Holy Week or Wholly Weak?

Well, the fun begins. Seven days, ten services, so many opportunities for grace, and what am I doing? That is a good question.

I usually have this grand spiritual scheme for Holy Week. I promise to pray fervently every day. I think that I will fast too. I attempt to avoid eye contact with the uber-cutie. I try to do some cardinal acts of mercy.

Instead, I camp out on my couch, watching Law and Order. I love Law and Order. I usually gain about two pounds from eating Easter candy. I run all around, doing errands, and fly into the church at the absolute last minute for the service heaving and gasping for breath. I am tired, stuffed and a little grouchy, actually. Perfect for Holy Week services.

I have such high expectations for myself this time of year. I really want to be holy and pious and inspirational. The only thing I am inspiring right now is a nap.

All my posturing, all my precious plans for spiritual enlightenment are tossed aside. I feel rushed. I feel frustrated. My expectations are so ridiculously high that I tumble off and stumble around in the dark, finally stubbing my toe at the foot of the cross.

I want to be sophisticated. I want to be proactive. I want to be completely logical and intellectual. Emotions are all well and good if I can limit them to only a small part of me. I want to be perfect. I know it is foolish, but I can try, right?

But God is not impressed with my sophistication. God just want me to show up sometimes. God wants me to come as I am. God wants my devotion, not my attempts at pious perfection.

Seven days, ten services, so much to do, I must make it holy and special and awesome. But Jesus asks: “Will you eat with me? Will you let me wash your feet? Will you listen to me? Will you pray with me? Will you stay awake with me? Will you walk with me to Calvary? Will you stay with me?”

So I will go. Who am I kidding? I will celebrate and preach and wash feet and sit and listen. I will show up. I will try to let go of my spiritual self expectations, and discover what spiritual delights the Lord has to share with me, if I will just come to him.

Dreaming of the Kingdom

One more Holy Week in some 2000 years of Christian history. One more solemn string of days that reminds us that this radical guy walked among us - walks among us - and shows us how to love, how to dream, and how to thrive in the way God created us to love, dream, and thrive, to be within ourselves in a way humanity has resisted for eons.

We do lots of "kingdom" talk in the church. Striving to bring about the kingdom of God. Dreaming of the kingdom of God. Praying for the kingdom of God. As if it's some elusive widget we must find in a complicated puzzle. But the kingdom, as I recall from a few years of reading the Bible, is here and now, even within us. It's in our deepest dreams and hopes. Dreaming of the kingdom asks us to reach within our souls to listen to the song we sing loudest, or even softest, or the one we are almost afraid to sing because it might be too fabulous for us to imagine. Dreaming of the kingdom asks that we investigate ourselves and our souls to continue to improve as humans in relationship with each other. Dreaming of the kingdom is about loosing our souls to compel us to act in the world, our world, on a grand scale and with those who sit across from us at table.

So, when dreaming of the kingdom, here's some lyrics to the heavenly song:

1. Dignity for one and all. Everyone gets to know they matter, and everyone knows we all matter. We find ways to treat people with dignity, even in the difficult times, even when we don't agree with them. And we don't give up on each other just because life gets sticky and hard. If you don't think Jesus had a comment on this, how many of us would be eating dinner with the same friends who, a week before, left us to die on the cross? Actually, I think if we could master this, the rest would fall into place.

2. Truth in lending. My dreams of the kingdom involve lots and lots of honesty. Life seems complicated enough without people hiding behind emotional walls, intellectualizing instead of owning and exploring their feelings, and engaging in vague or passive conversations in relationships instead of substantive truth. And truth is what's at the bottom of our motivations and fears, so dig away to get to the kingdom, explore your dark places with God and those whom you love (and a professional, as well), and dream of more honest and Godly relationships while you're at it.

3. Bra straps that don't slip during the prayer of consecration. For that matter, shoes that look great without making your feet scream for mercy after four hours. And could they cost some amount less than a third of my paycheck?

4. Safety. Safety in home. Safety in work. Safety in love. Dream of a world where everyone wakes up in a safe place, eats safe food and drinks safe water, and goes to work (or school) in a place where their well-being and dignity are priorities. And then they are surrounded by people who love them in a safe, secure way. And work for that dream wherever you are with the people that you love and even those you aren't sure you can love.

5. Genuine confession and forgiveness. While I'd love to say that dreaming of the kingdom means no one ever hurts anyone ever again, that, as we say in the South, just ain't happening on this side of the kingdom. But our dream can be one where, when we hurt each other, we ask for forgiveness by owning what we did to hurt the other (without the thin platitudes, please), by explaining as best we can why we acted in such a hurtful way (see #2 - and this may take some conversations with a therapist), and by working towards reconciliation very, very carefully and very, very safely for all involved.

6. Self and other awareness. I'm worn out with unaware people. Really. Those people whose actions and motivations are bricked up behind a wall so thick they have no ability or even desire to explore their souls and those people who have no ability to put themselves in another's life. So a dream is one where people know themselves and continue to learn about themselves, each day, within the bonds of community and relationship.

7. Really good chocolate that has no calories. While I'm dreaming...

When Fear Wins

"What would you do if you could do anything?" I asked a colleague who is currently discerning another vocational path.

"Anything?"

"Yep, anything."

And without so much as a pause, this colleague responded, "An elementary teacher in a self-contained classroom."

I've been asking that question to me and to others. What would you do if you recalled that part of you that could stand at the edge of creation and live your passion? What would you do if failure wasn't in the mix, because somehow what you would want to do might not seem "enough" to whoever matters? What would you do if you weren't afraid?

What I've found is that many, many of my friends are doing what they would want to do, albeit not exactly in the proportion they'd like to be living their fearlessness. I've listened to lots of, "I love being a priest, but I wish i could do more writing, painting, praying, or living instead of dealing with one more meeting." I've learned that many people find a way to do what they love, even if they can't get a salary for it, so bravo to them. I've also discovered many more people are letting fear slap them into submission.

Because that's why we stop ourselves from finding fabulous, from following our soul's desire, from really, honestly discerning. We're afraid. Maybe of failure, maybe of making a mistake or looking foolish, maybe of some impending disaster like if I quit my job as an attorney and go to seminary and this priest thing doesn't work out, what then?

Fear's a bitch, really. It winds its way around our hearts and minds and sounds far too logical. I can't do something because I'm considering my options (Jump, dammit, at some point, just jump, God implores us). It might not turn out well (Neither did my 80's perms, but I'm still laughing). What if it's the wrong decision (People bought Yugos and they are still among us to tell the tale). I have financial responsibilities, student loans, too much invested, never lived that far away from home. Dig around your mind - you've said them, too, when faced with a choice. Fear is ambivalence, that place where you just can't make a decision because, well, there are good arguments on both sides, so you just sit there, constantly mulling your options while life goes on. You just sit there, waiting for the right time and the right moment and the right words while fear smiles.

We don't like to admit we're afraid, but we all are, and God's right there with us in our fear, urging us to hope, to dream our dreams, to try something new, and to put our heart into what makes us whole.

So, what would you do if you could do anything? And what part of fear is stopping you?

Stuff I do not put up with anymore

I only wear underwear that is comfortable. I do not wear underwear that rides up. I just do not care that skinny models in magazines try to convince me to buy things that aren't comfortable. Clothes should be comfortable. I will not put up with otherwise!

I can only deal in the truth. What I mean is that, I no longer believe that I am preserving your feelings by lying to you. I certainly do not think anyone should be rude, but I strive to always be honest. I appreciate honesty especially when it keeps me from smiling all day long with spinach in my teeth. I realize that I do not have time to sift through platitudes, white lies, uncomfortable smiles to get to the truth.

I finally reject regret. That goes with telling the truth. You tell the truth by living it. I try to never hold back. I love fiercely and foolishly. I blunder, and I realize that I will continue until I die to blunder. If I avoid blunders I can be safe, but I can also miss out on all the mystery and wonder that this world has to offer. I cannot live with regret. I need to know that I have actually said my piece. I need to know that I acted courageously throughout my life when I come before the Great Judgment Seat of Christ.

I do not have time anymore for relationship games, double speak, or toying with another’s emotions. Relationships are central to life. I cannot attempt to control another through manipulation or emotional terrorism. I do not need a slave. I need a friend. I need to know that I can trust you, and you can trust me. I am all for flirting, but not if the motivation is unclear. Flirting is for showing affection. I am trying to live my life more honestly. Frankly, I just do not have time for you to toy with my emotions. Tell me the truth: Do you love me? Do you want to be friends? Are you unsure but you like spending time together? I can deal with that, but I cannot deal with mixed messages and no communication.

Finally, I do not put up with uncomfortable shoes. I have people to see. I need to be able to walk. I do not want squished toes. It makes me grimace and unable to focus on what I need to focus on. I also will not put up with ugly shoes. I know that comfort and fashion meet but it is on a very expensive street. I am willing to go there.

So, what do you not put up with anymore?

What Worms Know about Redemption

I’m having an argument with my red wiggler worms. They don’t seem to like their plastic compost bin home. When I check the bin each morning, I find escapees under various flower pots, and a game of “capture the worms” ensues, all before my morning tea. Sophie, my dog, enjoys the game. She’d like to help catch the worms, too, but she’d eat them. They should like their bin, filled with decaying fruit and vegetables, sloppy shredded newsprint, and some damp wood chips thrown in for good measure. A worm’s heaven, I think. Yet they crawl out.

Vermiculture, it’s called. Put veggie and fruit refuse, with enough carbon-based stuff like shredded newsprint and wood chips, add some water and red wiggler worms, and let them go to town. Usually in a month, when they aren’t trying to escape, they have devoured our food waste and excreted worm castings, a scientific term for worm poo, which is high, extremely high, in organic nutrients. So rich, in fact, that you cannot use it for potting soil because the plants would overdose on nutrients. Our garbage pooped into a great natural fertilizer.

Worms take stuff we throw away, that we have no use for, and produce something that nourishes our plants so we can grow things we do have use for.

The great cycle of redemption, demonstrated by worms.

Of course, I want the great cycle of redemption via composting neatly contained in a plastic bin with holes poked in the top. It’s contained and controlled. It’s not particularly messy, and it’s easy to see the results when nothing else is around. Just open the bin and scoop out the fertilizer.

The worms have other ideas.

Worms are not particularly complex, physiologically. They’re worms. Not single-celled, but not that far up the development chain. As far as we know, they don’t read or write or discuss great ideas or even argue about which ways to worship God are valid and which ways are severely deficient.

Yet they act out in their lives the great premise that Christ tried so hard to get us humans to understand - that nothing is wasted in God’s creation. We humans, we creations of God who are magnificently complex and gifted with memory, reason, and skill, seem to fail with some regularity in this arena. We like shiny, new, and clean. If it’s broken or scratched or too old, we call it garbage. If it doesn’t look like something familiar, it’s garbage. If it involves a change of heart from the way we’ve always done it, it’s also garbage.

Worms take garbage and produce a nutrient-rich substance.

With our opposable thumbs and complex brains, perhaps God expects that we, too, can look around the world and see opportunities for redemption instead of garbage and waste. If you’re too poor, too rich, too addicted to drugs or alcohol or money, too fearful or too honest, or too whatever that causes us to pull our hearts from relationship and treat each other as disposable, we put the throw-aways in the great trash bin of the universe, close the lid, and go about life.

Humbling that worms seem to have a better grasp of God than humanity, at times. Their inherent nature is to take the stuff we throw out and make something rich and useful of it. Maybe it’s our nature, too.

We just have to work a bit harder to find it in ourselves.

Redemption, whether worms turning garbage into fertilizer or humans recognizing that all of God’s creation is of value, happens as God would have it, not as we would like it to happen. Sometimes redemption is neat and tidy, easily recognizable and contained within familiar boundaries.

Sometimes, most of the time, redemption needs to work outside the boundaries we’ve set. Subtle and even imperceptible to anyone else but God and the person whose garbage has been turned into rich soil, holy redemption transforms.

Right now, I feel like the person who was the garbage set out, thrown away by one who I hoped knew better, but crumbled when things weren’t perfect. Crumbled like we humans do, actually, when things look messy and spill over the expected boundaries and safe places.

So today, in my place where God is with me, I finally listen to the worms and accept that they know what they want and how to do what they need to do. I dump them in my herb garden and free them from my constraints.

And I begin the process of letting God take my life, sadness and all, and inviting the transformation into something that is of use.