we are all fish

I am in the middle of reading a book called Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan. It's very weird in an 18th-century meets Fight Club meets Griffin and Sabine sort of way. At the moment, it feels very physical, very dense, very difficult but true. Here's a taste from the narrator and fish-painter:

They diminish me with their definitions, but I am William Buelow Gould, not a small or mean man. I am not contained between my toes & my turf but am infinite as sand.

Come closer, listen: I will tell you why I crawl close to the ground: because I choose to. Because I care not to live above it like they may fancy is the way to live, the place to be, so that they in their eyries & guard towers might look down on the earth & us & judge it all as wanting.

I care not to paint pretend pictures of long views which blur the particular & insult the living, those landscapes so beloved of the Pobjoys, those landscapes that trash the truth as they reach ever upwards into the sky, as though we only know somewhere or somebody from a distance--that's the lie of the land while the truth is never far away but up close in the dirt, in the vile details of slime & scale & filth along with the Devil, along with the angels, & all snared within the earth & us, all embodied in a single pulse of a heart--mine, yours, ours--& all my subject as I take aim & make of the fish flesh incarnate.

truth vs. falsehood

Some people say that religion is just a collective delusion—that it’s all false and the hope we find isn’t real. Karl Marx is famously quoted as saying “Religion is the drug of the masses”—that is, religion lulls us into a false sense of security and joy. I suppose they could be right. I mean, we’re surrounded by false images. Ads for anything from make-up to beer are touched up to the point that they barely resemble their original subjects. And they tell us we can be prettier, smarter, and better-liked if we just buy a certain product.

But who tells us the truth? How do we know when something is really truly true?

I just watched Lars and the Real Girl [PG13]. It’s about this painfully introverted guy Lars who buys a life-sized doll and falls in love with her. Sounds weird, huh? Well, it is a bit, but it’s also really beautiful. It’s not really the story of his love for “Bianca” but about his small town’s love for him. He’s obviously delusional (thinking that “Bianca” talks to him and has a whole other life) but they go along with it. It’s very funny at times—the moment he introduces her to his family is priceless, mostly because you’re cringing the whole time. It’s dark humor about how even a lie can bring joy.

And that’s what I want to say to people who doubt what I put my faith in. Greater minds than mine have tried to prove the existence of God so I won’t try here. But I do want to say that the joy that “Bianca” brings to this small town and the community Lars experiences are so very real. Who’s to say that “Bianca” isn’t real, too?
Maybe truth comes in different and surprising packages. My experience of the world tells me that God is not a lie, that the comfort and challenge I find at church are not false but deeply true. Others may look into my life and say it’s all a delusion, but to me, the beauty and ugliness of the entire story are Truth.

lord, I believe. help thou my unbelief

warning: slight grossness

A friend of mine once commented, "If you want to understand me, start with Emilio Sandoz." That's a horrifying comment since, in the novel The Sparrow Emilio has the flesh forcibly removed from his hands, sees all his friends die horrifically, and then is raped by an alien race.

Yet, in thinking about it, Emilio is something of a kindred spirit. He is a Jesuit priest and has been for most of his life. He is a brilliant linguist and a devoted priest, yet he admits that he has never really had the feeling of the presence of God. He knows in an intellectual way that God is present and watching and participating, but has never felt God's action or love. It's all theoretical until he journeys to the planet Rakhat where the divine lamp is turned on and he is suffused with joy and peace. I have had moments in my life where the presence of God was evident, where I felt warm and full and right, but they are few and far between. It sometimes feels like I'm forcing something to be a God-moment because I want it to be.

And lately, I have noticed a great fear of being useless, of not being able to work, to do, to earn my way. Emilio's useless hands struck me powerfully throughout the book as I wondered what that might be like practically and spiritually. One day, I will grow old and be "useless" in the conventional sense. Right now, I have absorbed the world's ideas of success and beat myself up when I don't achieve them. I, alone, am responsible for the spiritual growth of the youth in my care, I think. I, alone, can change their lives concretely. And when something comes by (illness, normal human imperfection, whatever) that challenges those assumptions, I am crushed. My ego is so firm that I don't really know what to do with failure.

Failure is not only normal but expected. And we don't really believe it. The prophet Isaiah was called to a failing ministry, all the prophets lived in disgrace, Jesus died. Living with faithfulness and righteousness means suffering and failure. I want to be okay with "enough" and with imperfection but it is really difficult to let go of a culture's assumptions.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters would say that perfection is not about being right but being righteous. Christian mystics have said that our journeys are not about success but about being faithful. I believe that. I really do. Lord, help my unbelief.

how have you been changed?

There is a moment when things change. A moment that makes all the difference between one thing and another. Back in the day, when I was little, they sold these postage stamps that had been in space. NASA sent stamps up in the shuttle for a mission and then sold them as mementos. The stamp itself was no different than any other stamp you could buy around the corner—BUT IT HAD BEEN IN SPACE—it was the moment that gave it significance. Something happened to change them.

Our lives are like this: we are constantly on the move, constantly changing, constantly jumping from moment to moment. God, too, is not static—God creates but then strolls in the garden at the time of the evening breeze; God wanders with the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years; God incarnates—God becomes human and grows and learns and travels. God, in Jesus, does a surprising amount of wandering. He’s always on the road to somewhere or meeting people as they’re on the way. He couldn’t even stay put in death but left an empty tomb and questions behind him, only to meet a couple of his disciples on the road to Emmaus.

C.S. Lewis wrote about this traveling God in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. You remember, the characters saying that Aslan—the lion who was king and also God—“Aslan is on the move.” God is on the move. This is not a God who is content in one place. This life is not going to stay put and neither is our relationship with God. We are complicated people, you and I. We love God one minute, but the next are so angry we could spit. We worship in ecstasy and doubt with passion. We are apathetic. We sin, we repent, we give up on the whole business. And that’s ok. Hear, O Israel—where you are on your Exodus road, where you are on your road to Emmaus, where you are on your spiritual journey is ok. Notice it. Embrace it.

i'm just saying...

There is a place in heaven for every single person regardless of what we've made of our lives. That said, to club a baby seal, you really have to hate all that is good and true and beautiful.

mind over matter

I heard on one of the news programs on NPR the other day that economists say the economy is doing fine and that consumers say it's not. Maybe this is nothing new but it got me thinking about perception. I remember talking in my high school economics class about why things happen the way they do; the consensus among the old white guys we read was that the perception of the people is the primary factor. That is, if people in general thing things are going well, they'll spend and invest more and thus things will be going well. And if they start to panic and think things are going sour, they'll spend and invest less and thus things will indeed go sour. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Of course, there are outside factors including wars and natural disasters, but the state of the economy seems to be largely based on how we feel about it. Makes one wonder if the Depression could have been avoided if folk either hadn't known about the Stock Market numbers or hadn't assumed the worst and taken all their money out of the banks. It also makes one wonder how much we buy into the collective consciousness--just because we hear things aren't good doesn't mean we should panic. Unless of course you're one of the unlucky who are let go from a job because your employers have gotten concerned about the downturn.

Because in that moment, the theoretical, collective consciousness, vague theory of economics becomes hard and sharp and real. What do you say to someone who's lost their job or had hours cut in the face of rising gas and medical costs? Just think happy thoughts?

something new

Today we heard little Potatoes Wilson's heartbeat for the first time. I was completely unprepared. I had no idea what the doctor was doing and then I heard it--the very loud, very fast heartbeat that wasn't mine.

My first thought is, "Thank God it's still alive" because apparently I have a powerful fear that something I do or eat will hurt it. My second is, "Wow, that's loud." Loving Husband just had a look of shock on his face.

I think it's slowly dawning on us how real this whole thing is. Don't get me wrong, we are thrilled and can't wait to meet Potatoes. However, we don't really believe there is a Potatoes to meet, if you catch my drift.

doughnuts and jesus

Have you ever had a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut fresh off the conveyer belt at 6 in the morning? No? Go ahead and set your alarm now so you can drive to the closest Krispy Kreme—in Columbus—and try it. I'll wait.

How was it? No, I don't expect you to have actually driven to Columbus, but I do expect you to try it next time you're in a city with a Krispy Kreme bakery. You won't regret it. Let me paint the picture for you. When you walk in, your nose fills with the scent of baking dough and hot glaze. You can see through several large glass windows the machinery which makes the doughnuts: mixers, shapers, some sort of tall, rise-inducing rack, the oven or vat or whatever it is that cooks them (it's been a while for me), and the conveyor they arrive on, doughnuts freshly drenched in sweet glaze. At this point, you may think, "So what? It's a commercial baking enterprise." If you were there, you would only be thinking that until you ordered your doughnut, had it handed to you, still hot, from the conveyor, and taken your first bite.

My friends, this is what heaven tastes like. It's hot but not uncomfortably so, sweet but with a strong undertone of yeast, and literally melts in your mouth. It is not, though I may try, a taste that can really be described. And it is, much to my disappointment, almost completely unlike the taste of the same doughnut several minutes later. Once it cools, the glaze hardens, the dough firms up, and the taste of heaven dissipates like smoke on the breeze. The doughnut we buy at the store bears no relation to this newly-minted, fresh, passionate doughnut.

That's right, passionate. Because I'm not just waxing lyrical about breakfast foods in my second-trimester state, I'm talking about the Gospel, too. How often have we heard the Gospel preached and it sounds nothing like what Jesus actually said? Or it has no taste, no yeast, no passion? Or it's gone stale? And how often do we ourselves feel that way about it, ignoring the scandalous implications of Jesus' words and the drastic measures he wants us to take to change the world? Jesus offers us the Gospel—the fresh-off-the-conveyor, melt-in-your-mouth, taste of heaven doughnut—and we receive or offer the world the day-old, store-bought version.

To be fair, we've always quite liked the day-old, store-bought version—it's sweet and a little salty and satisfies what we think we want. But there's more out there—there's challenge to live better, there's powerful comfort in grief, there's unnamable joy when you search for it and get up early and wait for a glimpse of the kingdom. But the kingdom isn't really like a doughnut, friends. There is a cost to discipleship. We are charged to sacrifice our sleep and our wealth and our comfort for the sake of others and for the sake of God. It is not easy to follow in Jesus' footsteps and we all too often decide to sleep in and go to the convenience store instead. But the reward for following is passionate life and a taste of heaven.

What is your passion at Redeemer? How is your faith evident in what you do in the world? What are you sacrificing for the sake of heaven? And what have you tasted as a reward?

moment of joy

This steampunk laptop is, as the kids say, made of awesome and win.

non-attachment

There was once a part of me which loved mowing the lawn. It was such a zen kind of moment. The action of cutting the grass shorter proved my existence and that my presence had made a difference in the world, yet it was short-lived: within days the grass grew back and there was no way to tell I'd been there.

The same is true for house-cleaning, only the "re-growing" is our clutter which is proof positive that we exist. Cleaning the house, de-cluttering, sweeping, dusting, laundry--it all gives a powerful sense of satisfaction when it's done. "I was here and I made a difference. I have triumphed over the forces of chaos and filth." But of course it doesn't last. The house, like the universe, gradually succumbs to entropy.

I suppose this might be depressing to some--that no real change can be made--that the grass and the clutter continue to grow despite our best efforts. I am oddly comforted by the encroaching chaos--the world continues without me, the community I live in will exist after we leave, the faith community perseveres through clergy and lay changeover, the earth remakes itself with each passing moment. What we do is not permanent, and we'd do well to remember it. Our towers and committees will all eventually fall apart yet the spirit that animated them will not.

The prophet Qoheleth wrote "Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun." Again, some read this as depressing, but it rings so truly and beautifully in my ears. Only the moment is truly available to us--the past cannot be undone and the future is only a theory--it is only the olam, the eternal now, the depth of a single moment, that is where we live.

When I took ceramics in college, our professor--a gruff, hippie sort--spent a lot of time on "non-attachment." When you make a pot, he said, you pour your heart into it. You shape it with your hands, it's messy, it's beautiful, and you love it. And then you surrender it to the processes of drying, bisque firing, glazing, and re-firing and at any point along the way it could break. Your beautiful pot containing your heart could break and be worthless. So don't get too attached. Create with your hands and heart, invest fully in the moment of creation, then let it go.

repenting and big business

Saw Iron Man last night--beautiful, exciting, and surprisingly funny. The bits when Tony Stark converses with his AI lab equipment are priceless.

It got me thinking, though, about a certain genre of movies lately. Iron Man and Batman Begins both focus on men whose lives and livelihoods have been shaped by their parents and other powerful adults into something monstrous. Tony Stark has embraced it by helping his company become the foremost manufacturer of weaponry--and he is filthy rich. Bruce Wayne, too, is filthy rich, but more from his parents' idealistic projects in Gotham. Until the company is overtaken by his "mentor" and it, too, turns to weapons manufacture. Both men at some point in their lives have an epiphany and turn away from the violence and greed of their big businesses. Or at least the greed--they are, after all, superheroes and a certain amount of violence is part of the genre.

It is interesting to me that we go in droves to the movie theatre to see these stories enacted and yet don't really expect CEOs in the real world to follow suit. There is so much talk about corporate culture and consumerism as a necessary evil, yet we cheer on heroes who forsake the path laid out for them and try to save the world. This is, at its base, what repentance is. It means "to turn" or "to turn away." Jesus and others call us out of what we think we have to do, out of the monstrous molds we've grown into, and give us another path. Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne turn away from the corporate sin they've participated in, however unwittingly, and commit themselves to helping the helpless.

What would the world look like if we all did the same?

a forked tongue

How often do you lie?

Seriously, though, how often? I was kind of a goody-two-shoes in high school, so I never lied about staying out or who I was with. Well, except that once when my grandmother was in town and I convinced her that my folks were okay with my going on a 5-hour picnic date with my new boyfriend that they had never met. Yeah. But I’m not a big liar—I can’t. I get guilty when I tell big lies and it’s obvious to everyone. Little ones, though… “I really can’t make it.” “You look great in that dress.” “I’m actually helping the sweat-shop worker by purchasing her product.” Those I tell all the time. It’s easy. I know what I want, and I go after it. Even with a little falsehood.

I just read The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible—at one point, he get’s caught in his truth. His toddler son wants English muffin for breakfast. They’re out. Mom says, “tell him the bagel’s an English muffin—it worked yesterday.” Dad says, “I can’t tell a lie. Little buddy, it’s a bagel and it’s delicious.” Toddler son wants none of it and throws a tantrum. So should he lie to his son? I don’t know. It’s a sticky area, but I do know that lies can destroy relationships. There is no trust. There is no connection. There is no love. And when I get away with a lie, I frequently feel crappy about myself, like there’s a stain in me.

What do you think?

let it go

Wednesday's healing service celebrated the lives of John and Charles Wesley. Made famous, of course, for being the unintentional founders of Methodism and for writing piles of great hymns. The gospel lesson for the day was Jesus' sending out the Apostles to preach the good news and to heal.

Key to the passage is his admonition to "shake the dust off your feet" if they are not welcomed. It suggests that not even the dust of a town that is ambivalent will stay with the Apostles and with the message. They wash their hands of it. They dismiss them with a gesture. On the one hand, you could say it is harsh and contrary to Jesus' radical inclusiveness. On the other, it's a bit of practical psychological advice to Christians wandering through life--do what you can, offer what you have, be open to the lives and experiences of others, but don't sweat it when they don't do the same. Recognize, as Niebuhr's "Serenity Prayer" says, the difference between the things you can change and the things you can't, and be at peace.

internal monologue upon waking up

shoot.

[suddenly panicks]

what have i forgotten? did i miss a meeting? no, that was yesterday and the other isn't until tomorrow. ok. breathe.

[breathes slowly]

the bed is so comfy. i don't need to get up for hours. laundry can wait. 's not so important to get thank you cards/spray paint/unripe fruit this morning. five more minutes.

[gets into more comfortable snoozing position]

wait. don't i have to...nah. that can wait. or can it. what time is it? what day is it?

[looks at phone]

plenty of time if i don't make art or meditate this morning.

[feels stab of guilt]

if i feel this tired, i must need to sleep more. i only got, what, 10 hours? sure, another few minutes won't hurt...

[realizes is already truly awake and kidding self]

[sighs]

[gets up]

youth ministry update

Friday night was the first Guys' Night In, an all-boy lock-in at Redeemer. Think about that for a moment--all teenage boys all the time. And guess who wasn't there? If you guessed PastorAlice, you win. Masterful Mike and his Marvelous Minions led the event to a spectacular finish. Oh, who am I kidding, I really was there, albeit behind the scenes. I just can't let go.

Confirmation is nearing the close of business. We have Michael Battle next week and then our final class on Palm Sunday. Times like this, I'm glad for it to be over but also worried that we didn't teach enough or encourage the class' participation more. I am so passionate about the message of the Gospels and such a church nerd. And I want our teenagers to feel it, too. Sometimes I feel like there should be a magic word or phrase that would grab their attentions and surprise them into deep faith. Of course, I know it doesn't work that way, but like a lot of parents, I want to spare them the aching doubt and the rough path ahead. Mostly, I just want them to react to something.

Sunday night was Girls' Night In--not another lock-in, cause I'm not insane--hang out with just the girls, watch Mean Girls, chat about self-image, etc. Hillie, one of my new lieutenants, is fantastic--she brought a clip from Pretty Woman and a kids' book called The Paper Bag Princess and her own growing up experience to the table. We had a good time, though only two teens showed up. Disappointing, but not surprising.

So, youth ministry scores:
guys playing laser tag and talking about God=5
PastorAlice's quest to have less stress about events=1
Girls' Night=2
confirmation and passion for faith=enh...
misery and woe=0

existentialism

I have never thought Garfield was funny. Even when I was a small child, ostensibly delighted by a mouthy orange cat obsessed with lasagna, the back of my brain said, "Why are you reading this? It's not funny. It doesn't even make sense."

Enter "Garfield minus Garfield". This blogger has removed Garfield completely from the strip. It's reminiscent of another internet phenomenon wherein folk remove Garfield's thought balloons; Jon becomes a sad, single guy who talks to his cat. "Garfield minus Garfield," however, introduces an entirely new level of misery. Jon wanders around his empty house being alternately wacky, explosively angry, or quietly despairing. It is oddly beautiful.

book thoughts

Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster

A careful and heartfelt exploration of the spiritual life, it covers the disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. We cannot expect to recognize our experiences of God, much less understand them, without effort and sacrifice on our parts. God certainly acts in our lives and we, from time to time, see it happening, but we don't know what to do with it. Foster suggests that to deepen our relationships with our brothers and sisters and with God we must be intentional in our practice, both sacred and quotidian. This is the discipline of the title.

I have said for years that I don't fast well--my body doesn't accept the lack of food and I feel ill and miserable. I thought this was a legitimate thesis. And I suppose it can be in some cases. The natural result of fasting, however, is feeling ill, hungry, and kind of empty. The whole point is the discipline of it--getting through the misery of the early stages (and sometimes the middle ones as well) can lead to significant insights into what we hunger and whose we are. Having the discipline to continue in the face of difficulty is what sets the mature apart from the immature. An acquaintance of mine simply doesn't get this in even the simplest of terms. His attitude is that if something is hard or painful, it must therefore be bad and not worth doing. So he doesn't.

Many of you may remember Dumbledore's words to Harry: "The time is coming when we will all have to choose between what is right and what is easy." The Christian life to which we are called is not easy and is not something we can take for granted. To truly change the world and to be transformed ourselves, we must take intentional action. We must discipline ourselves like soldiers or professional artists to do what needs to be done. And there is joy beyond our expectations in that discipline.

v-day post

So, what does the deliriously happy yet appropriately cynical and modern couple do for Valentine's day? I don't know about them, but we drove to the north end of town ("God's country") to the Brazenhead for burgers and scotch, then to Target to buy a new printer, yet another set of plastic bins for comics, cheapo but cute sneakers, and fair-trade chocolate.

Flowers and romance? Pshaw. Nothing says love like a new USB cable.

why i love julie taymor

She thinks this is beautiful. She also thinks abandoned, broken-down docks in New York are beautiful. She thinks the mostly-blank brick wall Jude and Max can see from their apartment in Across the Universe is beautiful. She sees the elegance and the pain in everyday things and elevates them--they're not pretty in a conventional sense, but they're beautiful.

snow day

I don't so much get snow days. Loving Husband does as he's a school teacher. Here's a little secret: teachers are just as excited about snow days as the kids. I'm home this morning in the warmth, spending time with LH, eating a late breakfast, watching special features on Across the Universe, battling gnats--you know, the usual.

Will brave the elements (which aren't so bad as everyone says) in an hour or so. Makes me more concerned for those who have no shelter--how do they deal with the cold? with the wet?