Are you afraid of the dark?

Who's afraid of the dark?  I'd like to pretend I'm Little Miss Brave, but when I walk into my really dark house because I've been gone longer than I thought and failed to leave any lights on, I'm quite certain that shadowy shape in the corner is some snot-nosed monster waiting to jump out and give me a bad haircut.  Or something worse.   And for us clergy types that have walked into a totally darkened church and the light switches are at the opposite end from where we're standing, most of us feel our pulse quicken just a bit as we wonder what lurks in the dark.  Holy space or not, in the total dark, most churches are creepy.  Face it, we humans are hard-wired to be afraid of the dark.  We can't see what's there.

But flip on the lights, and suddenly the monster in the corner is nothing more than the treadmill with my clergy shirts that are clean but haven't migrated to the closet.  Light one candle in a darkened church, and that formerly creepy space becomes holy and prayerful.  The shapes and shadows that we can't see in the darkness become less scary, maybe even not scary at all, in the light.  The darkness, with a bit of light, becomes something that can helps us be quiet and focus, perhaps even surrender ourselves to God.

One of God's more annoying habits is constantly offering us the opportunity to face our fears, those mistakes we make and make and make, those parts of our souls that are darkness.  The big fears that we rarely admit to others, if we even fully admit them to ourselves.  Fear of loss of love, fear of not being enough, fear of being alone and abandoned, and fear of failure, to name a few.  The big fears that we all have, in some form or another.  The darkness and shadow of ourselves that we'd rather ignore, but we will always find ourselves stumbling into these fears and the mistakes and messes they cause again and again.  

Sometimes we pretend we don't have any fears.  Me?  I'm not scared of anything.  I'm so self-aware that I know ALL of my fears and have dealt with them accordingly.  Or, we pick some fears, like, Hugh Jackman and Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream and hope that God will make us face those fears accordingly.  Another clue of our fears?  The things we hate, really hate, in others.  Or when we blame others for their actions that trigger our fears, although usually that trigger manifests as anger and we lash out, adding even more darkness to the situation.  Interestingly enough, our fears are almost always triggered by other people, who have their own fears.  It's a lovely mess, isn't it?

Ahh, what fun.

But we have a choice.  We can continue to wrap ourselves in our darkness, ignoring our fears and blaming others for upsetting our lives.  We can dismiss those whose presences throw light on our fears.  Lots of people take that path, because it's really the easy way.  Or we can stand still and see what's in the darkness of those deep fears, trusting that the light of God will give us enough sight to see, enough light to ease the terror we may feel.

God doesn't confront us with our fears and darkness because God enjoys seeing us miserable (although a few times I've wondered).  God recognizes that we aren't perfect and never will be on this side of the Kingdom.  Something fascinating about God's balance, that for us to see light, we must have darkness.  Fears never go away, but we can lessen them so they don't cause paralyzing terror and mayhem in our lives.  Perhaps we can even use them to let God's light shine a bit brighter.

So when we are sitting in our darkness and God lights that candle, resist the urge to snuff it so we can stay in the darkness.  Perhaps the holy thing is to shiver and shake if need be as God continues to shed light on our deepest fears, until we find the holy strength to own them as part of our divine selves.  After all, God does carve the rotten wood and needs darkness to allow light to shine.

Crutches: Free to Good Home or Whoever May Need Them

I've moved.  However diligent I may pretend to be about culling through my belongings and only moving things I use, really use, that lofty goal makes it through the first five boxes I pack on my own.  Then, I surrender to the movers, who just pack it all. I'll sort it out when I get to my new home, I offer to no one in particular other than my own conscious.

Now I'm in my new home and unpacking.  A friend who's moved a few times in her military career explained the three box theory to me.  Put three boxes in a room.  One is garbage, things I have that need to end their lives of use because they are broken or just worn out and have no hope of being recycled.  And be harsh, she said, because no one needs your broken answering machine or the cracked glassware that didn't make the move, no matter if it is Lenox.  Box two:  the things that I definitely don't need anymore, but someone might.  Various charitable stores will be happy to take the mismatched dishes I've never really used, books I've read that I don't want to keep, and that tragic printed towel set I received as a gift from a long-deceased great aunt.  The last box is the tough one:  things that had a place in my last life and home, but just don't seem to fit anywhere in my new life and home.  Or, let's be honest, stuff for which I never really had a place, but like keeping, because somehow I decided keeping those twelve dessert cups will ensure my place in heaven.  I was advised to live in my new space for a while, but when it's time, be willing to let go of the shower curtain that doesn't match the new bathroom or the picture frames that don't seem to fit anywhere.  Let them go to a new, good home or whoever may need them.

As you can imagine, the last box is the tough one.  Eventually, almost everything in this box will end up being given away if you engage the process, according to my friend.  Getting to that admission, however, takes a bit of detachment.  As I looked at a stack of picture frames and a few thousand plastic hangars which seemed to appear out of nowhere, I started that internal dialogue about how I might use these one day, and maybe I'd better save them, just in case.

"Just in case...what?"  My sassy pirate-side of my soul asked.  Plastic hangars suddenly become a valuable currency?  You just happen to need twelve picture frames that are chipped or just ugly?  They are taking up space, just like those crutches in the corner.

Oh, yes, the crutches.  I broke a bone in my foot a few years ago and somehow ended up owning the crutches.  So I kept them.  While my bone was healing, they were quite handy.  They did their pretty limited task of helping me walk very well.  When I couldn't stand or walk on my own, those crutches were quite the amazing presence in my life.  Then my bone healed, and I stuck the crutches in a hall closet.  I might break another bone, so better to keep them, I reasoned.  No matter that the odds of that happening were slim.  Or that if I did break a bone or do something that hampered my mobility, I might receive a new pair of crutches that didn't have the rubber grips dry rotting.

Nope.  I just kept this old pair for several years, dragging them around as I moved, letting them take up space wherever I lived.

We all have the crutches in the corner, the crutches of our lives we once needed to help us stand or walk because we were injured, physically, emotionally, or spiritually (and if you don't think you have any because you've never been injured, well...).  My crutches, at least the ones leaning in the corner, were tangible, but I've got a few of those symbolic crutches, too.  We all do - those thoughts, excuses, people, or behaviors that we needed at some point to help us when we were injured, battered, tired, and bruised.  Then one day, we realized the bones had mended, the fabric of the soul is rewoven, and our bruises have faded.  We can walk, run, sing, dance, or do whatever God is inviting us to do.  So we drop the crutches and leave them, right?  Like the people Jesus healed who trusted Christ's healing and went on, crutch-free?

Sometimes.  But many times, I think we have to drag them around for a while, letting them take up space in our lives, in our homes, and in our selves.  We know we are healed, but we keep wondering if the healing took, if we are really living this new creation.  Maybe we even try to recycle the crutches.  Maybe I can use these in the garden, we think.  Yes, a trellis.  That will work.  And sometimes, crutches do get recycled, but God does that and said recycling feels good and right, not something to drag around that lives in our soul rent free.

Jesus, through the voices of our own soul and the voices of friends, keeps saying, "Really, you're okay.  Why are you keeping what you don't need anymore?"

But we do keep what we don't need anymore, just in case.  Eventually we come to believe, to know that  God will provide new ones, when we need them.  Ones that aren't dry rotted.  Ones particularly suited to our new injury.  But dragging around the old ones takes energy and space in our lives.  Oh yes, we remember them and give thanks as we release them, but they don't need to take up space anymore, not even a small corner in a tiny closet.

My foot is healed and has been for some time.  So they go, those well-used and appreciated crutches.  Now I pass them on to whoever may need them.



      

Good Ju Ju

You can't live in Louisiana for any length of time and not pick up some of the culture of the state whose earliest inhabitants included pirates and voodoo queens. I prefer Cafe du Monde coffee, because the rest of the free world sells plain coffee, not the stuff that can also double as paint thinner; Tony's spice, which adds a kick to anything edible; and Tabasco.  Only Tabasco.  It's a weird Louisiana thing that there's Tabasco and everything else.  And I talk about good ju ju. That, actually, is more from Clint's vocabulary as well as Louisiana culture. He's also an interloper in Louisiana. But he's a connesiur of good ju ju.

Good ju ju? Some people call it good karma, good luck, or blessings. It's an old voodoo term that has been appropriated in the Mary-Laurie-Clint vocabuluary to be a particular blend of joy, redemption, and laughter. We do not practice voodoo or even know enough about it to keep us out of trouble; we do practice seeking that which is overflowing with joy, redemption, and laughter. Good ju ju can flow into your life when the temptation to allow fear, negativity, and hopelessness sour a person, place, or experience. Good ju ju makes a bad movie fun because you and your friends comment mercilessly on just how bad it is. Good ju ju are the words that someone who loves you says after you've done the whole ugly cry thing, complete with red, puffy eyes and a runny nose, and you hear yourself laugh. Good ju ju sends us back to a place with negative memories and invites us to let joy redeem the space.

So after living in Lexington all of seventy-two hours, Clint and Laura, another friend who excels in good ju ju, showed up at my new home. We could have unpacked some more. We could have organized the three thousand books scattered over the floor. We could have, but we didn't. Instead, we decided to drink in some local Kentucky culture at a bourbon distillery.

As usual, we found humor in things seemingly normal. We touched the spongy funk that develops on the top of the fermenting sludge that will eventually become bourbon and asked if we could taste it, too. The tour guide seemed mildly disconcerted by this request. Apparently, people don't generally think tasting said sludge is a neccesary part of the tour. She said it's probably safe, so we tasted (imagine beer mixed with soggy bread). We took silly pictures, because how better to commemorate a visit to any place than with pictures that demonstrate distinguished and aristocratic are not the image you're going for. We even signed a bourbon barrel with full titles: The Reverends. That is perhaps the holiest bourbon barrel in Kentucky.

I'd been to this distillery before, but the visit was definitely not this much fun. As I stuffed another bourbon ball into my mouth, I said so. Clint smiled.

"You just needed good ju ju."

Good ju ju may just be an ecclectic word for love. Like love, it almost never exists in isolation. It's a bit elusive to describe, but we know it through the sound of laughter, the smile that can't be contained, and the moments where we forget ourselves and surrender to the exuberance of life.

So this week, here's wishing good ju ju to all. And chocolate bourbon balls in every kitchen.

Being moved

I'm sitting in my bedroom, or what will soon be my former bedroom. The last night in my home that will soon be someone else's home. No furniture anymore,just scattered piles of things that I will need in the first nights of my new home before my things arrive or things that the movers don't move, like all those bottles of bubble bath and jars ginger sugar scrub. Who wrote those rules?

This has been a long day. I woke up in my bed, stumbled into my kitchen, made a cup of coffee and sat outside on my back porch. For the last time. Then the movers came. I opened cabinets and closets. They took notes, and Travis and his crew began methodically to pack up my belongings. And I couldn't do anything but watch.

Being moved is a very passive activity. Others wrap plates and pack boxes of towels. Others carry your sofa and bed to the waiting truck. You, well, you just stay out of the way. You just sit, making yourself available to answer some questions when needed.

"Ma'am, did you want this packed?" No the trash can go, well, to the trash.

"Are you doing okay?" the head mover, Travis, asked. Yes, I said politely. Just not used to sitting around doing nothing. So I called a few friends, paced around for a bit, walked outside, and fell into a routine fight with an acquaintance via text messages. Nothing like those in our lives who will push our buttons just right. But at least, my shadow side noted, you are doing something.

Until I remembered about being moved. We like activity in our lives. Doing something to solve this problem. Actively praying to seek that answer. Engaging in anything that will fill those quiet spaces in our lives until we are absolutely sure what we should do next. Except that what we should do next is usually something that puts us in total control and complete certainty and lets our egos shout, "I rule!"

Sometimes, even most times, God implores us to submit to being moved, to sit and make ourselves available to answer some questions. To stay out of God's way as God works in our lives. Or just to sit until we are invited to become active again. To be passive while God prepares the space. To be willing to enter into the unknown without expectations or agendas.

So I just sat while the movers did their job. I still had lots of silent thoughts, so I wasn't all that passive. I did think, however, about being moved. How, in this last year, God invited this rather unwilling pilgrim on a deep spiritual journey and how much of that journey was filled with moments of complete passivity and surrender, where I implored God to let me be active, and God said, "No. Just sit." Then when God did give me the go-ahead to move, I found all sorts of excuses to stay put and sit. But God implored some more, then finally gave me a big shove into this new place.

But I'm not quite in that new place. Not just yet. I still have some waiting to do, some holy "being moved" in these next few days until I get to the new place. The human movers are finished, and I'm sitting in empty space. I'll sleep one last night here, then begin the journey to my new empty space where one of my dearest friends will help me unpack. All the while, being moved.

Liturgical Ideas that Never Made It into the Sanctuary- Thank God!

Late at night great ideas besiege me. I write them down, and the next morning I try to decipher what I meant or why I though these were good ideas. Here goes:

1. You have heard of the U2charist. How about the Gagocharist? Design a service around the music and style of Lady Gaga. Just imagine wearing a disco ball as a biretta with a meat covered chasuble, singing “Bad Romance” with the organ, and preaching about lack of connection and communication using the video from “Telephone.” I think that we might have a winner.
2. How about using a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin for the bread and a café au lait for the wine at the Holy Eucharist? Edgy and delicious. In fact, each Sunday the priest could select a different awesome bread/ pastry product for the bread and warm delicious beverage (think hot cocoa) for the wine. The Body and Blood of Christ never tasted better!
3. Look for a dramatic rendering of the Last Supper during Holy Communion- wait, I actually suggested this to my liturgy professor in seminary and she tried to hit me after I said it.
4. Move the altar to the entrance of the church so everyone has to turn around in their pews to see what is going on- annoying and unexpected. Innovation for the sake of innovation.

Maybe I just need to take a shot of whiskey and fall asleep instead.