Refraction

Things I observed today.

This, in my kitchen. The glass of water on the windowsill produced the rainbow in the sink, in the late afternoon, as the sun streamed in from the western sky. 

A small moment, I guess, in the days of the big concerns and worries. But one that made me stop and wonder for just a moment. I'm sure there's some physics of light involved -- refraction through the water, the curved glass -- but the science makes it more wondrous, not less. 

My morning devotion, again from "Lent Is Not Rocket Science," by W. Nicholas Knisely, was about the special light of sunrise, special because of the way it's filtered through more of the earth's atmosphere. The question at the end was, "Will you pause today to see beyond the the first impressions and see the poetry of what is before your eyes?" and "What do you see?"

It's a good writing prompt, and since it was a warm for the season, sunny spring day, there were good things to see. Lots of people out walking their dogs throughout the day, past our church atrium, where I worked for much of the afternoon. Lots of runners out too. 

We're all keeping our distance, but I had to brave the grocery store this afternoon. I did my share of bobbing, weaving and swerving so as not to get too close to other people. My face, like many around me, was fixed, mouth closed, resolute. Get what I needed, or get what I could, and go home. After a while, though, I tried to smile across the social distance, when someone looked at me and I looked back. I smiled extra hard, or tried to smile extra warmly, to cross that scary gulf, the one that might too easily turn into fear of one another. 

I voted, too, again keeping social distance in mind and washing my hands well when I got home. I discovered that I had inadvertently cut in line when I entered the polling place -- misinterpreted what those distances meant. When I realized this and apologized, the two women now behind me smiled graciously, said it didn't matter, and we agreed, "It's all good."

I know this is not what the world was like for everyone on whatever day this of COVID-19 comes to America. Some of you struggled through another day of e-learning with children who must have been tempted by the sunshine. Some of you had your own aggravations with work (and I had some of those, too). Many folks were working at grocery store and at Walgreens, and in many places doing the things necessary to keep us all going. It can't be easy. It can't be easy to be elderly and isolated these days. It can't be easy to be a healthcare worker preparing for the onslaught. 

I observed myself often today, rattled by dreams, rattled by memories, not at all sure of how to meet the days ahead. But it was good to observe this, to name this, before springing into action. Stopping, observing, listening, watching, and occasionally muttering something about being grateful for the hard times as well as the easy ones, I found some measure of peace, some sense of living in the presence of God. And of God's presence reflected and refracted through me. 

Bigger -- because

My church live-streamed the worship service this morning -- if "worship" is what you call a Service of the Word in a sanctuary with no people in the pews, just an organist and a singer in the balcony and a preacher, a presider, an assistant minister and a lector in the chancel.
A friend commented this afternoon in an email about -- what else? cancelling plans:
Watched most of it, and was moved by how reassuring--and powerful--it was to be reminded that something bigger than us, bigger than the coronavirus, is at work in the universe, caring for us.
I wouldn't know about how it was to watch the livestream, because I was the lector, and my mood is never improved by watching myself later on video. A screen shot on Facebook showed me at the lectern with a pale face and frizzy hair. I should perhaps have heeded that twinge of vanity last night that asked, makeup in the morning?

As the church communications staff person, I was also the copier-and-paster of links—onto Facebook, a web page, email, all complicated by a little technical problem (no audio) that meant we started the whole thing over -- at a new URL -- about 15 minutes in.
This was the first time our service was live-streamed. Plans had been in the works for a while, with a scheduled debut of, what do you know, March 15. Apparently God had a hand in the timing. With gatherings of more than 50 people shut down for the next couple months, YouTube and Facebook and, God help us, Twitter, will have to get better at reminding us of things bigger than us, bigger than the coronavirus. And since we are the ones who provide the content for social media, that means we ourselves will need to get better at thinking bigger.

This evening it all feels like a dystopian movie to me, and frankly, I'd like it to end and the credits to roll, so that I can get up and walk out of the theatre into a bright sunny day in another place and time. (Denial is not just a river in Egypt.) I've planned and started knitting projects today, talked and texted with friends and family, struggled to get ahead or simply catch up in Scrabble games on my phone, and wondered and worried about everything from is it okay to pick up my new glasses at Walgreens to the global economy. These worries, and new ones are likely to reappear in a few hours -- long before the alarm goes off in the morning.

I grew up believing things work out somehow and I myself could rise to meet any challenge. Decades of experience have dimmed my optimism. Does this have something to do with what Paul wrote in Romans 5:1-11, about suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope -- and "hope does not disappoint us"? Those last words were an anchor for me when my son was diagnosed with ALS in 2014 and died in 2017. Early this morning, as I practiced reading them out loud, I noticed there was no period after "us," and I was going to have to vocally connect that wonderfully rhetorical crescendo leading up to hope into yet one more clause before the paragraph ended:

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

I don't think I succeeded in doing this during the reading this morning, at least not with the little trick that worked so well in the kitchen while the coffee was brewing, but there it is: "because God's love." The thing that makes us bigger.

Social distancing, day one

Saturdays are days when I often do nothing, or get nothing done. I'm more likely to engage in purposeful behavior on a Sunday afternoon. Today, Saturday, March 14, day one of social distancing in my neck of the world, is no different. So far:

1. Started a shopping list so that in one more trip to the grocery store, where I need to pick up a prescription, I can also get all the things I need so that I can stop going to the grocery store.

2. Took the Enneagram test, because I thought it would maybe provide insight and help me think about things in all the thinking time ahead. Also, didn't have anything more pressing to do. My highest score was a tie for Type 1 and Type 5; my second-highest score was a tie between 6, 3, 4, 2 and 8. The PDF file I received via email with my results is 37 pages long. Apparently I contain many worlds.

3. Met my neighbor across the street via text messaging. She was responding to a note I left on her porch before Christmas with a package that had been delivered to my house by mistake. Said she'd been meaning to do that for a long time. Seems like we may get to know each other better. Curious that today was a day to make a new acquaintance.

4. Limited my news intake to 15-20 minutes of headlines on my phone before getting out of bed. Very effective for reducing anxiety.

5. Made gluten-free pancakes with Eliza. Okay to eat / but they ain't wheat.

6. Noticed the many corners and floors and cluttered spaces in my house that, were I to use my time at home profitably, ought to be thoroughly cleaned.

7. Thought about starting my taxes. Thought it about for maybe 10 seconds. Baby steps.

8. Thought about doing some yoga. Visualizing that now. I think late-afternoon light is best for yoga, don't you?

9. Read yesterday's and today's devotion from "Lent Is Not Rocket Science." Contemplated whether there might be life in other parts of the universe, and what this might mean. Five or ten minutes of cosmic thinking lightens my heart.

10. Read through the lessons for tomorrow's livestream worship service. Will need to reckon with Paul in Romans saying that suffering builds endurance, which builds character, which builds hope. Hope does not disappoint us. All true, but still hard in practice.

Alleluia

Looked in the mirror to brush my hair this morning and remembered what I had been dreaming maybe an hour or so earlier. A friend had driven me to Madison Street, the downtown of the next suburb over, to get a haircut. I'd sat in the chair in the window of a salon while a short, stocky blonde man fussed and waved his hands around my head telling me what should be done. He went off somewhere and my friend grabbed some scissors and did the cutting. Later in the dream I looked in a mirror and wow, it was one bad haircut. Nothing left on the sides, strange knotty sticking-up places on top. I had wanted to go back and pay the salon guy for my haircut, but my friend said, no, why pay him, he didn't do anything, let's just go. And then we were in a neighboring, empty storefront, and someone threw a body through the half-open front door and gosh, sigh, we were going to have to figure out a way to get rid of it.

We couldn't identify the body. And, dear readers, lest any of you are concerned, I can't identify the friend who cut my hair dream either. It was a composite of -- well, many of you.

Madcap adventures that some psychologists would ask me to pay deep attention to, and most would suggest I just disregard. Yes, as we like to say at The Perverse Lutheran, what does this mean?

I try to post at least once in my blog every February, to mark The Perverse Lutheran's beginning in February of 2006. I wish I had something more coherent than a dream this Monday morning, but here are three things from the weekend I was still pondering at 5am this morning:

The dissonance of yesterday afternoon's Bach cantata. But how does one write about that? Words can't do what music can. That's why it's music. Even the text of the cantata itself pales next to what Bach did with it.

Transfiguration Sunday and the "burying" of the alleluia until Easter. In yesterday morning's children's sermon, the pastor asked, what does alleluia mean? "Rise up," said one child, which is not exactly right, but is still intriguing." Alleluia means praise God," said the preacher, when there were no more answers from the kids. This is, of course, true, but not enough. I say, alleluia means what it means: vowels and consonants sung in many keys, many melodies, through joy and sorrow. Praise, triumph, victory, heavenly longing, communal singing. Majesty. Easter. Not a word, but an orientation.

Thing three: some highlights from the creative writing showcase at Friday afternoon's tenth anniversary celebration of Opportunity Knocks, the program for disabled teens and young adults that is such an important part of my daughter's life. At the microphone: Sonya with a song lyric, Claire with a poem, and Eliza, my daughter, with a bit of romance. And finally the always radiant Jessica, declaiming her biography from her wheelchair. I typed her final sentence into notes on my phone: "I will never give up no matter how hard life gets."

Bad haircuts, crazy dreams, chromaticism, chaos -- I keep trying. And on Monday morning I say, Alleluia.

Requiem aeternam

My Aunt Shirley died earlier this evening. Not unexpected -- she was at home in hospice care, with the promise of no more trips to the hospital for congestive heart failure. She was, I believe, ninety-one years old, almost four years older than her sister, Marilyn, my mother, who will turn 88 in a few weeks.

My cousin Sue called my sister to tell her of Shirley's death, and told her that they'd had a "nice party" this evening. Shirley's sister-in-law and niece had come from Massachusetts to Michigan to stay for a few days. They'd had a family dinner, visited for a while — "visited,"  which is Midwestern for pleasant conversation — and shortly after that, Shirley put her head down and was gone.

Gone! Gone to a heavenly banquet, a heavenly party, a reunion with those who've gone before: her husband, her brother, her son John, who died of cancer two years ago and who she must have missed so much. And maybe Kris, my son, is sitting nearby.  If John is at the heavenly table (and he surely is!) it's a jolly party, with laughter and bemusement and love and silliness. There are tall tales being told by brother Dave, true mostly, with laughter from Ed, the husband and country pastor, who, if they have farm food at heavenly banquets, has brought home more corn on the cob than even ranks and ranks of angels could possibly eat.

Just last night I had thought about writing a blog piece for Shirley this week, remembering her presence in my life, remembering things we shared, good times we had as kids and young mothers and older adults under her roof -- at the old parsonage and at the new house she designed for herself. She wasn't the person who taught me to knit, but she taught me to knit better, and set me up with my first successful project when I was 8 or 9. She laughed and called me a "stomach knitter" because of the way I steadied the right-hand needle against my body. At the time I suspected she thought this was not a good thing, but I've always remembered it, and it's actually the key to whatever relative speed I have as a lifelong knitter.

A small detail. I'm sure Shirley would not even remember.

Shirley did many things beautifully. She had beautiful handwriting, so beautiful it was intimidating. I remember her cutting gladiolas from her garden and arranging them -- for the altar in church, I think. She sent handmade presents to my daughter, Eliza, for her birthdays -- bags and zippered cases that I've appropriated and used for knitting projects. She quilted and collected pitchers (as do I) and arranged colored glass bottles on the windows of her sun porch for the light to shine through in the morning. The house she laid out for herself had spaces for the big pieces of country furniture she owned -- her grandmother's table, the pie safe, the desk from the old church with its towering hutch. And she kept the family stories along with the family furniture.

Shirley was my mother's older sister. So yes, that means she was there to try to fix things, to be the boss, the one in charge, whether that was helpful or not, because that's what oldest sisters do. This could be hard for my mother, and the frustration that ensued could be hard for Shirley. (I speak as the oldest of three sisters, born myself to be in charge!) We both worked on letting go.

There will be lots to remember in the days ahead. Lots to smile about. And so many things that people will remember from Shirley's years as a first grade teacher, as a mother and grandmother, and a quilter and friend, that I, who visited Michigan only once or twice a year, don't even know about. Things to think of and wonder about, knowing some family stories have now passed, along with Shirley.

I'm having my own party as I write this, a glass of decent red wine and the best of the Christmas chocolate. I'll get out my knitting, maybe text my sisters, put my feet up on the ottoman. I'll have a nice visit with all the things and the presence that I remember about Shirley.

Rest eternal grant her, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon her. 

The Slaughter of the Innocents

It's December 29. In the "Twelve Days of Christmas," it's the fifth day of the season, with "gold rings" given by true love in the song. This year the fifth day is also the First Sunday of Christmas, where the gospel reading this year, Lectionary Year A, is Matthew 2:13–23. This would be Joseph and Mary's flight to Egypt and Herod's orders to kill all the children under age two in Bethlehem, agitated as he was by the threat of a new king. The Slaughter of the Innocents.

The story seems out of sequence. We won't hear about the wise men following the star to Herod's court in Jerusalem and ultimately to the baby in Bethlehem until Epiphany on January 6. But at a distance, time folds back on itself. We hear in one story the echoes of others, from times before and after. And history has no shortage on stories of slaughter, of times of "wailing and loud lamentation" (v. 18).

Today, December 29, is also the 129th anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee. I learned this from a Facebook friend who posted this link, and I then read more at Wikipedia. In an attempt to disarm a band of Lakota Sioux, the U.S. 7th Cavalry ended up murdering at least 150 men, women and children -- perhaps as many as 300. One Lakota man could not be made to give up his gun -- he was deaf and did not understand what the soldiers were saying. The rifle went off, others fired, and the people were slaughtered. Women were shot down as they fled through the snow with infants wrapped in their shawls.

Gold plays a part in this story: the Black Hills of South Dakota had been Sioux land, protected by treaty with the U. S. government — until the Black Hills Gold Rush began in 1874. And gold was only a small part of what white settlers took from native people.

It would be nice, or convenient, or comforting, if we could say such things no longer happen. But that's not true. In many and various ways, innocent people are rendered powerless and suffer the loss of dignity, freedom, life.

When you read about Wounded Knee you learn about the Ghost Dance, a religious movement within the Lakota culture that foretold a time of peace. It would "reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, make the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native American peoples."

Familiar echoes?

Whites felt mystified and threatened by the Ghost Dance, like Herod felt threatened by the prophecies about a rival king. Power and privilege distort vision. God was made human not as a great king, but as a tiny baby, as an ordinary man, as one who suffered and died at the hands of power and privilege. A gift of true love.

This little babe

The second week of Advent. Up early, with silly songs from last night's Christmas concert rehearsal looping through my head.

It's my daughter's birthday today. We had the big party for her last weekend. (There is always a big party.) Today is a quieter day--a usual Wednesday, but with a little birthday shimmer and dinner at a restaurant when the day is done. The early-morning house, the rush of air from the furnace, quiet churn from the dishwasher running in the kitchen — I'm listening, waiting, with slow, morning mind.

Ghosts of days past, of birth days, birth stories, track the house, the dining room, the windows of the kitchen, the living room. My daughter's birth day included a diagnosis of Down syndrome when she was less than 12 hours old.

This little babe so few days old
Is come to rifle Satan's fold.
All hell doth at his presence quake
Though he himself for cold do shake.
For in this weak, unarméd guise
The gates of hell he will surprise. 

That's not the song from last night--it's another concert, also coming up, a text from Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols, and one that goes by  lickety-split. It takes typing to make me see the text. In performance, I'm conducting this, so I'm more focused on controlling the tempo than anything else.

With tears he fights and wins the field
His naked breast stands for a shield.
His battering shot are babyish cries.
His arrow looks of weeping eyes.
His marshall ensigns cold and need
And feeble flesh his warrior's steed.

Warfare, weapons, armies in the field  charging into battle — I should go look for 16th century engravings of these things. Lots of lines, confusion, violence — not my favorite imagery for a life of faith. But that crying, shivering babe at the lead? That seems — well, a lot like life. I've held naked, wet, puling babies in my tired arms, including one small whimpering daughter with Down syndrome 29 years ago today. And I've hugged, held, stroked adults weakened and disabled, confused by cancer, dementia, ALS.

We fight these things -- but even more, we live into them. Cold and need and feeble flesh are weaponized. The music grows ever more confusing, with one voice chasing the next in canons just a beat apart, until they come together to sound the alarm.

His camp is pitchéd in a stall.
His bulwark but a broken wall.
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes.
And thus as sure his foe to wound
The angel trumps alarum sound. 

And then a big unison:

My soul with Christ join thou in fight
Stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib is surest ward
This little babe will be thy guard.

The big finish:

If thou will foil thy foes with joy
Then flit not from this heavenly boy.

Foiled with joy. The struggle, as they say, is real. But so is the joy.

Listen here. Watch the children's faces at the end: Joy!