I have done that. But it wasn't like I pictured it would be--not some moment of her recognizing me and then sighing a last deep sigh, giving up the ghost. Instead it was full of screaming and confusion and good colouring. The woman is strong--she would squeeze my hand and she's got a grip on her that is unbelievable. She's not done yet. She's working this on her time schedule and no one knows just exactly what that schedule is.

So the limbo land begins. I've never been very good at the limbo of life. I guess I'll learn.

mrs. mcdonald and the nursery school

2009-03-05T16:16:00.007-06:00

my grandmother started a nursery school. i don't know the year. the story i've heard told is that it was started because my grandfather, ever tight with a dollar, told my grandmother "one pair of shoes per child is enough." and my grandmother was going to be damned if her children wore the same shoes to church that they had been wearing on the playground. so she started this business to buy shoes for her children. i don't know if that really was the catalyst, but somehow it cements for me the image of the relationship they had. and while it's not the relationship i'd wish for myself, it does give a pretty good picture of my grandmother--stubborn, committed, passionate and thinking first about her children.

my grandparents divorced when i was really little--maybe 4 or 5. and i never knew of a time when they shared a bedroom. her bedroom had two single beds, with matching light blue comforters, scratchy sheets and one pillow on each bed and the lamp in the middle, between the beds, and it looked like that iconic image most of imagine when we picture ward and june's bedroom.

so my memories of my grandparents, as a little kid, were much less of my grandfather, and more of my grandmother. i think it is safe to say that i was, i am, the apple of her eye. the only grandchild until i was 21, this woman adored and still does adore me. my earliest years were spent at her house, where baby-Sarah would attend Mrs. McDonald's nursery school (my years in high school were ones of reminding people who were a few years older that it was no longer appropriate to call me baby-Sarah). and when i was older, i would take such delight in being the special one at nursery school, who would always have lunch with Mrs. McDonald after nursery school was over.

i was the last "class" of Mrs. McDonald's nursery school. when i was old enough to go to kindergarten, she called it quits and went back to nursing school. the highest scoring nurse at crawford-long memorial when she was in school as a teenager, the nurse in her returned for a brief stint. i remember her practicing giving shots on oranges and it terrified me. but more than anything, i remember her, for the first time in my life, gone. she would leave athens and spend the week in atlanta for her refresher course. having grown up with her taking care of me, her house my second home, her home the common place for dinner at least twice a week--it was a dramatic shift.

eventually her nursing career ended and she sold the house and became a sorority house mother. and that was a whole new adventure. suddenly, i shared her with a house full of college girls who all dressed in plaid and ribbons. but it never mattered. i was still first in her eyes. and teacher or nurse or housemother, the core of how i saw her was the same: the woman with the bedroom with the two single beds, covered in blue, lamp in the middle; the woman who cared for me when i was sick and my parents were at work; the one whose face lit up when i walked in, even when i was a mess. the thing about my grandmother was that in her home, whether a house, or a condo, or a sorority, there was always room for me. i always had a key, i always knew the combination. and when my world began changing, when the keys and the doors of my own home became less and less available, there was, somewhere in my world, always a place where i was wanted. and she was it.

my grandmother, having lived with alzheimer's for years now, is back to living in the room with the single bed. this one is draped in white hospital sheets, white hospital blankets, the familiar nursing home hospital bed. but she still knows me. i am, after all these years, still the apple of her eye.

yesterday the doctors decided that the mass on her lung that has, for so long, been assumed to be pneumonia, was, is cancer. how one treats (or doesn't treat) cancer in an almost-90-year-old-woman-with-dementia is still up in the air. the one thing that is clear is that it, most likely, won't be long now.

she's my last grandparent left. i never knew my father's parents and my relationship with my grandfather was so very different, always from a far. so this is new ground for me. in some ways, she has been gone for such a long time and yet, with dementia, with age, comes a whole new person--lacking in memory, yet rich in adoration for the world as it is now, in this moment, which is all she has, and really all any of us has. and so begins the navigation of the new land, the different space, the road which has yet to be revealed. i'm not sure i'm ready to walk it just yet.

oprah and ted and recognizing demons

2009-02-21T21:05:00.003-06:00

I watch Oprah. Not religiously, not even regularly, but from time to time, when she pops onto my TV screen, I find myself interested. And having been a member of her audience, I feel like I know her (no not really, but it was really fun).

Anyway...a couple of weeks ago, Evangelical…maybe more correctly, former Evangelical Pastor Ted Haggard was a guest on Oprah. And he has an HBO special coming out soon. You may recall that Haggard, a few years ago, was arrested and publicly disgraced as he was caught buying drugs and soliciting a male prostitute. Fallout, understandably, followed. He was removed from the church he had pastured and built. He talked about being suicidal and asking his wife for a divorce, which she flat out refused. I listened with skeptical if interested ears.

Oprah finally got down to the details. Had he had a change of heart in his understanding of Jesus’ love and acceptance for homosexuals. Haggard and his wife danced around it for awhile—and to be honest, he never said the exact words I was hoping to hear—but he did say that he now understands as he did not before that Jesus loves and accepts all.

Oprah asked if he thought he had been possessed by a demon. And I was impressed with Haggard’s answer. He said that he very much believed in Angels and Demons and the casting out of demons. But he was clear that his homosexual inclinations were not demons—they were part of him, part of who he is. He stopped shy of saying that his homosexual longings were part of who God made him to be, but he came close.

While Haggard and I remain, I suspect, very different in our overall theologies, I was drawn to what seemed to be his new understanding of Grace and Love and Relationship with Christ. I was happy (relieved? surprised?) that Haggard didn't explain away his homosexuality to the work of a demon. The once gay condemning pastor now says that the problem was not being gay, but lying about it, about lying about who he was.

So what about demons? The post-Christmas/Epiphany season has had the Church reading Mark's Gospel, which is rich with images of demons and Jesus reluctantly casting them out. The problem, for Jesus, is that people don’t know who he is yet. He’s just a rabbi, a teacher. Probably respected, but few, if any have any thoughts about him being a Messiah. He’s just a regular man. Except to the demons. The demons see him for who he is: What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth, one demon cries out. Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

It's not the righteous, it's not the disciples, it's not the faithful who first recognize the Holy One of God--it’s the demons, it’s the ones who have the most to loose. I wonder what that means for us today.

jaws

2009-02-11T21:21:00.005-06:00

all parents make mistakes with their children. parents are, after all, human and so they're bound to be less than perfect.

this is the story of one of my mother's mistakes (sorry mom).

all my siblings are half siblings. my father has three children (i'm the middle one). i'm my mother's only child. so my sister is 8 years older than me and my brother is 13 years younger. and none of us grew up in the same household (or city).

my sister would come to visit for christmas and summer vacation. her visits were moments of such pure and complete joy for me. i looked forward to them far more than anything else i can remember. airports were part of my life from infancy...trips to the atlanta airport were full of expectation when going to pick her up and full of tears when dropping her off. after we put jessie on the plane for her trip back (yeah, it was awhile ago, because we would walk on the plane with her), we'd get in the car, me sobbing, and my father would drive us to the closest gas station, where he'd buy me a package of peanuts and a coke, give them to me, and tell me that i was eating the same thing as jessie, so even though we were far away, we were still connected.

but i digress...

my sister's arrival meant that jessie sometimes got to pick out special actives or treats. going to the varisity for my sister's beloved lemon custard ice cream was one standard. going to the movies was another. in 1975 the movie JAWS came out. i know my mom didn't take me to the first one, because i would've only been 4. so maybe it was JAWS 2. i was about 7 years old. and my mom took my sister and me to the movies. and we saw JAWS (i'm guessing 2). and it changed my life.

i developed an overwhelming fear of sharks and the unseen in water (which i love). i remember that year seeing a Carol Burnett show sketch where the shark came up through the bath tub. i was terrified of bath tubs for awhile. but more than anything else, i was scared by the idea of still water being disturbed in strange, fast, unstoppable ways by a destructive force. because i was a georgia girl who was an infrequent guest at the ocean, i transferred my fear to the grate over the deep end of the swimming pool. irrational? you bet! still with me? 100%.

tonight i went swimming in the hotel pool, a lovely 9 foot deep pool, with a waterfall attached. i swam over the grate about 4 times before my fear got the best of me and i found myself running (well, swimming as fast as this body will move) to get out of the tub. yes, i am overwhelmingly aware it's an irrational fear, but i'm still scared shitless about swimming in slow, still pools over grates.

of all the irrational fears in the world, it's not the worst. i'm glad i'm not afraid of flying or wine or coffee or chocolate (are those actual fears?). but it's mine. and it's with me and now you know.

i will always love you

2009-02-10T23:07:00.002-06:00

i just didn't know.
i didn't know that a place like this existed anywhere besides my wildest dreams.
it's like a blending of vegas (sans slots and gambling), disney (sans mouse), old school ferris wheel/carnival land mixed with a smidge of highway winery tours, a smattering of suburbia (TGIFridays, bubba gump shrimp, outback), a throw back to nostalgic hotel/hotels (the Family Inn--i didn't know they even existed anymore--check out that logo!), a free standing log ride, christmas/winter Lights on steroids, and, of course, Dolly. oh, and gift shops (yeah, some of you are going to be getting real treats!).

it's going to take all the restraint i have to attend the conference on stewardship and not go to dollywood.

mom's come up for the night. we're at the conference/retreat center that makes a shoney's inn look high class. but it's okay. and i have an old person's bathroom chair in the bathroom in case i feel like sitting down while i shower, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief, knowing i'm safe in the shower.

here's the weird thing: it's a ghost town. the season doesn't start for another month. i arrived much later than i had planned (major traffic and weather on the drive down). so at 10 PM, i was the only person on the street. and the restaurants had all closed. i'll be curious to see what it's like tomorrow. but even in its ghost town state, it's still ablaze with flashing lights--snowflakes, doves, dancing angels--and promises of personalized mugs featuring dolly and her assets, dinner shows with country music impersonators, and the hope of finding salvation along side the road.

um...intimidation...

2009-01-31T13:22:00.005-06:00

intimidation: transitive verb
to compel or deter by or as if by threats**

a few posts back i wrote about my need to write more. i'm trying. i really am. i've posted a few things and taken them down because they're too personal and they need more work. not that all i post here are finished perfect pieces--far from it. i've come to discover that this space serves largely for the great dumping ground that is my random thoughts. i love to tell stories--finding them can be a challenge--but when i do find them, it's fun to take them out and polish them up and throw them in this online journal. i used to use the counter tool all the time to see how many of you out there in cyber land were reading along with me, where you're from and what key word got you here (some of those key words, by the way, are just really frightening. psychotherapy by a highly skilled therapist, my friends, is good for those of you searching the internet with combos like "priest" and "happy ending massage."). but i don't check much, if at all any more. i just want to write. i want to find some way to harness the energy and the random sentences that run around in my head. sometimes i write them down. this is my most recent random sentence: last night i dreamed that the london bridge was falling down. i waded in the waters in a vain attempt to hold it up.

so today i'm at story studio, which is where, many moons ago, i took a fiction writing class and met three women who quickly became my good friends. today is an open writing session. for $12 i get quiet, wifi, all the coffee i can drink, twizzlers and promts on the hour to get the writing juices flowing. i came in a little late, so i've not yet heard a prompt, although i'm looking forward to it. although i started a sermon earlier this week, i think i'm going to turn it into a blog post and move in a differerent direction. if you're a regular reader (hi mom, hi papa), it'll be the post on ted haggard.

there are 3 classrooms at story studio in addition to an open space with sofas and the coffee pot and the office set up. i confess i wish i was on the sofa instead of in the classroom, although, realistically speaking, this space is probably more productive. walking in was an exercise in fear. this event started at 9, with a come-by-anytime welcome. i arrived around 1:10 and it's so crowded. i had hoped the back classroom would be a little more empty, and i did find a seat. but walking into a room full of very intense, artistic looking 20 years olds is, well, intimidating. at least i have a mac. out of the 10 computers in this room, all are macs, save 2. so at least i can appear to be a cool, deep artistic type.

the pounding of keys, the clacking sound of word moving from head to finger to computer is both distracting and at the same time comforting. the guy next to me has, hands down, the loudest typing fingers i've ever heard. boom, boom, boom. he just updated his word count on the white board: 1438. rockstar? maybe. that's just a sermon in my world. speaking of...i'd best get to the preaching part of today. wish me luck!

**www.m-w.com

Gatsby's green light

2009-01-29T02:32:00.010-06:00

Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that is was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.**

I fell in love with the Great Gatsby, reading it, like every other Sophomore at Clarke Central High School. Well, sort-of. Over Christmas break of my sophomore year I had major surgery. After a week in the hospital, Christmas break was over, but I still had weeks to go before I was ready to go to school. So my mom served as my home school teacher. At first I was so weak and in so much pain, that about all I could do was listen. My mom read to me (and to this day I love hearing books and being read to). I don't know how far she got before I picked it up and actually read it myself, but two chapters in and I was hooked.

My love affair with F. Scott Fitzgerald would last for years. And while I read other books, it really always came back to Gatsby and the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. The poetry of the book (you will be hard pressed to show me text that is more beautiful than that last page of the Great Gatsby I've printed above), the language, the rhythm all combined in my 15 year old head to create the symphony that still plays for me today. I hear echoes of those words and patterns weave their way into my sermons, often unnoticed until long after the sermon's been delivered. I long to be able to write, to use words, like Fitzgerald does.

Something about the green light, the searching for and never finding, and not realizing it's right there--it evoked something visceral in me. I used to think about Gatsby and the green light and wonder about my father. So much that he longed for seemed to be right before him, but he just kept missing it. It was so close, just right beyond his line of vision.

But now, as I read it, I read myself into it. In the strange season in which I find myself--the season of longing--I think that's what I'll call it--I read these words with new eyes. I don't fully understand it, this season. I think that's okay. [H]is dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. My hopes, human hopes and dreams sometimes seem so out of grasp. Not rooted in the material, but crying out for that which is unnameable, that which is beyond us, the longing continues to call to us, or at least, to me. And paired with the longing, if we are lucky, is that other piece that Fitzgerald names, that we... for a transitory enchanted moment [hold our] breath...compelled into an aesthetic contemplation [that can be] neither understood nor desired, face to face...with something commensurate with [our] capacity for wonder. And therin lies my hope. That my, that our capacity for wonder will lead us to and eventually beyond the siren's green light.

**The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Page 182 of the 1988 Hudson River Edition. If that's not your edition, just read the last 4 paragraphs of the book.

update

2009-01-21T21:17:00.003-06:00

thanks to all for your concerns and thoughts around my apartment mess. word on the street is that the plumber is done and the tile and drywall guy will finish up tomorrow. good news, meaning i don't have to move. i'll confess i haven't been in it since sunday, so i'm not sure what to expect.

i could kvetch about the management, but i'll hold off for now. i won't believe it's done and ready to go until i see it with my own eyes, but i'm hopeful that life may be a little less wet this week!

are you kidding me??

2009-01-17T20:34:00.004-06:00

i am so beyond angry right now.

my apartment is managed by a company, S&M property management. the name should've been my first clue of the hell i was entering into.

i called yesterday. pipes frozen. i called during business hours, no one answered, so i left a message. no one ever called back.

paged the emergency number today, beginning at 10:00 AM. no one ever called back.
upped my paging to every 10 minutes once the pipes burst and the flooding became about ankle deep. no one ever called back.

finally, now that the kitties and i have made our way to shelter, i page one last time. this time he answers--the pager was on vibrate on the kitchen counter and he couldn't hear it.

describing the damage as a "minor catastrophe," he tells me i may have to move, but that he doesn't have a free unit. asking where i should stay, as i have no working bathroom, he tells me to rent a hotel room. i ask if they'll pay--maybe, maybe not. do i have renters insurance?
thanks be to god, i do, but it strikes me that this isn't MY problem--it's theirs.

i hate this apartment. it stinks from water damage in ages past. and now i'm furious with the rental company and their crappy service.

moreover, i hate the idea, i'm terrified of the idea that i might have to move again. and i still have a sermon to write...

jesus loves me--here's proof!

2009-01-15T13:10:00.001-06:00

signs of hope--both my grandmothers have/had dementia in some form. here's hope for me and a get out of jail free card

on being like martha

2009-01-12T17:17:00.003-06:00

i've been so remiss with this blog of late. i sit down and i WANT to write but i just don't make time for it, or i make the time, only to find myself distracted by so many other things...martha, martha you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.

yeah, if jesus said that to me today, it think i might just stick my tongue out at him and tell him that if he's so mellow, that HE can go fix the boiler! and then he would. and i'd feel bad. so maybe that's not such a good idea.

i have been so distracted by things of late--things like boilers (at some point i'll post on the boiler going all berserk on CHRISTMAS EVE, when it was below zero outside) and money (i had a come to jesus meeting with myself and finally got honest about my debt this week. it's not pretty, but it's better when taking an honest look, i guess).

there's also just weirdness in the work i do. dealing with people's emotions, their anger and anxiety, the way it gets channeled, the way it is expressed--sometimes it feels like it becomes, in some small way, part of me. by which i mean, that, because i have work and growing up still to do, i take on some of this. and i'm trying to learn what's mine and what's not--what's my responsibility and what's not. and then there's just the whole learning to deal with the human condition and all its complexities. i have miles to go before i sleep.

martha, martha you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.

in my prayer life, i keep asking what it is i'm supposed to be doing, what it is i'm missing. the response is always the same--read your bible. write. lately, i do neither. so...here's my stab at listening in the new year.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T12:59:00.003-06:00

happy 2009! i'm in DC with friends, still in my PJs, which makes me very happy. and i cooked a good southern girl new year's day feast. the menu includes: ham (not necessary, but i couldn't find a ham hock last night for flavor and our hosts had a ham needing to be baked, and so...), sweet potatoes, braised cabbage and apples (basically butter, with a bit of cabbage and apples thrown in for good measure), black eyed peas, attempted in the hopping john style, and, of course, collard greens. my mom, rockstar that she is, found the Grit recipe and i jotted it down on the phone. they are so good and so easy that my new year's resolution (if i made them) might just be to make them twice a month.

if you want to make some Grit style collards, here's my adapted recipe. please note that, with the exception of baking, i rarely measure. i eyeball and taste, so if you use this, please do the same:**

2-3 pounds of collard greens, soaked and washed at least 3 times, de-stemmed and torn or cut into bite size pieces
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup cider vinegar
pinch of baking soda
1 tbsp hot sauce
salt & pepper
a couple tablespoons of olive oil

put greens in a pot. cover with water plus 3 cups additional water
add stuff.
boil for 45 minutes to an hour and a half--try them here and there until they're done to your liking. happy new year!!

**the grit recipe includes the grit yeast gravy, which i didn't make and since that was left out, i majorly upped the cider vinegar.

hidden treasures

2008-12-20T11:20:00.003-06:00

hidden, discarded and utterly tucked away in the christmas shelves of target, there it was. the perfect tree topper. we had compromised and put my star on top of the tree and the russian spy's garland (it's still not up, but will be after the tree trimming party tomorrow). and as we gazed upon the tree--shoes hanging off of it (to weight the branches so the drop more fully), mixed sets of lights, we noticed it. well, more precisely, the russian spy noticed it. the star tree topper had a pentagram hidden in it. i know, i know...it's a symbol that has many meanings, the divine feminine, among them. but, well...it's like seeing the arrow hidden in the FedEx logo...once you see it you can't NOT see it. so it was feeling like the pentagram tree topper, which, frankly, just isn't me.

so amid the errands we ran yesterday, we found ourselves in target. and there it was. it's a lighted tree topper, which i've never had before. kinda tacky, i know, but the tree is tacky, in a very good way. and most of all, it's a bethlehem star. i looked all over bethlehem for a bethlehem star tree topper, with no sucess. i did find a candle holder, but i've wanted one since then. at the grotto of the nativity a spot marks the place where jesus was born and when you enter you go and touch it. surrounding it is the star like pattern.

so while the tree topper doesn't look exactly like that, it reminds me more of this pattern. moreover, it reminds me of bethlehem. and that, as you know by now, makes me very happy.

procrastinate

2008-12-13T18:35:00.004-06:00

okay. so maybe this is just more procrastinating, but i think i'm having an iareawriter moment. she always is good at spotting these scenes.

so, here i sit at caribou coffee, where, much to my delight, they have free wifi and, if you order a large coffee, housed in a small mug, they'll refill it for free until you leave.

i'm working on my sermon. it's dragging. but something new has come in. you have to remember that i'm in boystown, so interesting people come in all the time, but i think this is just a plain girl/woman. she's dressed, head to to in black (that's not unusual, so am i). her hair is even dyed to match. but she's got on super cheap looking, hooker red shoes. and a matching, cheap hooker red bag to match. she's not a hooker. she's just a little out of place. she sits, in front of the fireplace, small coffee in hand, and puts on her makeup. black liquid eyeliner from a large ink-like jar, applied with a long, painful stick pretending to be an eyeliner brush. and then she pulls out the perfume and coats herself in it. the strange stench fills the coffee shop, the wrong aroma for this place. and there's the strange intimacy of watching a bathroom routine, the secret applications of potions and polish, done here in the midst of the communal coffee shop living room.

she's all done now. black nails, black clothes, black makeup, save the hooker red lipstick. sort of a young, goth liza. harsh looking, yet looking overwhelmingly lost, waiting for someone who has yet to arrive. the caroller sings on, wishing me a merry christmas--the muzac of the season, all too familiar now. she tries, in vain, to reach him/her/them on the phone. she tries to blend, to belong and to not look anxious. it doesn't work. and so she waits, hooker red highlighting the rainy, dark night.

instead of writing a sermon...

2008-12-13T17:08:00.002-06:00

There’s a commercial that runs this time of year. I’ve noticed it for at least three years now. In it, a beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde haired woman in her mid to late 20s sits on a train, moving through the snow covered territory, which reminds me of the Hudson Valley in New York state. As the train pulls into the station, her eyes light up and her brilliant white teeth break beam through her perfectly polished lips as her face erupts in a grand smile. As the train comes to a stop, cherub like children run along side the train, the cause, no doubt, of her smile, waving to her and running, until, the scene culminates with them running into her arms as Christmas music plays in the background and we are reminded of the power that teeth whitening strips can have on our holiday.

The commercial used to make me cry. It evokes, in me, such longing, and such a reminder of those things unfulfilled in my life. The woman, as presented in this 30 second film, seems to have everything: the family, the idyllic back drop for the season, the teeth. I can remember when I first moved to Chicago from New York, from knowing a whole community of people to knowing almost no one, I would watch this commercial and wonder who I had failed so miserably—failed to create this life that was being projected as what I was supposed to want, what I was supposed to have. Of course, it wasn’t just that commercial. There were and are others as well—reminders of what I don’t have—the big house, the perfectly decorated living room, the 2.5 children, the family that never fights—all the things I see, all the ways I come up short.

And now? Now life is different...people I love are all around me. Chicago feels, if not like home, at least like a good resting place. And yet I see that commercial and while I don't cry, I find myself still feeling like I've come up short, like I've not done what is supposed to be done.

The challenge of living in Advent--the challenge of living the Christian faith--is living with both a foot in both worlds--the world of media, of life, of this world and the world that is that of the Christian life--the world that is and yet is not yet, looking for the coming, looking for the things, the places where the veil grows thin and the world is transformed without the power of Crest white strips.

A Song on the End of the World

2008-12-11T13:52:00.001-06:00

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it
should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under
their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the end of the lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
A voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed,
And those who expected signs of archangels'
trumpets
Do not believe it is happening now,
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be
a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.

--Warsaw, 1944
Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Anthony Milosz

Friday Five

2008-12-05T09:43:00.006-06:00

It's been awhile since I've done the Friday Five. Since I'm actually taking my day off work today, I thought it might be a good time to catch up on blogging and the Friday Five.

From Rev Gal Blog Pals:

"Imagine a complex, multi-cultural society that annually holds an elaborate winter festival, one that lasts not simply a few days, but several weeks. This great festival celebrates the birth of the Lord and Saviour of the world, the prince of peace, a man who is divine. People mark the festival with great abundance- feasting, drinking and gift giving....." (Richard Horsley-The Liberation of Christmas)

The passage goes on, recounting the decorations that are hung, and the songs and dances that accompany the festival, how the economy booms and philanthropic acts abound....

But this is not Christmas- this is a Roman festival in celebration of the Emperor....This is the world that Jesus was born into! The world where the early Christians would ask "Who is your Saviour the Emperor or Christ?"

And yet our shops and stores and often our lives are caught up in a world that looks very much like the one of ancient Rome, where we worship at the shrine of consumerism....

Advent on the other hand calls us into the darkness, a time of quiet preparation, a time of waiting, and re-discovering the wonder of the knowledge that God is with us. Advent's call is to simplicity and not abundance, a time when we wait for glorious light of God to come again...

Christ is with us at this time of advent, in the darkness, and Christ is coming with his light- not the light of the shopping centre, but the light of love and truth and beauty.

What do you long for this advent? What are your hopes and dreams for the future? What is your prayer today?

In the vein of simplicity I ask you to list five advent longings....

Longings...

1. I long to be free to the things that trap me--debt, weight, stuff. I want to be lighter, to be more free to do things, to be still, to not worry (and, I'm happy to report that I'm actively working on all these things).

2. I long for a break in the frenzy. Things get busy. People get anxious. I get anxious. I get busy. People act one way. I act another. And all this can drive me a little nuts. I think the challenge is to remember that wackyness will ensue. Wackyness will always be part of my life--it always has been, it's part of my genetic make-up. What I want is to remember that it's okay when things get a little wonky and that it's all part of the whole being human piece. I long for is being able to be centered and calm in the midst of the wackyness of the world, of my world.

3. I long for people to recognize that the Twilight series has some seriously problematic themes and messages to young women. Buffy, however, rocks and is wicked empowering. (this third longing is really just a shout out to I are a writer, who, gratefully, gets this).

4. I long for a child.

5. I long for space: space to write, space to pray, space to be still and know that God is God.

that's the very rev, thank you very much

2008-12-05T09:00:00.002-06:00

so a couple of weeks ago i was named a dean by the bishop. all very fancy. means i'm now the VERY rev. caffeinated priest. AND, for extra liturgical goodness, my cassock gets to be decked out in red piping. the deans meet with the bishop four times a year and act as a sort of liaison between the bishop and the area they serve. i'm excited. i love our bishop and getting to work a bit more closely with him is a treat. and i like the other deans. funny people. and they served us lunch from potbelly, so what more could you ask for?

but here's the story that goes with WHY i'm a dean....

last year, one of the longest members of the congregation died. she was one of, if not, the church martiarch. and so, having been there for all of 5 months, i called the former rector and invited him to come and preside over the funeral. and he did. it was a cold day and the snow was falling. as we prepared to go to the cemetery, i asked him what he wore over his cassock. and he told me that he simply wore the cassock. "my dear," he said, " a good wool cassock will keep you warm even in this weather!" "but," i protested, "my cassock IS wool." "my dear," he replied, "yours is not the true, pure wool cassock. it won't keep you warm." i was distraught. my $300 custom made almy cassock was wool. but he was right. it is lightweight and not at all warm. a good weight wool one would be...well...a lot more.

we went to the cemetery and buried this women, my knees literally knocking. he tried to get me to wear a coat, but i refused, wanting to at least give this woman the good anglo-catholic looking send off she would've wanted. and it was, i must say, a gorgeous tableu. a young and a not-so-young cleric, dressed in black, white surplice overlying, and stole rounding the outfit out, standing as snow covers the granite of the surronding tombstones. it was the movie picture of a what a funeral looks like.

but i was freezing. and so the former rector said "my dear" (yeah, he begins a lot of sentences with "my dear."), "when you become dean, i shall buy you a new cassock, a proper cassock, with red piping" (which indicates that one is a dean). i laughed and said "then i'm going to call rev. dean and ask her to resign so i can run for dean!" my knees were still knocking.

jokingly, i tell this story to the dean. her eyes light up. sparkle a bit, even. and, 11 months later, the phone call comes. i've been asked to be dean. i accept, in a sarah palin fashion of not really knowing what a dean does. thankfully, yesterday at the meeting, i got an actual job description, which has me pretty excited about the work that's coming.

and the cassock...well, i've been measured. and it's being handmade in england. pictures when it arrives (in about 9 months...).

FYI mom & papa

2008-11-30T13:51:00.001-06:00

a new sermon is up. you can link to it here. y'all even get a shout out...

trivia night, part 2

2008-11-19T17:50:00.002-06:00

just an update to say...we totally won!! it was awesome!! we also won the "free round of shots" round, which meant, all total, we won 2 rounds of shots, a round of drinks and a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant. not bad for a night's work.

and the bonus...one of white sox was there. i should know his name, but can't remember. anyway. he was an ass. and mean to my friend. and on the losing team.

trivia night

2008-11-18T17:19:00.001-06:00

is tonight. my group's name is Bass' Fan Club.
please feel free, in the comment section, to submit any useless trivia tidbits.
if i win, i'll share the prize (a free shot of gin) with you!

st julian

2008-11-16T17:08:00.003-06:00

the assistant bishop came to the church today and 5 people were confirmed, 3 were received and 1 was baptized. it was so joyful to welcome so many people into the church! a grand coffee hour followed and then the bishop and two members of the vestry and i went out to brunch. yet throughout the day, i found myself wondering (and many people asking) "where is st. julian?" (the blog name given as st. julian is one of the patron saints of hospitality).

st. julian, it turns out, was in the hospital. and everything's okay, but he had taken himself, after having stomach pains, to be checked out. they kept him overnight and were going to release him. but he jumped the gun and just left--walked out and left everything (including his wallet) at the hospital. when i got the call, st. julian had started walking back to the hospital to get his things. i drove to the hospital and met him as he was checking out and told him i'd drive him home. the snow is starting to fall and it's cold out--feels like, if it's not by now, below freezing.

as we walked through the parking lot, up a flight of stairs, the quarters in his pocket fell out, singing onto the floor, scattered. i watched as he bent over to pick them up, taking such a long time to do what would seem a simple task. i, ahead of him on the stairs, wondering when to help, and when to let things be. there's a verse in the gospel of john and i hear it in my head more and more: Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (john 21:18). i watch st. julian (and other saints) struggle with most basic of things--remembering the day of the week, walking from one place to another, succumbing to the realities of debilitating disease--and i wonder what they were like just a few years ago, before the decline, before age took the toll it always seems to take. more and more i feel like the one fastening the belt and leading through coridors and hallways, hospitals and nursing homes, watching, waiting as the body takes our saints places that they do not wish to go.

voices inside my head

2008-11-13T13:40:00.008-06:00

i signed up for facebook about a year and a half ago. actually, i didn't sign up for it, mary signed me up. mary, a seminarian, who, like me at the time, found herself temporarily homeless, living on the kindness of a college chaplain. the chaplain, a friend of mine, has an extra room in her house and she let me and the wonder kitties come and stay for a month when i was between jobs and was done with my old lease and not wanting to resign for that part of town.

anyway...there i was, a brent house refugee, as were mary and her sister. it was actually a really fun time. we made a lot of brownies, played a lot of weird-ass, make-yourself-an-avatar video games, watched REALLY BADDDD reality TV (i mean, bridezillas is bad even by my standards). it was a lot like being back in college--no job (no studying either!), living with other women, figuring things out.

one night mary says to me "what's your email address?" and i reel it off without thinking much of it. and lo and behold i am now on facebook. mary took the time to set up my interests, which she had figured out after 2 weeks in the same house with me and we were off and running.

here's the thing that's been interesting of late: i've connected with a lot of agnes scott college people. and it's been really quite amazing. because as i've written here before--i don't have the fondest memories of good ol ASC. in retrospect, much of that has to do with my own growing up, my own learning who i was/am and growing into my own skin. so i have steered clear of that part of my life for a long time. and suddenly, through the world of facebook, it is reopening to me.

perhaps the most delightful has been my roommate from my freshman year, jennifer. to see the things that have changed and the things that have stayed the same (geez louise, she still lists The Lost Boys on her list of movies to see for Halloween--she must have played the soundtrack to that movie 240 million times our freshman year!), in as far as one can tell via cyber space, is kind of wild. my memories--skewed and scattered as they are--still link back to her, our understanding of who we were, our growing understanding of who we are.

i remember, in the salmon pink walls of 214 walters hall, we lived without matching bedspreads. the dean had linked us because (i think) we both indicated we wanted someone who cared about religion--i suspect i checked that my christian faith was important to me. no doubt jennifer did the same. my episcopal and her more pentecostal backgrounds were undoubtedly different, yet we adjusted well. of course despite my request, i never, save one time, went to church the entire four years i was there, which makes the whole religion-matters-to-me-check-here box kind of funny in retrospect.

jennifer would keep this candy her grandmother had sent--wrapped in tinfoil, made of potato and sugar--the strangest flavor, yet profoundly kind, jennifer would share it. and while i appreciated the gesture then, i appreciate it even more now--for that candy was home, it was grandmother's hands, it was love that was tangible and mailable all at once.

and so i read these posts--on my facebook wall, messages sent to my facebook inbox--and i can hear the voices of these women--back when we were just barely more than girls--i can hear them in my head. i think what's amazing and exciting for me is how much i'm enjoying reconnecting, how much i like them, how i am, in some small way, getting a "do-over" for the time away, the times of living in fear and anxiety. and how the common thread of a few years in a small liberal arts space has shaped and formed us whether we wanted it to or not.

home home home!!

2008-11-11T17:21:00.003-06:00

i'm going home for thanksgiving!!
it's the one holiday that i feel i can legitimately leave work for. i'm so excited. with the exception of a 12 hour layover during travel this summer, this will be the first time i've been to home since i started working at my current parish in august 07. it's not a super long trip--tuesday-friday. but i'm happy to get to see the family and maybe iareawriter (are you around?)!
yippee!!!

oh--and as a PS--the round trip ticket? $138. how unbeliveable is that??

wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near and the world is about to turn

2008-11-05T11:49:00.006-06:00

what is there to say today that hasn't already been said?

i was, for the record, not in grant park. i wanted to be, but was wait listed. instead, i watched the election returns with friends and sent text messages back and forth between friends and family. i spent the evening with 9 voters and one little girl, who will turn one year old in 18 days, sitting around the room, eating chili, drinking margaritas and watching the world change before our eyes. we couldn't hear the commentators over sadie's cooing and giggling. as i watched this new life negotiate steps and yoga poses (girl's got downward facing dog down to a t!), i was amazed at how quickly and how slowly the world moves.

i grew up in georgia, to progressive parents living in the heart of the bible belt. and about once a month, my grandmother would take me as her co-pilot to madison georgia to visit her aunt,my great, great aunt ollie. one day, grandma pulled the car over, off the road and we got out and stepped onto a field of cotton. my grandmother let me touch the white,non-processed, still growing plant and cut a few stems for me to take home. "this is what they grew on the callaway plantation" she told me. the callaway plantation, which her grandparents had lived and worked and owned. later, as an adult, i would visit the plantation of my heritage and touch the cotton that still grows there for display and wonder what it means to be descended from a slave owner.

so sitting with sadie and her cooing and her yoga poses, thinking of my grandmother, who's dementia is so far progressed that she struggles to remember her name, feeling the memory of cotton running through my fingertips, etched in the bloodlines that made me who i am, i was, i am without words. the shortness of life, the amount that can change within a life span--the beauty and the mystery of that are overwhelming. and so i sat and watched as this country, which only 175 years ago allowed one human being to own another, which only 88 years ago gave women the right to vote, which 40 years ago was still in the midst of a movement over ones civil rights based on the colour of your skin--this country made a profound and transformative decision.

he is not the messiah. let us make no mistake on that. and the world still holds hatred and discrimination. but something happened yesterday. something profound shifted. and so the world begins to turn.

if you don't know this hymn (for you good episcopalians, the tune is kingsfold, which we use to sing #480--when jesus left his father's throne, where you get that great line: should we forget our saviour's praise, the stones themselves would sing), it's worth a read:

My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great,
And my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed your sight on the servant's plight, and my weakness you did not spurn,
So from east to west shall my name be blest. Could the world be about to turn?

Refrain:
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.

Though I am small, my God, my all, you work great things in me.
And your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame, and to those who would for you yearn.
You will show your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.

Refrain

From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears ev'ry tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn;
There are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.

Refrain

Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast:
God's mercy must deliver us from the conqueror's crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound,
'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.

"Canticle of the Turning" -- Lyrics by Rory Cooney (based on the Magnificat, Luke 1:39-56), Music: Kingsfold, English melody; adapt. & harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

cheap eats

2008-10-30T19:33:00.002-05:00

the timing of my downsizing of my apartment was somewhat random. i was living beyond my means and knew i needed to move to something smaller and more affordable. the timing of my move just happened to conincide with the economy falling apart. so when i moved, i decided to begin working actively to save a bit more $$ on groceries and expenses. and i've done okay with it.

but here's my latest discovery, thanks to my friend AJS: restaurant.com. they sell $25 gift certificates for $10, which is okay. nothing to go screaming from the rafters for because the gift certificates often come with restrictions/requirements. BUT if you sign up for their newsletter, every couple of weeks they sell the gift certificates for $2. and that is a great savings. we used one the other night. three of us were out. we ordered 2 rounds of drinks and dinner for 3 and the total was like $8 each.

so there's your cheapskate tip of the week. it's not perfect, but it's a good discount.

bitch-nice

2008-10-28T21:36:00.005-05:00

my friend lulu, over drinks the other night, said of herself:
"i'm nice. but i'm bitch-nice."
and she is. you don't want to piss of lulu. she's formidable. and charming. and nice. all at once. bitch-nice.

so today lulu and i were, with several other friends and peers, in a meeting. for the record, it was not a meeting that is associated with my church or my diocese. it was the association meeting for an association (that is in no way part of the episcopal church) of which i am a part. in this meeting, the chair (who i don't hang with or know outside of our quarterly meetings) proposes that we create, in two weeks, a huge event. it's a long, convoluted story, but the long and the short of it is that several of us, me being the most vocal, thought this event on such short notice, was a bad idea. the chair continued to say things like "i don't care if we do it or not--it's up to you." of course, every time that the group moved towards not doing it, we were told all the reasons why "it would be in our best interest" to do said project. there was a veiled threat in the midst of it all. the vague promise of threat does not sit well with me.

every time i spoke out about the problems with this event, all i could think was "bitch-nice," with the emphasis on the bitch! it's funny to be the vocal one in the midst of folks who more or less agree with you, but just aren't speaking up. Finally, 3 people signed on to do the event, although, in the end, the hidden agenda became clear and then 2 of the 3 were angry about that. but...it's over with--at least on my end. i headed down to the court house to advocate for fair, healthy and affordable housing for all people in my neighborhood. happily, this time, i was far from alone. this time i was surrounded by my bitch-nice sisters.

emerging

2008-10-22T23:43:00.003-05:00

i went away this weekend to clergy conference. our keynote speaker was phyllis tickle, whose thick southern accent made me a little homesick, and whose incredibly exciting work on the great emergence has me thinking. tickle did a lot to explain how the past 100+ years have really given sola scriputra (by scripture alone) a beating and a run for its money. much of the protestant church, has for so long clung to the notion of the infallibility of scripture--that it is, word for word, literally from god. forget translations, forget the original greek, forget that most of it was passed down--stories thru family lines and gatherings--we understand god and salvation through the lens of sola scriputra....and then comes...

slavery...and bam! a hit to sola scriputra. and then comes

evolution...and bam! a hit to sola scriptura. and then comes

women voting, working, being educated... and then comes

the birth control pill...and then comes stonewall...and slowly the church doesn't know where it's authority is coming from. no wonder the religious right wants sarah palin to win--who cares if she's under qualified. she's anti-intellectual. she's sola scriptura. she'll let people cling to the jesus, the pauline theology, of literalism. in short, she keeps that jesus (the jesus often used as a weapon) safe.

i've never understood the authority of the church to be exclusively from the literal reading of scripture. someone recently said to me "the bible is far too important to be taken literally." and i couldn't agree more. yet i recognize that for so many this literal understanding of the bible has been the only way. and so suddenly the world around is punching holes in everything that has been long clung to for authority. it must be frightening.

over lunch, phyllis tickle was speaking of one of a desert mystic (who's name i'm blanking on and wish i could find!) who, many, many moons ago, said that there would be 2000 years of the reign of the Father (think 2000 before JC), 2000 years of the reign of the Son (that would be 0-2000--think Jesus, da man) and 2000 years reign of the Spirit. The rise of the Pentecostal movement fits in nicely with that teaching. Moreover, it fits in well with where we are as a church, I think. Mystics can be nuttier than squirrel poo, but they can also be, well...mystics. time will tell...

fall soup

2008-10-17T18:15:00.013-05:00

i've been feeling off kilter for a while. some of it has to do with my schedule. with the exception of the 3 days i took of to move (and really, do those count as days off?), i haven't had a day off in several weeks. and i haven't been grocery shopping. and until yesterday my kitchen wasn't really set up. so i've felt off kilter. there's just so many lean cuisine's and trips to the diner you can make before you start to feel off.

so today, as it feels really chilly out, seemed like a good day to get cooking soup. the russian spy had fresh pie pumpkins that needed cooking. and last week, one of my fabulous parishioners, levi, shared a recipe for pumpkin apple bisque. so i've made it. and it's really good. i've modified his recipe only a little (i used fresh pumpkin and fat free half and half to his canned and heavy cream and or whole milk). if you're looking for a delicious and yummy soup that makes your house smell like fall, try this one.

Pumpkin Apple Bisque

1 small to medium pumpkin (directions for pumpkin prep below)
1 32 oz carton of chicken or veg stock
1 qt fat free half and half
2 or 3 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1 medium-sized yellow onions, peeled and chopped
1 large sweet onion
10 oz frozen corn, thawed
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
Sea salt
Pepper
Dried or fresh rosemary
Dried or fresh thyme
Dried or fresh sage (rubbed)

1. In a large skillet, melt the butter and add the chopped onions, chopped apples, some sea salt, some pepper, rosemary, thyme, and lots of sage and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Cook on medium heat for 5-7 minutes until tender

2. Add corn and continue cooking at the medium high heat until the corn is rich and golden-buttery looking.

3. In a food processor or blender, pour in 1/2 of the stock, add the skillet mixture, and blend to a pulp.

4. Pour into a big soup pan and turn on low heat.

5. Put remaining 1/2 of stock into the blender with the pumpkin pulp, and blend until somewhat smooth. Pour that into soup pot and stir.

6. Cook on low, low heat for 45 minutes covered, stirring occasionally. Add more brown sugar, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and sage as makes you happy.

7. Uncover for the last 15 minutes (I have no real reason to encourage you to do this except to release the phenomenal smell more fully into your house).

8. Add half and half (shake it really, really well before pouring) as you turn off the heat. It should be the last thing you do, lest it curdle.

a couple of day after edits:

First: the flavor is soooooo good on the 2nd day. It's worth the wait.

Second: some edits for your consideration. I love corn, but thought that the corn was chewy. I used frozen (that had been thawed). I might try fresh next time. Or leave it out.

The biggest problem for me with the soup is the "twigs" of rosemary left in the soup. Perhaps putting them in cheese cloth would help.

Never cooked with real pumpkin before? It's super easy.
Be aware that you need to use a pie pumpkin, not a jack-o-lantern pumpkin.
Cut the pumpkin in half. Scoop out all the stringy stuff and seeds (which you can set aside to toast, if you like). Put about an inch of water and a bit of salt in a large, oven safe pan (I like pyrex). Place pumpkins, meat side down, in the water. Cook on 400ish for at least an hour. I put mine in for an hour and a half, turned off the oven and left them in overnight. Super easy to peel the pulp out in the morning.

lucy finds a window

2008-10-13T21:52:00.004-05:00

it's been forever since i've posted anything--sorry about that. it's been a crazy couple of weeks. i moved on october 1st. it's been a transition! i've moved to a much, much smaller place (that charges much, much less rent). it is, hands down, the smallest apartment i've ever had. so 3/4ths of my stuff is in storage. and i'm learning the much needed art of de-pack-ratting.

i can't decide if i like this apartment or not. what irks me about it is the smell. it's got that old grandpa stale smell in one of the closets. vinegar, bleach, damp-rid...you name it, i've tried it. my latest is aunt lynn's suggestion of a plain old bag of charcoal to absorb the odor. we'll see. they're going to paint soon, so that may help as well.

the other weird thing--and it's really only weird in the sense that it's new too me--is that i live on a floor full of people. it's kind of like walking down a hotel floor full of doors. i've never lived in an apartment building with more than 6 people in it, so this is weird. and it's kinda creepy. i walked out for church the other day at 7:15 on sunday morning and could hear my neighbor snoring. so, you know, thin walls and doors.

but the good stuff...it's cute. i need to put things in their place and paint and get pictures on the wall, but it's really cute. very vintage, very charming. yeah, the sinks a bitch to do dishes in, but it's got great big cabinets and storage. and i have a big stainless steel table that goes in what would be the dining room--an extension of the kitchen--so i have some decent counter space, room for my coffee maker and my kitchen-aid mixer.

and the best of all is the window. pretty much floor to ceiling windows, which makes for very happy kitties. my lucy has just discovered a way to dive from the floor to the table to the kitchen window and, clearly, she's found her niche. all this makes me happy.

plus i'm really close the the church, which means i can easily walk to and from. and i live, now more than ever, fully in the city. it's a little bit like being back in NYC--not the same, but a little bit closer. i walk home past outside (for now) patio restaurants and bars, ice cream shops open until 11:00 pm, coffee shops, grocery stores and people. lots of people.

so it's not perfect, but it's good. for now. for awhile. which is good, because i don't fancy packing up my stuff again anytime soon!

on life in lakeview, being hungry, jesus and the MDGs

2008-09-25T13:51:00.005-05:00

i don't normally invite people in when i'm alone in the church. and i struggle with it because when i ask myself WWJD (what would jesus do) the answer is almost always--answer the door. but i'm not jesus. and i sometimes just don't feel safe. and the sad piece is that my resources are limited. so usually i refer people to the lakeview pantry, which is where i sent a lot of the money given to my discretionary fund.

so when the doorbell rang, i went to it expecting to send him away. but something caught my attention. and there was another person in the building, at least for a few more minutes.
"i'm hungry and i need to pray" he said. and i remembered that we had food waiting to be picked up by the lakeview pantry that i could give him. so i opened the door and invited him in.

we went to get some food--dry milk, peanut butter, instant mashed potatoes, canned beans--all the standards you think of when you think food pantry. he was so grateful--this cast off food, this stuff to which i snub my nose--he was so grateful. he kept thanking jesus for the blessing. and so i walked with him back to the door. but he stopped me. "can we pray?" he asked. how could i forget the most basic and the most important of his requests? "of course," i said and i led him to our chapel.

he gasped as he walked in. "it's so beautiful." i asked him what he wanted to pray for. he wanted to pray for his wife, who is in great pain. we sat and we prayed. i prayed some stuff out of the book of common prayer. i tried to lead us in the lord's prayer, figuring everyone knows that one, but he was silent. i prayed a few more prayers. as i got up he asked "can i stay here a little longer?" "of course," i said.

i went back into my office and looked up a few resources i thought would help him. i wrote them on orange post-it notes and went back into the chapel. i heard him, as he prayed, talking to jesus:
"lord, i know you say to take your yoke because it's easy. and i'm trying lord. but my burden is not easy. and i don't know how to bear it anymore, lord. please, take my burden."

i left him to pray. and pray he did. for a good 45 minutes. out loud. to god. lamenting and beseeching all the way. and then he was done. and he took the bag of food, the orange post it notes and gave me a hug, thanking me for all my help. and he went on his way.

today is the mid-way, the half way point of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) goal--to meet the MDGs by 2015. the goals are to end poverty and hunger, achieve universal education, gender equality, reduce child mortality and improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, ensure environmental stability and to develop a global partnership for development. a tall order, but one that is achievable. governments are asked to pledge (and follow through with the pledge!) 7/10ths of 1 percent of the GNP to the MDGs. with that small amount, the MDGs could be met. with that small amount, we could truly live into our baptismal promises to respect the dignity of every human being.

today i will pray and fast and write my elected officials and ask them to help meet this goal. and i'll do it because i pledged to do it. but i'll mainly do it because of that man who came to my door. in hopes that my prayer will rise with his. that his yoke and burden will lighten. today i do this because of that man who came to my door. the man who reminded me of all that i have. the man who reminded me of the Good News that Jesus came to proclaim and that we are all called to share.

tax collectors and prostitutes

2008-09-23T21:10:00.004-05:00

i'm working on my sermon for sunday. the text is from matthew's gospel, in which jesus is questioned by the chief priests and asked about his authority. i admit i hear jesus saying, in cartman from south park's voice, "do not question my au-thor-it-i!" of course that's not what jesus says. rather he asks them to engage with him, to be in conversation, to discuss with him their concerns. they won't do it. they are afraid of the crowds. they are afraid of him, i think. and jesus basically says: i won't play. i won't play into a trap. more over, i won't give you a sound bite. if you want to talk about my authority, you must be in relationship with me.

of course, jesus likes to talk, so he goes on to tell a parable:

there are 2 brothers. papa comes and asks them to go to work in the vineyard. the first son (the slacker) tells his father no but then changes his mind and goes anyway. the second (the kiss up!) say "sure! i'll go!" and then fails to go. jesus asks: which son has done the father's will and they all answer that the first son has. then jesus gives the line: truly i tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of god ahead of you.

what does it mean for the prostitutes and tax collectors to go ahead into the kingdom? for those of us with plenty, for those of us who have, at what cost are we willing to ignore the good news? because the good news is that all are called to be in the kingdom. all. the poor, the down trodden, the rich and beautiful, the ugly and poor, the straight, the gay and all those in between, the prostitutes and tax collectors and the priests and those whose piety has never been called into question. all are offered a place in the kingdom. and the most outcast, the most despised, the ones who are seen as the most sinful, the most repulsive--these are the ones being offered a place first.

i think the truth, at least for me, if i'm honest, is that i imagine a kingdom filled with people kinda like me. i mean i know they'll be other folks welcomed too, but my scope of understanding, my ability to see, to comprehend is, frankly, limited. and so i can only imagine so much of a kingdom. but jesus calls us to recognize that which those who heard john the baptist saw: the call to true repentance, the call to prepare the way for jesus. and the prostitutes and tax collectors lead the way.

emailing with mom

2008-09-21T17:02:00.006-05:00

so my mom sent me a forwarded email today and asked my opinion as she was feeling mixed. the email, being forwarded around, suggests making a donation to planned parenthood in sarah palin's name and then sending them her address (the campaign address) so that she can get a sense of how much has been given in her name.

okay. funny. really funny. i giggled. but it also bugged me. mom and i emailed back and forth and finally i came to the reason it bugs me. which is what follows:

a few months ago, i went to the preaching conference in minneapolis, one of the speakers reminded us that what happens in this election is not important. what is important is truly transforming the world. what is important is what happens at our local level--that we continue to feed the poor, to seek out injustice and put an end to it, that we continue to be mindful of the needs of this world. and i agreed. and i do agree.

and yet, i do think this election is incredibly important because the mccain palin ticket, at least to my understanding, advocates some anti-christian values--today's gospel lesson, "the first shall be last and the last shall be first" call their very way of thinking into question. i mean, as christians can we continue to pay taxes when the firsts get bailed out and the lasts remain last. (thanks to aaron for that thought!) to what/who is our allegiance? when does the laborer in the vineyard who arrived last taken care of? how do we, as a nation, understand ourselves in the greater context of our starving brothers and sisters in africa? and while i am pro-choice (and i realize this is an oxymoron for many), i very much value life and find it most disturbing that mccain & palin don't seem to carry those same values as they advocate for the death penalty and the war.

so it matters and it doesn't. of course i hope obama wins. i think it's a better choice for the nation, for the world. the obama/biden ticket carries more of the concerns of the christian values to which i aspire and ascribe. but not all of them. and even if obama wins, it won't change it all. it won't perfect this broken nation, this broken world. only god can do that and god needs our help to make it happen. we can do that by going out and raising our voices and saying no to injustice, to making no peace with oppression. only then will the ridiculousness of the inequity and hatred of this world begin to dissipate. only then will the world begin to be reconciled and will we begin to look like the kingdom of god to which we are called to be.

end rant.

homesweethome

2008-09-14T19:11:00.003-05:00

yesterday was a day i had, at once, been dreading and looking forward to. it was the start of our annual book sale. this is a major fund raiser for the church and it' s also pretty cool event in and of itself because people come in, see the place and meet some of our friendly folk. of course, yesterday was a bit...um...wet. usually the sale is outside, but given that we're enjoying the heaviest rainfall in chicago history, we moved the sale inside. i did, in all seriousness, have someone who called to ask if the sale was inside or outside. i had the urge to say "why outside, of course" and then begin to quack. but i was a good priest and simply said "inside."

so on top of this big event (and it really is a big event), there was a wedding. which meant a quick turn around--breaking down the day one sale and getting the place cleaned before the bridal party arrived. it worked. of course the couple, who i just adore, had planned to have all their pictures shot on wrigley field before the wedding. a world of that didn't happen, what with the floods and nonstop downpour. so they waited, in the wings, killing time, for many, many hours. the groom told me he used communion wafers for chips in their poker game (he was joking! he was joking!).

the wedding was fun--just like the couple. and the book sale, while smaller in sales due to the flooding rains, was also a great success.

all to say that i began work at 6 AM yesterday and got home at 9:30 and was exhausted. good exhausted, but exhausted. and today the whole thing happened again today. so here am i, finally home. buffy's on. windows open, safe under piles of blankets, the really obnoxious band playing loudly across the street. i know i need to start packing for the move, now 14 days away, but it's not happening tonight. My kingdom for a pizza. That might just happen tonight....

waiting...mothering

2008-09-10T17:47:00.010-05:00

i didn't hear the phone ring. at a party, a few drinks, a lot of laughter. walking home the beeping catches my attention. the message short and too the point: my son has been shot. please come to the hospital. shit. these are the reasons we have cell phones, to get these calls. fuck. the kid has been shot. the sweet, 13 year old boy who acolytes and plays baseball and lives the ghetto and tries to keep his nose clean amidst the world around him.

i drive the car, despite the wine, to the hospital. enough time passed and nothing sobers like the words gun shot. children's hospital, filled with computer games and big screen tvs, enough to think that it was a hotel, if not for the IVs and the gaping hole in his thigh.

in the room stands his mother, who had, on more than one occasion, screamed at me for not buying a bus pass or not bringing the right groceries...this night, without words, we made peace. she had come, straight from work, on the bus, not knowing if he was dead or alive, having to sit through 3 transfers and waiting for delayed buses to bring her to this part of town. she smells of work and anger and anxiety. she yells on the cell phone, her normal tone, and barks orders to her other 3 children.

i need to change. i smell, she says
i'll wait, i reply.

and so she leaves. my waiting, a gift to her. my waiting, her gift of trust to me.

he talks on the phone. and sometimes stops to tell me stories. no tears, no fear, he promises, sometimes couching it in god language.

does it hurt? i ask.
nah. i can take it, he says.

after 11 he tries to sleep but keeps the light on until the nurse comes in, florescent bulbs bright against the dried red blood of on his brown skin. she dims the lights, the glow of the side lights, and the blue television screen illuminated with visions of fish in a fish tank, the most peaceful screen saver i can find. i watch the fish float by and gaze at him from time to time, his eyelids heavy.

you awake sarah? he asks.
sure am, i say and he closes his eyes.

his mother returns 3 hours later, smelling of beer and calgon.

i asked the neighbor for some liquor, but all they had was beer she tells me. then i took me a long bubble bath.

i think of my mother and know that she would've never left, let alone basked in a bubble bath had half the fate been bestowed on me. another highlight of our different worlds.

you didn't have to wait she says.
i know. i lie.

i say a prayer over his sleeping face, the breathing heavy, the face innocent of the days trauma. i anoint his head with oil more for me than for him and drive the car home to try and sleep.

my new mantra

2008-09-08T16:32:00.002-05:00

i will not engage trolls on my friend's blogs. i will not. i will not.
just say no...to trolls.

open letter to sarah palin

2008-09-06T18:46:00.001-05:00

i wish i could've written this! a brilliant letter and explanation of what community organizing is all about. this is an open letter to sarah palin.

thank you, i are a writer and jon stewart, for your ministries!

2008-09-06T15:08:00.007-05:00

i watch the daily show most days and am grateful, but what jon stewart did during the RNC was nothing short of providing a place of solace and relief for weary souls like me, tired of people just being mean (yeah, i'm talking about you, rudy and sarah). like many of my friends, i give thanks to God for the ministry of Jon Stewart. thanks to iareawriter who had this clip on her blog, which i have, with great joy stolen. it's worth your time if you haven't seen it.

i want to ride my bicycle!

2008-09-06T14:38:00.002-05:00

i have a new (to me) bicycle! i bought it from the Recyclery, which is this really cool, non-profit that sells used bikes and then takes the profits and creates good things out of them. i went to their bike sale and was lucky enough to actually get a bike (there are always more people than bikes, so most folks go home empty handed). and it's a pretty good bike (according to the bike gurus who went with me to buy it). and it's red!!!!

so yesterday i took it out for a spin. one of my favorite things about this city is that it has a bike path all along the lake. so as you ride, not only do you get the lake breeze, but you also get to look at the lake, which is beautiful.

the weather has turned to fall crisp-ness, although the leaves are still very green. it's a beautiful day out, which makes it really challenging to want ot sit and write a sermon! the lections are challenging as well. the Exodus lesson, in particular. some of my current questions: if the first born was struck down, why did Pharoh live? i mean, the story wouldn't work if Pharoh's son hadn't died, and if he hadn't experienced that grief, granting a momentary reprieve. so that's one question. the other (and i should add these are both questions that a friend asked, not me, but now i am wondering...) question is this: what would God have done next. if it hadn't worked (and ultimately Pharoah changed his mind, but for the point of story, they had enough time to get away, so it did sort of work). but what was the next plague? they got progressively worse and this was the worst, right? except that annoying wondering of what would've happened next? to what lenghths would God go in order to protect the captive, to set them free? and then i always wonder...jumping ahead to the parting of the Red Sea...did God weep over those Egyptians who were drowned when the waters came crashing down? As much as I love the Song of Miram, I also hate it, because as the Israelites rejoice over their freedom, Egyptians are weeping over the loss of their first born and the soldiers who drowned.

I understand these stories. That they teach us about the nature of God, about how God cares about the setting free of the captive and oppressed. Maybe I just understand it a little better, a little more clearly in the language of Jesus, where points are made by eating with sinners and tax collectors. Of course, the passover in Exodus leads us right to the passover of Jesus. And I don't know if the death of Jesus, the passover Lamb, can be fully understood without the Exodus story.

update on random things

2008-09-03T12:37:00.006-05:00

so just an update. i'm moving on sept 30 and oct 1. i'm moving a whopping 1.1 miles from a 2 bedroom lovely treehouse apartment into a t-incy, tiny, itty-bitty apartment that's much closer to the church. this move will save me a significant chunk of change and while i'm anxious about the smaller space, i am thrilled to have a bit more wiggle room in my budget and to be closer to the church is just a bonus. what sucks is the packing and moving part. which needs to begin sooner rather than later, but all in good time, i guess. my step-pappy is coming up for a week to help out and so are my fab 20/30s from the church (they're coming for a day, not a week!), so i've got help.

my landlord is driving me crazy. chicago law clearly states that i'm supposed to get 24-48 hours notice before he enters my apartment. on saturday i got one hour and fifty minutes before he showed it. there's just something creepy about people you don't know walking around, rooting through your closet, your fridge (i know cause that's what i do when i look at apartments!). it has to be done, i get that, but it drives me a bit crazy. i just got another email saying he's showing it tonight. i'm going to try to swing by the house to pick up a bit, but i figure, at this point, it's not my problem. if he's going to show it without giving me sufficient notice, i'm not going to worry about hair in the sink and my unvaccummed rug. my father always said to leave a place nicer than you found it. great idea, but that gene didn't get passed on to me. i'm messy. always have been. i try to change but it's just a struggle.

so do i blog about this? i don't know. i may go back and delete this later. i'm on my 4th week of weight watchers. it's like the gazillionth time i've done it,but it feels really different this time. i'm going to meetings with two of my besties in chicago, two of the women from my writing group. we make for a funny trio, because C is totally there but not at all about the WW swag (like the 10% keychain, which i COVET) and the gold stars. A is the WW cheerleader. I mean cheer-leader. She collects gold stars like a squirrel collecting acorns. and her hand goes up in the air all the time with ideas and suggestions. C & I totally giggle because we're both such cynics and she's such an optimist. and we both love it. being in her joyful presence (and inspiring as she just lost 10% of her body weight and looks AMAZING) is truly fun. so here's what's different for me--aside from the fact that i have an amazing shrink, who's been working with me on the head game associated with my weight, this go around i've decided to not be a cynic. do i know all this stuff already--of course i do. but i've decided this time to quit acting like a know-it-all, above-it-all, superior being and to just embrace the damn thing. i read over the weekly pamphlets like they are the newest gospel. i enter my points on the computer with a freakish regularity. i read the inspirational stories and sometimes they make me teary. i use the recipes. my frined A reminds me that last week i had my hand up 4 times in the meeting, even calling myself a "water slut." yep, i've joined the cult. and it's working. i've lost weight every week (sure, a lot of it's water weight, but i don't care--i'm getting gold stars!!). so, we'll see. as a complete and shameless plug--if you haven't had Fiber One chocolate and oat bars whilst drinking a cup of coffee, you're missing out on one of life's great pleasures.

so that's the news from the land of the caffeinated priest. hope all is well where you are!

Friday Five

2008-08-29T15:47:00.005-05:00

It's been awhile since I've played the Friday Five. So here goes...

1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.

That one's easy. I worked at this horrific place on Ponce deLeon called Dugan's, where the motto was "Do it at Dugan's!" It was a wings and beer place, and it smelled awful. I was in college and coming home I'd leave my Tretorns outside of my dorm room and throw all my clothes in the hamper because I reeked of the place. I think I lasted 3 weekends there. I finally quit when the boss asked me a question that, had I been miked, would have won me a great big sexual harassment law suit.

2. Tell us about the best job you ever had.

Aside from the being a priest thing? Okay. It's kind of a toss up. I loved being a massage therapist and owning my own business. The most amazing people entered my life in that time. And I got to work with athletes that went on to win gold and silver in the Olympics. I learned a lot about what makes good business practices and what doesn't. But most of all, at 26 years old, I owned a profit producing, successful, and joy filled business. I'm really proud of that.

But I also loved being a Director of Christian Education at my home parish, Emmanuel in Athens. I learned so much about the work of the church while in that post. And I got to work with a wonderful team of people. There were 5 of us who made an amazing team. It's a system I strive to reproduce.

3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions.

Be a priest and advocate for Palestinians in Jerusalem or the Galilee. Show pilgrims the beauty of the Holy Land.

4. Did you get a break from labor this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it?

I've got Monday off. I'll spend Sunday night listening to Aimee Mann and Squeeze under the stars at Ravinia.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?

Summer usually slows down, but not this summer. It's been CRAZY busy. And the next 2 months are no exception.

I'm anticipating the return of some folks who've been away for the summer. It's always fun to have a fuller church on Sundays. And I'm eager for the choir to come back.

I'm dreading moving. That happens on Sept 30 and Oct. 1. I'm downsizing (and saving $600/month!!) but I HATE moving!!

Bonus question: Is there a song, book, a play that says "workspace" to you?

"Come Labor On" from the Hymnal, of course!

big fish productions

2008-08-27T13:19:00.004-05:00

for the first 10 years of my life, my father was a TV producer. you know the guy who produced the series Seinfeld? well he worked for my dad first. my father worked for public television, so there was never tons of money. but he did good work--work that was recognized, i think he might have even won an emmy or something.

it's funny now to hear him tell his stories about his time at the tv station. there was, as is true at most workplaces, tension and arguing. there were good times as well--discovering the abilities in unexpected places. he met my mom when she applied for a job there (and she left saying he was the biggest jerk she'd ever met...my how things change!).

when i was little, i spent much time at the studio. my mom would go record the voiceover announcements and i would sit beneath the desk where she recorded, always being as quiet as a 4 year old could as she would say "tonight on GPTV, Nova explores the world of jellyfish." when i was a little older i got in trouble for taking all the lemons out of the cafeteria to put in my water. the frozen strawberry pie at that cafeteria is the stuff of legend. there was a fountain and it's where i first learned about thowing pennies in (and not taking money out of the fountain--i got in trouble for that too!).

my parents, in addtion to me, made some interesting things together. my father's documentaries were bold--one on jerusalem, one on racism in georgia (doing this in the 60s and 70s). they did one on the carving on stone mountain and my mom was the first woman to ever stand on the carving. i know all this now. i know how groundbreaking this stuff was. the man could even make a show on needlepoint exciting. yoga, gardening, god--he made tv on all of it.

but what i remember as a kid was none of that. i remember the tv studio, where lights had filters on them that could change the bright in front of me from blue to green to pink, illuminating the set. i remember the viewing room outside of the studio, where i would sit, as papa worked, and watch what he was doing. a huge TV screen (think movie theatre size, only a little smaller) and a black sofa, i would sit and watch the different cameras move, capturing different angles, different voices, my father's voice booming directions above it all--camera one now, camera two zoom.

when i was in kindegarden, we took a field trip to the studio and we walked past the viewing room, into the studio. my father would put each child on camera and ask their name and we got to see ourselves on tv. i remember he got to me and asked "and what's your name?" and i laughted and blushed and said "papa!!! you know!" in the way a little girl, wildly in love with her father's affection will do.

the station moved to atlanta around the same time my parents divorced. he was moved to an adminstrator's office and position, the artist in him somewhat silenced. my mother's voice now rang out not on TV but in the classroom of high school english classes. the lights, the colours, the wonder of the studio all disappeared. yet it remains as vivid in my mind as clear as the lights that shone out, blue, green, pink, onto the false world.

a recipe, just for kicks

2008-08-25T23:16:00.003-05:00

so there's this amazing restaurant here in chicago called enoteca roma. it's a wine bar and also sports bruschetteria, risottos, pasta and antipasta. but, what made my heart sing was the polenta. they pour it onto a marble slab at your table and then all the toppings are poured out on top. ours had mushrooms and caramelized onions, gorgonzola, and some other deliciousness. so last night i tried to recreate a version of it at home. not QUITE the same, but pretty darn close and very delicious, if I do say so myself.

So here's what I did:

Caramelize the onion (sliced in circles) in a non-stick pan, heated with a little extra virgin olive oil. I threw in a bit of apple vinegar and maple syrup. At some point, throw some thinly sliced mushrooms. And add a little extra olive oil if stuff starts to get dry.

When that's about done, make the polenta (which is just cornmeal).

Heat one box of stock, 4 C (I used veggie) and add in one cup of cornmeal.

Stir constantly, until it thickens.

Pour and spread cooked polenta onto a large platter.

Add the deliciousness from the skillet.

Top with parm or your favorite stinky cheese.

Wait a minute for the polenta to get all polenta-y.

Enjoy!

twilight saga rant

2008-08-24T15:01:00.007-05:00

so anyone who's spent any time with me in the past 2 weeks knows that i have been reading the "twilight saga" by stephanie meyer.

many of my facebook friends had status updates about the series "the best series since harry potter," "i'm not feeding my children because i can't put these books down" etc, so i bought the first book, read it, found myself absorbed. they are like CANDY. i couldn't stop reading them. but at the same time, i'll be the first to say that they are poorly written (stephanie meyer needs to use a thesaurus) and they are filled with problems.

SPOILERS will follow, just so you know.

the premise of this story (four books total) is that bella, a mortal, meets and falls in love withe edward, a "vegetarian" vampire (i.e. he hunts animals, not humans) and in introduced to his family of veggie vamps. also in the mix is jacob, the werewolf. don't get me wrong--the tragic love story of the girl in love with the one who is unattainable appeals to me. and so i understand why i get sucked in. some folks asked me if it's like buffy. a resounding no. buffy is a hero in her own right--full of humanity, trying to become full actualized, and her humanity is what makes us relate to her. she's also funny and doesn't take herself too seriously. bella, in stark contrast, is so full of self doubt and self loathing that it's exhausting to hear her talk about how unworthy she is of edward. and there's nothing funny or light about this series. it takes itself SOOOO seriously!!

the biggest downward spiral, at least for me, happens in the last book, "breaking dawn." in it edward and bella marry (so they can have sex because the author's mormon viewpoints come into play a fair amount in this area). some have praised it as a role model for children, a way for parents to talk about "the birds and the bees" with their children, etc. the problem i have with this (aside from the antiquated view of sexuality--edward admits to having killed humans, among other things that break the list of the 10 commandments, but his hope is that by being virtuous and not having sex before marriage he may still be able to be redeemed. i truly don't understand her theology) my biggest beef is that when they finally do have sex on their wedding night, edward's vampire lust and power is so great that it leaves bella black and blue from bruising. as bella basks in the beauty of their lovemaking, edward feels horrible that he's abused her. and it's not the first time we see the dynamic of abuser/abusee in the series. it's subtle, but these books are written for pre-teens and teens and the characters are held up as role models for young girls.

in the final book, bella gets her wish to be made a vampire. once she is dead to her old self, once she has given up all that she was, then she truly feels she knows what she was made to be--a soul-less, blood thirsty vampire. she has to literally die to feel comfortable in her own skin. she goes on to talk about how her mortal self was ugly and unworthy (a theme throughout the book) and i worry at the message being sent to girls.

i've left out other pieces, like the 17 year old teenage werewolf falling in love with the infant (no, that's not pedophilia the fan boards cry. if that's not pedophilia, i'm not sure what is), a focus to a fault on external beauty (contrasted with Harry Potter and Buffy, where the characters are known for bravery, passion, seeking the good). i could go on, but it's sunday afternoon and i'm ready for a nap.

my dear friend, the snarky squab, has a new blog, books your kid should read. i doubt these will end up on her list. i'm no fan of censorship, but if there's a books your kid SHOULDN'T read blog somewhere, i'd nominate these.

graduation day

2008-08-24T14:48:00.004-05:00

saturday morning, en route to a graveside funeral, over which i'm presiding. i realize that i need to eat. so i drive through the mcdonald's drive thru and order a large diet coke and an egg mcmuffin.

i should mention that i'm dressed for the funeral, which means i'm wearing a cassock and surplice, which looks like this:

but i'm tucked away in my baby SUV and not thinking much about it. yeah, i get a second glance from the guy i give my $$ to, but that's it. until i pull up to get my food.

"you must be graduating today" says the joyful mcdonald's employee.

"what?" i say. and then i realize the comment has to do with my attire. "no, not me, but i'm on my way to a graduation of sorts..."

"well, congratulations!" he beams.

"thanks" i say as i drive out, being careful not to spill my diet coke.

life in an anglo catholic parish...

2008-08-20T17:25:00.002-05:00

me (to deacon nancy): so, would you preach today?
deacon nancy: sure. who is it?
me: st. bernard
deacon nancy: the dog?
me: uh....

sorry for the lack of posting of late. i'm working on it.

for the curious: st. bernard

for papa

2008-07-27T17:02:00.000-05:00

just an fyi--i uploaded a couple of my more recent sermons.
xo

telling stories

2008-07-26T21:42:00.008-05:00

have i ever told you that my grandmother, paternal side, was a foot model? it's true. it was either the 40s or the early 50s. hers were the feet you'd see in the catalogs of with fancy shoes. my father tells me that she had tons of them, sometimes getting to take home the shoes she'd worn for a photo shoot. best of all, she had a gigantic picture of her beautiful feet hanging over the fireplace. words can not describe for you how much i wish i had this photo. it was destroyed in an apartment fire long before i was ever so much as a glimmer in my father's eyes, so it lives on now only in memories and story telling. somedays, more than anything, i wish i had inherited her feet.

i never knew her--not really. once when i was maybe 5, my father, my sister and i trekked from georgia to tampa florida. i remember the small cramped house, sharing the study, made into a makeshift bedroom with my father, shasta cola in different flavors and my sister's leopard patterned bathing suit. my sister is 8 years older and we have different mothers, so she lived with her mom in boston most of the year. the summer's were the greatest time because she'd come to visit and there was no brighter star in the sky than my big sister. and she swam in the ocean without the assistance of floaties on her arms and worn that leopard bathing suit and was, as far as i could tell, at the age of 13, the most perfect example of what humanity had to offer the world.

my grandmother was quiet. she must have been sweet to me. in the mail, on my birthday that year, she had sent me a double deck of playing cards with an orange and white cat lifting up its paw as the decoration for the backside. also inside the package was a small dimestore purse, black with plastic beads of red, yellow and blue. these are the only childhood material memories i have from her and though they are long gone, i can still see them clearly. years later my sister gave me a set of her rosary beads. she figured i'd know what to do with them. every time i move they find a new place in my home, never quite right, always seeking their niche. they are plastic and scented with a horrific permi-rose smell, and they live inside an octagonal plastic box containing an image of a 20somthing Mary.

a year or two later, she came to visit athens and stayed in our house and my father made spaghetti sauce that was too hot for her and her husband (her fifth and final husband) and it made her eyes water. she cried a lot, i think. my father still recalls with deep gratitude that my mother helped her dress, as grandmother's dementia was pretty far gone by then and she would come out in states of undress, shirts on backwards and inside out. with the failure of my father's spaghetti sauce, we ate at the china boat restaurant, which went on to become thai of athens. i hear that it has since closed.

in march of 1979, in the midst of weather reports saying snow would come to athens, my father, my mother and i traveled in our new, blue ford LTD to florida. i wore a hand-me-down dress all day and cried because i thought my father must be so sad to have his mother die. we stayed with his aunt rosatha, who was not used to children and did not allow me to play her piano because my fingers were likely to be sticky. at the funeral home there was an open casket which i thankfully do not remember.

when everyone else had left the graveside, her blue metal casket a top the mounds of red clay, the grave keeper tried to push us away. my father would have none of it. he would not leave until he threw dirt on his mother's grave. and though i did not know what it meant, at his bidding, i followed his lead. the three of us stood there, watching the working men cover the sky-blue metal box, scoop after scoop, shovel after shovel. we were the last to leave the smell of turning earth.

vacation!!

2008-07-20T08:26:00.002-05:00

would you believe that the place i'm staying doesn't have internet access (my friend with the wifi card is leaving in 10 minutes). so i'm silent for awhile.

to keep you occupied, check this out. if you love buffy, superheroes or doogie howser, you'll dig this:

Dr. Horrible

Until we meet again....

The Girl Effect

2008-07-15T21:51:00.002-05:00

flying bus

2008-07-10T19:55:00.004-05:00

on the calendar:

1:30 pm--meeting with church financial advisor/stock/bonds guru re: fees and growth for non-restricted endowment. wear grown up clothes and collar.

the 156 bus picks me up in front of the church and 38 minutes later drops me off in front of the money man guru's office. i missed the 12:44 PM bus by 2 minutes and waited another 12 minutes until the next 156 came along at 12:56 pm. as i sat, anxious about my pending late status for big meeting in the conference room with guru and committee, i read the Red Eye, picked at the string still magically attached to my skirt and texted a friend.

about 10 minutes into my journey, on the double bus (i.e. big), the doors opened in front of lincoln park zoo and 12 children and 4 adults entered. the kids ranged in age from about 3 to 6 years old. and they promptly made their way to the back of the bus where i was sitting. one man, annoyed by their youthful energy, picked himself up and moved, but i stayed put. as we traveled, the following song was sung:

old mcdonald had a farm, e i e i o.

and on this farm he had a shark!

[cue laughter]

okay. it made me giggle.

and then the bus made a big, wide turn. and the next kid starts in:

we're flying! it's a flying bus!

[it did feel a bit like it was flying around the curves]

we need parachutes!!! we're fllllllyyyyyiiinnnnggg!!!

and every turn that followed, for the next 7 blocks, a group of giggling children delighted in the idea of a flying bus. it amazes me the joy at the little things that the young see. where i see time ticking by, places to be and ever so important things to do, they see possibilities, boundless potential and joy in simply being in the world. i was sad when they got off the bus, but in a good mood for the money guru, who was not at all upset with me for being 10 minutes late. it was worth it.

sometimes you just miss your dad

2008-07-03T14:23:00.004-05:00

yesterday i took my car into the shop because the air conditioner was blowing hot air. 800 miles left on the warranty and i wanted to get it fixed while it was free. of course it fell outside of hyundai's warranty guidelines, so i was on my own. $110 for summer air is money well spent in my book, so i did it. of course while i was there, we discovered that my brake pads are down to a millimeter per pad--i.e.--replace them now or do some serious damage to the drum.

back in college, my step dad taught me how to change brake pads on my volvo. i was so damn proud of myself! i mean, he did all the pointing and i just put things where he said they went, so i don't know that i really learned very much, but i did it (if i can find the pix tonight, i 'll scan them). something like $25 for the brake pads and then we did the labor. the total the car dealer gave me was upwards of $600 for the same thing. my mom is coming to chicago this weekend, but somehow, i don't think she and i have what it takes to go to auto zone, buy brake pads and put them on my car. i miss my step dad.

this is for wendy & revdrmom

2008-07-02T17:10:00.001-05:00

i are a writer & revdrmom, ya'll will appreciate this. compliments of my steppappy.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/post-title/?8ty&emc=ty#comments

green thumb

2008-06-28T16:11:00.004-05:00

I am many things--a priest, a Buffy fan, a sometimes writer, a daughter, a sister, an avid reader of historical fiction, a woman on the brink of becoming a rock star in her water workout class, a lover of all things trashy tv and a pretty good baker. i am not, however, a green thumb. i just don't have whatever it is.

about a month and a half ago, I made the trek to Costco and as I was walking in, saw this LOVELY tomato plant. It was potted in a large pot and already had the trellis attached. perfect, I thought to myself. This can go on my deck and I can love it and I'll have tomatoes all summer long. as I was leaving with my tomato plant, the Costco "may I please see your receipt so that i can confirm that you have not stolen anything" lady stops me. Our conversation:

Costco Lady: You know that there are three plants in there.

Me: Uh, no. I just bought one. I only paid for one (oh crap, I'm about to get accused of shoplifting while wearing a collar)

Costco Lady: No, I mean, in that pot, there are three plants.

Me: So, are you saying that I didn't pay enough?

Costco Lady: (beginning to look exasperated) No dear. I mean that this plant comes with three tomato plants, so you'll need to separate them when you get home.

Me: Why? Don't they like each other?

Costco Lady: (rolling eyes) Fine. Keep them all together, but they'll never bloom and flower. No tomatoes.

Me: No way! That defeats the entire purpose of buying them like this! (grumpily pushing cart out to car)

So I get the tomatoes home and put them on my back porch. I'm convinced this lady is crazy. And that I can love them, and nurture them, and bring vine ripened tomato goodness to life. And so I water them. Once. And then I think I just forgot. A few minutes ago I went to check on them, and well...they're pretty dead. Yeah, a green thumb? Not so much.

The thing of it is, I have such vivid memories of my parents in the garden. In our first house, my mom had this whole area with potting soil and plantings and I remember that it was under this shady tree and I'd find her out there playing in the dirt. She'd take clippings from one plant and do something magically to them and BOOM! Another plant! I thought it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen! I don't recall asking to help--maybe I did. Mainly I remember playing in the back yard and loving the fact that she was out there with me--her doing her thing and me doing mine.

Later, we moved to the second big house, the one my mother loved and left, the one I would later name the house of horrors, that house, before it was all those things was a house with a garden in the back yard. My father and I, if I remember correctly, would work out in the garden, which was just to the left of the pear tree. My father always worried that the squirrels would eat the tomatoes like they ate the pears. Worried may not be quite the right word--hated the squirrels might be more accurate. But we planted anyway. I remember digging up the carrots from the ground and I was so proud--something I had helped grow. And I think one year we tried corn. Asparagus was planned at one point, but that never came to be. Potatoes, tomatoes, beans--maybe it was beans and not corn. But my father and I would carry the load back into the baby blue kitchen and my mother would delight in the spoils and we would eat a vegetable dinner. It was hot and the house didn't have air conditioning, but those summer Georgia nights were delicious and comfortable with just the air of dirt and sweat.

jerusalem the golden

2008-06-21T22:26:00.004-05:00

so, if you are my friend of facebook, you know that i changed this to my profile picture awhile ago. i do it every so often. is it some about hiding my face? maybe. but i think it's more about looking at my foot. this picture was taken on an old roman road that cuts through the monastery at st. mary magdalene's in jerusalem. it's a road that, in all likelihood, jesus actually walked. i have tons of foot pictures, all over the holy land. but this one is one of my favorites. partially because i hadn't been hiking, so you can't see my blistered toes (as you can in some others) and partially because it's so clear that it's on rock.

whatever the reason, i like this picture. and as i sit and type this, i look at my foot, my same foot with my same tattoo, and it's a touchstone, a comfort, a reminder that i was there, that it was real. i miss it so much. everyday i miss it. somedays more than others. i miss it a lot of late. i miss the smell and the air. i miss rising at 5:45 because the sun is up and shining on my face through the window. i miss the fountain that woke me each morning and the taste of dates bought in the old souk. i miss the brownness of the people around me and the wondering what the language meant and the way that they would laugh when i would try to pronounce the arabic words, repeating them again and again until it was a slur of southern belle meets arabic culture. i miss my foot of the roads that jesus walked. i miss the smell of lemon and lime trees. i miss anno and plus john and henry and iyad and rana who always made it home. i miss shawarma--god i miss a good shawarma and baba ganoush. i miss the galilee and its waters. i miss the dead sea, which would heal blisters faster than anything i know. i miss the sun and the heat and the utter lack of humidity. i miss the shirt i wore, made of linen and fit so well. i miss the roof top of st. george's college, with the drying lines, waiting for my clothes to dry, watching the teenagers play basketball and soccer while drinking a gin and tonic. i miss bethlehem. i miss the strangeness of a land that is not my own and yet is etched on my heart so deeply that being away from it physically hurts.

becoming priest

2008-06-19T13:05:00.003-05:00

i have started taking a water workout class at the gym (okay, you may now laugh at the visual). i'm kinda in love. in GA, i went to a couple of these classes and it was a bunch of little old frail ladies dogpaddling around the pool. i am very happy to report that is was not the case in the chicago gym. in one of the classes, i'm actually one of the oldest participants (and i ain't that old!). and we do a lot of pilates work in the water, which is really cool.

anyway...post work out, post shower, i'm in the locker room getting dressed. and i'm chatting with another woman in the class--when she goes, how she likes different teachers, stuff like that. and as i get dressed, piece by piece, i finally pull out my collar and put it on. it's the strangest thing. there is suddenly a difference, a chasm between us. and maybe, probably, it's just me who feels this, but i think it's because i have suddenly laid myself bare. ironically, in dressing, in putting on the priests' clothes, i cease to be just me and become the symbol bearer, i become the office. i am, i know, still me, but i am something more too. still figuring out what all that means....

bride and groom

2008-06-14T19:29:00.002-05:00

i knew i liked them. they picked the beatitudes for their gospel lesson. very socially justice minded and all that. but here's what gets me. on the biggest day of their young lives (they're just 22), they had the presence of mind to go to my favorite pie place in all of chicago, first slice, and get my favorite pie--chocolate peanut butter (i don't even like peanut butter pie, but this one is so damn good that it makes me believe that God is real and created peanuts for this very cause). anyway...in the middle of their wedding reception there is this pause and they bring out a pie with a candle and everybody sings happy birthday for me. it was delightful. priests bitch a lot about doing weddings because they can become such self-centered, non-gospel oriented affairs. and not that singing happy birthday to the priest is a marker of the gospel, but it was really nice to see such warmth and thought for others (me) in the midst of the beauty of this day of sacrament.

happy flag day

2008-06-14T13:48:00.004-05:00

today is flag day. it's also the anniversary of my nativity. it's also the day kelli and tyler are getting married (i get to preside!!). it's a lot of things, all at once. and that's a good reminder. there's always lots of things happening all at once. not, necessarily in a busy way, but in a full way.

yesterday was a hard day for me--the realization of choices i've made, of realities of life and general overwhelmedness (i think i just made up a word)--i found myself weepy and stressed. and the way life just seems to happen, things got better--a movie, dinner, a little sangria--time, space, breath--all these things seemed to work together to make things a little less hard. so, i guess when i saw that lots of things are always happening, i mean something like good and bad, hurt and joy, and other life paradoxes, can all co-mingle, can all co-exist within God's kingdom. Henri Nouwen once wrote: "Where there is pain, there is also healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the Kingdom." I'm dwelling in the land of paradox and what it all means--I have no idea, mind you, but that's where I am.

is that SPAM on my blog?

2008-06-11T15:20:00.002-05:00

so "alice" has left a comment on my post about blisters and shoes. i think she's spam. alice, dear, if you are real, i apologize. please let me know. how does spam get onto my blog? i'm sure it's common but it annoys me.

end rant.