"I know my own"

Truth be told, the best moment of my Good Shepherd Sunday was not the well-crafted sermon on the John Gospel text, nor the carefully rehearsed and surprisingly successful performance of Randall Thompson's setting of Psalm 23 for choir and harp.

Nope. Those things were lovely, challenging, tasteful. They preached the dying and rising again of Jesus. Good enough, surely.

The living waters of the day came from something else: four eight-foot pieces of white cloth, held by eight young people standing across from one another in a circle, waving the eight-legged cross they made up and down, fanning the air, and seeing it spin rainbow pinwheels held by other young folk. It was the convocation at the end of the Dream Act Pilgrimage. The Dreamers presented their lives, the fears and dangers lurking in their undocumented status. But they also spoke of their faith in the Good Shepherd, who knows their names and their status and calls them to be witnesses and gifts to others.

Go in peace. Serve the Lord.

What part will you play?

School chapel homily for Tuesday of Holy Week on John 12:20-36

When I was in second grade at St. John Lutheran School in Forest Park we acted out the story of Jesus dying on the cross. We had acted out other Bible stories, but we worked very hard on this one, because it was such an important story. And we performed it one evening for our parents.

Most of the kids in the class (probably all the girls) were part of the crowd. I was the narrator. I had a loud voice and could remember the whole story and tell it in my own words. A boy named Barry Prescott played Jesus. And when it was time for Jesus to walk through the streets of Jerusalem wearing the crown of thorns and carrying the heavy cross, he took off his shirt. It was very serious, very dramatic. He had to imagine what it was like to be Jesus. What was it like for Jesus to give up his life?

In today’s reading we heard Jesus explaining some things about his death:

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified….Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”

Christians have been studying these words for a long time. We ask ourselves, why did Jesus, who was God, have to lose his life? And what does that mean for us? What part do we play in the story of Jesus’ suffering and death?

You might see yourself in the crowd, as one of the people who shout, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” They’re angry and mean and they was to be sure they don’t get into trouble themselves for following Jesus.

Are we like that sometimes? I know for myself that I do things that are angry and mean. I’m careless and cruel, unkind, wasteful, lazy. I’m a sinner, just like those people in the crowd. But I also know that Jesus died so that my sins could be forgiven.

But I think Jesus’ words about his death are also inviting you to play another part in this story. Jesus is inviting you to follow him, to lose life, like he did, and to be like him.

We get to play the part of Jesus. This means doing the things Jesus di, like helping people who are poor and going through a hard time. Mr. Mortensen reminded us yesterday of how we did that with our offerings earlier this year.

I want to tell you another story about acting the part of Jesus. This one is about some friends who graduated from Grace School three years. They are still very good friends, and they have another close friend whose name is Nate.

A week ago Saturday, Nate jumped into the pool at his water polo meet. When he got out of the water his legs felt funny. He sat down on a bench and fell off the bench onto the floor. His legs were completely numb. He couldn’t fell anything. He couldn’t move them. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and it took the doctors a couple days to figure out what had happened to him. And when they did figure it out, it was very bad news. Nate may not ever be able to walk again.

All last week Nate was in the intensive care unit at a big hospital, lying flat on his back. And his friends went to visit him. Almost every day.

This wasn’t easy for them to do. It involved a trip downtown into the city. It’s scary going into an intensive care unit full of machines and tubes and monitors. They could have just sent a card of flowers. Or called on the phone. They could visit him and just say a quick hello and leave in ten or fifteen minutes. But that’s now what they did. They brought games and music and books. They stated and talked with him. They let him know that whatever happens, he’s still Nate, and he’s still their friend and people care about him. They shared his frustration and his worry and his hope.

When I talked about this with one of the girls, she said she’s been having a lot of questions about God lately. And she’s not sure what God is doing in all of this. But she is there for friend. She is being Jesus, even though it’s hard and frustrating. She and her other friends are losing something about their easy lives, to be Jesus for their friend.

How will you lose your life and play the part of Jesus today? You can help people who are wick and poor or frustrated and sad. You can stand up for kids who are being bullied, and you can be friends with kids that others are not being very nice to. You’ll have to do things that might not be easy to do. It’s not easy to lose your life. Our Bible reading says that Jesus “was troubled,” was fearful about what was about to happen to him. But Jesus knew that losing his life meant life and forgiveness for all the world. And that means a new life for you, too.

Children of God

My Facebook status currently has a link to a video about "Spread the Word to End the Word," a campaign asking people, teens and young adults especially, to take a pledge not to use the "r-word." The r-word is retard, and the idea is that using it to deprecate someone else, or even oneself, deprecates the people who have been diagnosed with mental retardation. Using it to describe dumb behavior is saying, gosh, horrors, I don't want to be like one of those people living with a label that to many makes them less than fully human. The videos on the Spread the Word Facebook site, made and shared by families and friends of people with intellectual disabilities, show people with Down syndrome and autism and other disorders as great people, laughing, smiling, working, loving.

This afternoon I attended a forum on immigration reform, where several individuals told their stories and other advocates and organizers talked about what we can do to help. Educate others. Write your representatives. Care for those caught up in the detention system. And stop using the word "illegal." It dehumanizes people. It allows us to dismiss them as less than what they are--people who laugh, work, love and suffer under a taxpayer-supported system that is inhumane, ungodly and fearfully complicated.

Spreading the word to end this i-word would be much more difficult than getting "retard" out of the mouths of middle-schoolers. Undocumented residents of the U.S. are thought to be responsible for their own legal difficulties, though often they were brought here as children, not by their own choice, and this country is the only home they know. Their parents came here in order to be able to feed and care for their families. To stop using the word illegal we have to acknowledge all these back stories, and see ourselves, our love for family, our passion for work, our desire for security in all people, not just the ones who look like us.

"We are all children of God." More than one speaker said this today. What more thrilling thing is there to be called than "child of God"? There have been times in my life when being reminded that I am a child of God opened heaven for me.

There were so many children of God that I encountered today. A tiny baby, so new that she seemed to still be part of her mother's arms, the arms that cradled her all through church. Children of God whom we prayed for today because they have died or because they are grieving or ill. Another child of God going through yet another really rough time. There are the college kids sitting around the fire in my backyard, so different from who they were just a year ago as high school seniors. My daughter and her friends, disabled, but lively contributors to a community that marches in parades and supports one another when one of their own dies. Me, child of God, sitting by a candle flickering fast in the draft in the front windows.

I remember with those words--"child of God""--that the God of galaxies and sunsets and giant sequoias is here in my life, in a still small voice and the stuff of everyday life.

Twenty-eight days

I have just completed twenty-eight days of a spiritual practice.

My health insurance plan offers monetary incentives to complete healthy behavior-changing activities. Do stuff, track yourself and you earn points that become money in your account to help cover the deductible on medical expenses. To my own amazement I earned all of my possible points in 2011. So I set out to earn them again this year.

Twenty-eight days of practicing centering prayer or mindful movement was one of the options, presented in a program titled "Slow Down."

I chose mindful movement as my practice--the yoga I've been doing on and off for a dozen years--with a few minutes of meditation (or centering prayer) at the end. The program did not ask for much time--five minutes of movement, working up to ten or more over time; or just a minute of meditation to begin, working up to five minutes or more. That promise that it won't take long gets me off the couch or away from the desk. But once I get going I stay with it for fifteen or twenty minutes, and come away with a quiet, more comfortable body.

I also come away with a mind that is quieter and centered in my breath, in my body, not my head. I'm not sure what I mean by that--something like my brain and all its activity stays focused within me and doesn't go bopping off to fret over things I can't change or to obsess about stuff that doesn't matter anyway. Not that I don't think about those things--thoughts about work and other pesky subjects float through my mind all the time. But in this time, with the work of Triangle Pose or hamstring stretching I can't focus on them. This is a huge relief. It's kinda like not caring, but without the not-caring part. I still care. I just don't have to tie my whole being into knots.

Buddhists, I've read, say to avoid extremes of emotion--extremes of happiness as well as sadness. Those literary or artistic types burning the candle brightly and passionately at both ends, living life to its fullest and fighting every step of the way will not find contentment. Don't be like them. Accept what is enough for today.

One of the things that draws me to yoga is that it's not about how far down you bend or how long you hold the pose. It's about the fine adjustments you make, recognizing that each action has an opposing action, that you can reach higher to the heavens by grounding yourself more firmly in the earth, that you can balance better by opening up. You also move carefully and in good form, so that you don't hurt yourself. You accept your limits. As the instructor on the DVD says, this is your pose for today.

After twenty-eight days of practicing something or another you have to take an online survey to get credit for your experience. The last question was a curious one: do you understand "Slow Down" to be a healthy activity, like healthy eating, exercise, getting enough sleep, etc., or do you understand it to be a faith-based practice. I had to think a bit before answering that. I went with the faith answer, since the material about the program was pretty clear about the spiritual intent and about becoming more aware of God's presence. But I really wanted to check both boxes. Bringing together the spiritual and the physical is what makes this work.

And it did work for me. After seven or eight days I was more calm and this sense of freedom grew over the next week and stays with me. I'm aware of how busy my mind is but if I can't shut it off, I can at least tune it out, like kids in the back seat of the car. I stand up straighter, which makes everything else better.

Will I stay with it? After years of hearing yoga instructors say, it really helps to do something every day, even if it's just twenty minutes, or ten, I finally believe them. I'm going to try.

Reconciliation

I've probably had about eight interesting ideas yesterday, things that could be written about and examined and manipulated into meaning something. I remember none of them.

Except anger. I remember the one about anger.

I'm holding onto that one. It's the one where I identify the stuff I'm swimming in as anger. Others might identify the mess around them as the chaos of a messy world. Someone else, blessed with a happier temperament, might recognize love in the air and water that give life. But my default position is I'm mad. I'm mad that the world is the way it is, that people die and leave me, that there are constant struggles for power and ascendancy among the people I live with.

No news here, really. Everyone dies, we all know people who die. Some of those deaths are more outrageous and meaningless than others, but each one is a surprise to someone. Things fall apart despite how hard we work at holding them together, no matter how successful or unsuccessful are at asserting our own power. We must go on living.

I saw "Tree of Life" the other night. The opening voiceover is a meditation on Nature and Grace. I see a contradiction; my son says they're both God. Whatever they are, they were the ether of the movie, there in the damp green suburban grass, in the flames and water of creation. When they brush up against each other, Nature and Grace, there are flares of energy. What nature will do, grace will forgive.

Many years ago someone older and wiser introduced me to the idea of righteous anger, anger fully justified by the circumstances, anger that should not be hidden or extinguished, but put to use, because God is present in that anger. Up to that point the words that attached themselves to anger in my head were in sentences like "Anger gets you nowhere" or "Anger never did any good for anybody."

That would be faithless thinking, in the face of anger over deep and existential contradictions between death and life, brokenness and righteousness. God is at the dividing line between these things, reconciling them, making them one.

Silence

I went to see "The Artist" early this evening. I had heard it was a good movie, not to be missed. So I went by myself, so that I wouldn't be kicking myself later about missing it. Once upon a time I saw lots of movies every year and saw almost every movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. My sainted husband made sure of that. Sometimes he cared more that I saw all these films than I did, but I miss that now. "The Artist" is a silent movie about a silent movie star, with a score to manipulate your emotions, but no spoken dialogue. The lead character is stuck. He will not talk, he will not change what he does, even as his career falls into ruins, though a perky young starlet tries to help him. If you're having a quiet day, as I was, with no one around much to talk to, this is not going to be the movie that picks you up. At least not if you're me. Not if you go by yourself with no one to talk to. I like talking. The lack of it in this movie made the cold walk back to my car seem all the quieter. One can talk to oneself, if necessary. One can mug for the camera if you need to communicate in a performance without talking. But you can't mug for yourself, except in the bathroom. Got in my car, sneaked out of my parking place and went home to my knitting.

Blog Anniversary

Today more or less marks the sixth anniversary of The Perverse Lutheran. The first post is dated February 28, 2006, but it was Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday in the Epiphany season, the last Sunday before Lent. Easter is a bit earlier this year than in 2006, so Transfiguration is a bit earlier. It's today.

Here's how I began:

"Damn. I meant to start this blog with something clever and incisive. Something fun. Something smart.

"Instead, the pressing question of the day is visceral. Why do I weep when that darned Alleluia banner is carried out of church at the end of Transfiguration Sunday worship?"

Six years of blogging have shown me that blog posts that begin with a strong visceral image are easier to put together than ones that begin with the break in the image of things that prompts wit or humor. Those breaks flash by quickly, like buildings seen from a moving CTA train. The figurative punch in the gut or the tears and the lump in the throat last longer. They may color the rest of the day or even the rest of the week.

A look at the blog archive shows more posts in the ten months of blogging in 2006 than in any year since then. I came close in 2011, thanks to taking a stab at posting every day last November. My original goal was to post two or three times a week and to write quickly, without a lot of painful revision. In practice, this has meant no more than one round of painful revision. I sometimes suspect I am a better editor than writer. My writing is pretty ordinary, or yes, sloppy, until I go back and rework it.

Knowing that there are people who read my blog posts inhibits my blogging. I wish this were not so, because then I think I would write more often. But there it is. I don't come here to spill my frustrations, chronicle my depressions, or write about people who bug me. That would be self-indulgent, and I would hate to be described as self-indulgent. Also, the psalmist's prayer, "Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord, and guard the door of my lips" is one I take personally, but the guards set before my mouth are usually castigating me for remarks that have already escaped, rather than preventing them from getting out.

The fingers on the keyboard and the super-executive editor in my brain work more slowly, so they do keep watch. They are stern and they wield a six-foot spear that would pierce my heart if people thought I wasn't very nice. It's lot of work to please them, or to make friends with them so that the words can slide out easily.

Today again there was that catch in my chest during "Alleluia, Song of Gladness." It struck somewhere around the image of the new Jerusalem. It invokes memories of the dead, of those who have gone before, including, this weekend, a young man who died on Thursday who was a classmate of my daughter's. But what I am more interested in today is a stanza from another Transfiguration hymn, "How Good, Lord, to Be Here!":

"Before we taste of death, We see your kingdom come; We long to hold the vision bright And make this hill our home."

Not "pie in the sky by and by" but seeing the kingdom now. The hymn, of course, ends with leaving the mount and asking Christ to "come with us to the plain." I'm going to think for a while on that kingdom coming along to the plain, about the light and glory of the image of God we carry as God's creatures. It might burn away the gloom and cruddy questioning that flows over me when I think about writing and wanting to write something original, true, and perhaps edifying or enjoyable for others.

Blogging on. Thanks for reading!