Pondering Peace Trail… remembering bible school
My first memory of church was going to Vacation Bible School with Mrs. Redfield. She was our neighbor and the mother of Eric, my brothers’ friend. Mrs. Redfield was teaching the kindergarten class for her church’s VBS and she invited me to join her class. The invitation itself was gift, the week with her more so. I do not remember the stories or the other children, but I do remember feeling very much loved by Mrs. Redfield.
In fact most of my childhood memories of church are memories of being surrounded by love. Although the bible stories continue even now to dance in my heart, it is the love of the adults that nourishes my soul to this day.
No doubt my childhood experience under girds the passion that I feel each year as we approach Peace Trail (our alternative to Vacation Bible School). Although not specifically religious, this is a spiritually enriching week in which the adults (and teens!) of our church envelope the children with love. In a very tangible way, I know that I am paying back the incredible gift that Mrs. Redfield offered to me so many years ago.
Now as an adult, I have discovered that as the adults open their calendars, their arms, and their hearts, the children bring to us an equally amazing gift. The children offer to us the gift of play. As I prepare for the week, tending the myriad of details that always accumulate just before we begin, I find myself not only anxious but also very eager. This is the one week of the year that I get to wear shorts every day and get hoarse as we sing and dance and play together. We sing about Bob the Button Man, and the Moose named Fred, and Bananas of the World. We hold hands and share hugs and laugh. We run and reach and listen. By the end of the week we are exhausted, but also filled. Like the children, the adults are enveloped in the love of God made manifest.
Mrs. Redfield tended the child before her, offering to my child-self a week of nurture and play. In so doing, she planted seeds that continued to bear fruit into the next generation. May God so bless our week together.
Note: If you’re in St. Louis next week, please plan to join us each morning from 9am to noon! Registration forms are available on our church website.
singing the wordless song
“Hope” by Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
A primary role of the religious community in post-institution exile is that of experiencing and expressing profound hope. Having borrowed an old Brueggeman essay for last Sunday’s sermon which offered this perspective, I’ve been pondering the presence of hope this week.
How is it that we experience hope when the things upon which we based our hope are disappearing? When the words are gone, what is the tune that remains?
Much like her namesake, my grandmother Wynona, my daughter begins her college search in a world where the financial landscape has been ravaged. The ‘great’ Depression sent my grandmother to secretarial training instead of her intended college path; and though my daughter is on a college visit this weekend, the harsh reality is that the money that we’d been able to set aside has been ravaged by the market crash. What does it mean to pursue an education when the fabric of financial assumptions has shifted?
My church community is edgy and rightfully so. Despite the generosity of a major capital campaign, we cannot forever hide the bitter truth that our expected standard of living as a congregation exceeds our reach. We’ve bled the building to the point of crisis and trimmed every bit of excess. The piper demands to be paid. As we grieve the loss of beloved staff members, we wonder what it means to be church when our choices seem so harsh.
As President Obama enters campaign mode, we are holding our collective breath wondering if health care reform can indeed take root even in a time of economic turmoil.
I worry that to name the changes in the landscape will destroy the song, but I needn’t worry. To be sure there are storms that could thwart the song, for my daughter, for my church, for my nation. But these are storms that I can neither plan nor prevent.
The thing with feathers is cognizant of the changed realities and stubborn in the face of them. There is no denial in hope for hope cannot afford the luxury of the ostrich posture. The thing with feathers is singing long and loud it’s wordless song for those who would hear.
So my daughter is exploring a school in Wisconsin this weekend, our community is invited to share gratitude with Leslie (our former Office Administrator) in worship on August 2nd, and all of us are invited to speak out on behalf of health care reform. Though we neither create nor thwart the song, we can make the choice to sing along.
For the stubborn song and the birds who sing, I am indeed grateful.
in search of connection
Bane and blessing are the farthest reaches of any virtue. Nothing exemplifies these polarities as clearly as the information superhighway.
Although far too old to be the internet generation, my primary means of communication has become keyboard and flashing screen. Both professionally and personally I use a lot of words and share ideas in writing, and the internet is an exceptional tool making my passion so much more accessible and fun. Until it isn’t.
This week I moved into a new townhouse that is, well, very old. The houses are quirky two story homes, brown stucco with red tiled roofs and a carriage house for parking. Unfortunately, conveniences that even I take for granted like phone lines and electricity are retro fits and finding a phone jack near an electric outlet is a challenge. Simply plugging in my wireless router was a challenge.
Once I managed to find enough adapters and extension cord to accomplish that task, I found myself on hold with AT&T customer service for literally hours. First with this department, then the next. Each agent was pleasant and helpful, no doubt trained to compassionately handle the rising blood pressure of the customer when no resolution is in sight. The modem has been tested, the computer, and even the line. All systems are go, but still no internet. What might be a puzzling mystery is a dead zone in communications and as the week careens to a close with deadlines looming, the puzzler in me is giving way to the desperate pastor.
Perhaps the original occupants of this space might have contented themselves with ideas from a book on the shelf and communicated with others writing letters with paper and ink. I believe that I have pens and paper, and I know that I have hundreds of books, but unfortunately they are all in assorted boxes. And though I’ve color coded the boxes for easy identification, I’ve packed the key and have no idea whether the office stuff is in yellow or purple. Pens are as elusive as the internet at this point.
As the evening closes, I find myself with two choices. I can either spend the remainder of the evening in a discombobulated state or I can make the best of an internet-less existence. I am trying to content myself with the task of non-interactive writing at my computer keyboard. Much like letter writing, this task has no immediate feedback, offers no instant gratification. Truth be told, I’m somewhere between discombobulated and contented.
Real life seems to be lived in the tension of the polarities, rarely at the edges, and therein lies the virtue. Still, I hope the sunrise brings with it some clarity about how to move these thoughts from an isolated computer onto my blog (and the information superhighway). If you’re reading this, I’ve succeeded.
remembering farrah
Farrah Fawcett died this week.
I feel the need to write about it because though news of her death warranted a CNN News Break, it was almost immediately buried in the avalanche of media attention when Michael Jackson died just hours later.
Wikipedia says that her impact was particularly strong on teens in the 70’s, which explains my emotional connection. I latent lesbian desire was also no doubt a factor. She was stunning. Absolutely. My brothers and I never missed an episode of her chasing bad guys as an angel.
With fame and fortune secured, Fawcett engaged in more challenging roles. I remember the visceral reaction I had when seeing clips of her in the important made-for-television film, “Burning Bed”. My heroine in such a nightmare of domestic violence was not one I could ever bring myself to watch in its entirety, but my reaction demonstrated the value of the endeavor.
In recent years I had not seen or heard much about this iconic woman. When I read about her most recent illness, it was stunned by the irony of it. A woman who captured our hearts with her beauty, slowly and painfully leaving this world with a most unmentionable form of cancer.
There are no pink ribbons for anal cancer.
Like lung cancer and AIDS, anal cancer is attached to the myth of choice. Most anal cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, which is a sexually transmitted disease. Smoking is also a risk factor.
Our determination to assign blame for illness leaves non-smoking lung cancer patients hugely frustrated. And I find myself wondering if the blame game misses the point.
Quite frankly, being human is a risk factor. Although we might choose whether or not to smoke the first cigarette in junior high, we do not choose where to be born and raised which will likely determine the access to that first cigarette. Although we might choose whether to say ‘yes’ to a sexual invitation, we do not have choice about our hyper-sexed culture which inundates us with conflicting messages about sex and sexuality. Even in those arenas where it would appear that we have choice, many of us have learned the hard way that choice is an illusion when insanity is our god. In 12 step parlance, this is the first step, admitting powerlessness.
Our choice is simply one of illusion or relinquishment.
Farrah Fawcett captured our hearts with the illusion of beauty. The associated industries cashed in as we bought hair rollers and blow dryers in imitation. Close behind were diets, clothes and makeup. But even Farrah couldn’t not beat the rap of human finitude. A painful and humiliating disease shortened her life, but death will come to each of us in it’s time. What Farrah did have choice about was how to respond to the illness, and she chose to respond by offering her nightmare as a teaching tool for others in a documentary which chronicled her illness and treatment. In relinquishing the illusion of control, embracing the vulnerability of being human, Fawcett was able to offer a final gift.
Farrah Fawcett died this week, but she has not been forgotten.
shared space blues
Rumor has it that people stalk into the church yard in the cover of night on July 3rd to stake out the best seats for the venerable Webster 4th of July parade.
One of the benefits of membership in our church is front row seats to the parade. The parade is a classic family event and our gracious church lawn filled with shady trees is a perfect spot for enjoying the tradition.
Unfortunately, as a church with a reputation for being open and affirming, we have allowed not only members but also anyone who wishes to share the space. In fact, our Servant Team even sets up a lemonade stand to provide refreshment to anyone who wishes to join us. Folks who were members years ago, people who’ve never come through our doors, and even those who may know us but don’t particularly like us will be sitting in what would be our front row seats. Clearly, our spirit of sharing has gone too far.
Sharing our space is bane and blessing. We have been gifted with many resources which include an aging facility and a huge lawn. These are incredible resources but costly ones. Fully 20% of our current operating funds are spent on utilities and minimal maintenance, not inclusive of parking lots and yard care. This amount is also not inclusive of any capital improvements and we are now reaping the expense of have spent too many years deferring such projects. To simply maintain the facility at it’s present level, our needed investment is closer to 1/3 of our current income. In times when we are flush, we can celebrate our commitment to sharing our space with all who wish to come. Understandably, we are a little ouchy about giving anything away when economic challenges knock closer to home.
Our angst isn’t that we are selfish, quite the contrary. We are a community that cherishes a rich history of outreach giving and grieves the current level of outreach giving. Of the cash we receive, 10% is directly given to ministries outside of our congregation. We feel good about the small amount that we give and righteously lament that it is not more.
We would like to give money to outreach, but what we have is not money. What we have is an old building with a gracious front lawn. We would like to fill the food pantry over there, but what we have is a summer camp in our basement. We would like to support the denomination to start a new church in West County, but what we have is a new church start in our sanctuary. We would like to send people down to Tower Grove Park to march in the Pride parade, but what we have is a yard full of neighborhood folk wanting to enjoy the Webster parade. We would like to have more control of ministry, but what we have is a spirit alive and moving.
So tomorrow, on the 4th, if you come to the church and the front lawn is already filled, find your way to the basement kitchen and help us make another jug of lemonade. Sometimes outreach is as close as giving up a front row seat in our front yard.
