The Exciting Nature of Missions

We're off! My partner-in-crime Bob M and I are loading into a HUGE white van with 7 eighth and ninth graders this afternoon. In moments, actually.

If I'm honest, I'm exhausted. I know I'm not sleeping enough and this week is not going to help that. I desperately need to work on my Sabbath-taking. On the other hand, I'm excited about spending time with these folk--they're awesome and excited about the trip, even though it's to Cincinnati, where we're from.

Exhaustion and excitement. Ambivalence and happiness. Bad and good. Isn't that always the way?

The Problematic Nature of Mission

Leaving for final youth trip of the summer on Sunday: a fabulous mission trip to...wait for it...Cincinnati! That's right, we're doing mission in our own backyard. And I say, "why not?" You don't have to go to an exotic, tourist destination to find poor, suffering people. It's even a bit selfish to spend so much money getting somewhere via plane or car, expending the fuel and time, when the world needs help where you live.

More to the point, it's not about us "working amongst" folk, condescending to offer our wisdom and cash to those less fortunate. Obviously, there are millions less fortunate than those of us in the middle class--look around you and see that we don't live in a perfect world. But that phrase, "less fortunate," is a comparative one. They are less fortunate; we are more fortunate. It almost implies that we are somehow favored or more beloved because of what we have. That we are better because we're not hungry, drug-addicted, or brown-skinned. I'm sure most folk don't mean any of that when they use the phrase, but when your intent is to go help a group of people, it is necessary to pay attention to your own motives and how they may be seen by the folk you want to help. Even if the work you're planning is desperately needed in a community, a superior attitude or an unwillingness to understand and participate in the culture will kill it dead.

So what is it about? Mission, it seems to me, is about developing relationship and opening our eyes to the world around us. We all live in a bubble of some kind or another. We can talk about "the plight of the poor" as long as we like, but won't understand it until we talk to someone who's struggling with feeding their children. We have to experience it ourselves before we'll truly get it. Jesus said to Thomas "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe". They may be blessed but few of us can believe like that. We need something to cling to, something to relate to. We need to be in relationship, knowing the other as a person, as one with thoughts and feelings and concerns and not just a statistic. We take teenagers on mission trips partly because they are a good source of labor for projects that need doing but mostly for them to discover just how big and complex this world is. They don't always see it, but when they do, you can see God on their faces as plain as day.

Book Thoughts--Girly Edition

DC comics has debuted a new line of comics aimed at teenaged girls that are actually good. Yeah, they're written and drawn by men, but not in the normal, creepy superhero style of exposed skin and little brains. These girls know who they are and what they want. I've read the first three and, though I am not a teenager, I am a girl and I love them.

Plain Janes by Castellucci and Rugg
Arty types all named Jane react against exclusivism and stupidity with guerilla art. Loving Husband says ending feels unfinished.

Regifters by Carey, Hempell, and Liew
Second of the Minx line and much better. Cute Korean girl faces her demons and kicks ass in martial arts. From the geinuses who brought you My Faith in Frankie.

Clubbing by Watson and Howard
The art's much prettier but the story is less satisfying than previous books. Goth chick goes to the country and solves a paranormal crime.

Book Thoughts

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

A modern Chinese-American woman with problems of her own just doesn't understand her mother. Mom, in turn, didn't understand her own mother. From different eras, they each reveal pieces of their stories which ultimately form a connected whole. Well-written and engaging. Better than "Oprah-lit," I'd say, but only a little better.

I wonder, though, if I'm reflecting the cultural bias against women's stories. With notable exceptions, women's stories are traditionally centered around home, children, "women's work." When they're not about such things, they're more about feelings, emotional stories of coming-to-grips with something. Men's stories, to make a huge generalization, are about things happening, reasons being given, things changing. Moby-Dick, arguably the manliest book of all time, is all about reasoning out the parts of the whale and whaling. It's about hubris and close, manly relationships. It's about Whaling and Death. It's epic. Frequently women's stories are much smaller, less grand. My ambitious self wants stories about people who make it big, people who do great things, people who change minds and hearts and are vindicated. Many women's stories are about small things. Am I undervaluing Bonesetter's Daughter because it's too small and womanly?

A friend recently forwarded me an article on the same subject. The question was, if love and home are so very important to all of us, why do we undervalue stories about them regardless of who wrote them?

Independence Day

I spent Independence Day doing what every red-blooded, patriotic American does: I worked on home improvement. We worked on fixing our deck, digging stones out of the back yard, and removing some truly monstrous roots from the garden. Seriously, one of them looks a bit like a huge horseradish or maybe a small mole.

At dinner with my parents, my mother and I were musing about Independence Day and what it means. So often you hear, "Give thanks for those who died to make this country free." I do give thanks for them, but that's not what we're celebrating. This is the day of the Declaration of Independence, the Colonies' beginning their insurrection against England. My mother put it well: "We said, 'NO.'" That really is the spirit of the holiday--we said no to tyranny and ambivalence and being subject to. And we said, "YES." We said yes to life, liberty, and happiness. We said yes to carving out our own destiny. We said yes to the possibility of failure. And we won.

I am very much an advocate for the separation of church and state. That said, there's a distinct similarity between that NO and YES and the NO and Yes we're asked for as Christians. The prophets and the mothers and fathers of the faith are remembered for standing up to tyranny, for saying "NO" to the powers that be. And they are beloved for saying "YES" to free will and compassion and love.

There is no guarantee that we'll succeed in this world. There is no surety that the garden I worked in today will be mine next year or even next week. There is no reason to believe that the Kingdom of God is ours here and now, and yet we Christians make the choice every day to stand up for what's right and to open our arms and hearts to the stranger. It is our experience of the holy in one another, in the Created world, in the structures and chaos of our lives which points to God.

It has been said that humans make their governments into idols. We see the safety and generosity and organization and we say, "Indeed, it is very good." And often that government can take the place of God. Ask yourself which you would choose: what is right in the eyes of God or what is right in the eyes of the government? This is not to suggest a rebellion here and now but to remind myself of where my priorities should be. God is the top of the hierarchy. I am in relationship with God as are billions of others--how do I then see the world? What does Creation look like through God's eyes rather than my own?

Everything Costs

Returned from Navajoland Pilgrimage on Saturday evening. Only now feeling like a real person back home what with the jet lag and the humidity. By the by, Navajo actually means "horse thief" in Spanish and they prefer to be called Dine'.

Monument Valley is stunning. We remarked several times that you simply can't take a bad picture out there, but no photo will do the space and grandeur justice. The redness of the dirt, the blueness of the sky, the SPACE between the monuments...ok, I'll stop drooling.

Tano, our neighbor and guide on several hikes, told us that the monuments in the valley are sacred to the Dine'. This is holy ground. And it was won with a price. We've all read about the history of Native Americans since the white people came. We know about the destruction and exploitation. The Dine' have lived in this valley for a very long time--they were not part of the Trail of Tears--yet they have been taken advantage of for centuries. This beautiful land has cost them dearly.

Our trip to the reservation costs. The plane ticket alone is $500 or so. Plus food, SUV rentals, gasoline, materials for the work--it adds up to many thousands of dollars. Is the beauty and spiritual depth worth the money and damage to the environment from gasoline fumes? How much longer can we go out there?

I spent a lot of money on jewelry this year. We buy Dine' crafts to auction on Shrove Tuesday and send the profits back to the Episcopal Diocese on the reservation. This year, I may have overspent myself. Something like fifteen necklaces and bracelets and a lovely painted pot. Can you say "buyer's remorse"?

I return to a hundred emails and a messy office. I plunge right back in and have soon lost the calm I won on the reservation. Everything costs. Is it worth it?

Junior Birdman

Off we go, into the wild, blue yonder...

The annual pilgrimage to the Navajo reservation in Arizona begins tomorrow at 6am. Or, rather, 5am for those of us who'd like to shower before pilgrim-ing. Very much looking forward to orange mesas and blue, blue sky. Even looking forward to the plane flight and 6 hour drive to the rez. More on that later, perhaps.

In the meantime, please enjoy this photo.

Sticky Decision

Converse is owned by Nike.
Nike is a Great Corporate Evil.
Converse is now made in Nike's foreign sweatshops.
Nike has made tentative steps to alleviate some of the biggest problems in manufacturing and human rights.
Converse All-Stars are objectively cool.
[See also the connection between McDonald's and Chipotle: McDonald's is terrible in both taste and record, but Chipotle makes an effort to buy non-hormone-bred meat and organic produce.]

What's a semi-hip, socially-concious girl to do? Completely boycott? Recognize good strides and encourage with my purchasing power? Will anyone in power hear either message? Besides, I really want new chucks...

Roller Coasters and the Divine

Our Youth Council, the teenagers who lead our youth program at Redeemer, spent a day at Kings’ Island recently followed by a lovely barbecue at the home of Karen and Mike Staffiera. The day was meant as a “thank you” for all their hard work this past year and an opportunity for bonding among the group. It was fanTAstic. Our first ride was the new Firehawk and, if you like roller coasters at all, you’ve got to try it: once you’re strapped into your chair, it reclines. And I don’t just mean a little for a better television-watching-angle—I mean your feet are above your head. You ascend the first hill lying down, backwards, and head-first; it is fairly freaky. Then, just as you go over the top of the hill, the track rotates laterally so you are hanging prone, flying-Superman-style. And off you go! The Firehawk is amazingly smooth and worth the current wait.

Now, before you think this is just an advertisement for Kings’ Island, let me share something with you. I have a love/hate relationship with roller coasters. Specifically, I get motion-sick. Really motion-sick. I spent large portions of the day lying down on the grass, holding everyone’s hats and phones as they rode ride after ride. We’ve got several photos of me looking queasy. The first ride doesn’t bother me—it’s exhilarating to feel the wind in your hair, the palpable excitement in the crowd around you, the freedom of raising your arms and letting go. But several in a row and my stomach catches up with me.

It’s terrifying. To be strapped into a small, mechanical car and thrown at terrific speeds over hills and through the air is scary. And, if I’m honest, that’s a huge part of the love. As you climb that first hill, there is a feeling of abject fear: this will never work, we’re really high up, get me out of this thing, O God we’re going to die. But you can’t get out—it would be more dangerous for everyone if you tried to get out at the top of the hill rather than ride it out. And there is a moment at the crest of that hill when you see the face of God. At that split second, when the cars tip the balance and start down the hill, you let go. You let go of the fear, you let go of your expectations, you let go of your breath. You let go of everything and scream. It’s one of the purest moments of emptiness you can experience. And one of the purest moments of joy. To be in that single moment of fear and joy is to see God. Susie B and I joked about that as we were coming into the station after riding the Firehawk—we were both shaking and giddy, not sure how we felt about the ride yet, but certain that it had been a holy experience.

This is what it comes down to: fear and joy in one package. Kevin B did some thinking about that this past weekend at the Young Adult retreat that CORE sponsored at the Cathedral. The decisions we have to make in our lives, the experiences we have, the relationships we form, are all filled to the brim with fear and joy. We never know what will happen and our anxiety can sometimes overwhelm us, but most of us have had the experience of taking a risk and reaping a powerful reward. We sometimes go into a thing, confident in the joy it will bring only to be laid low. Everything is like this—choices, relationships with other people, relationship with God, Creation itself. That moment at the top of a roller coaster is our entire lives. I did get sick riding those coasters, but I also loved it. I loved spending time with some of the youth of our parish who are living a risky and fearful time in their lives. They are becoming who they will be. They don’t know yet who that is, but they are excited. There is joy in the unknown just as much as there is fear.

I have asked many of our youth this question and now I want to ask you: what would you do if you knew you had only six months to live? A year? What fear would you tackle? What joy would you not postpone? How would you serve God? What’s keeping you from it?

Book Thoughts

Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper (last in a series of 5)

Great stuff, this series.
Loving Husband tells me that JRR Tolkein, like many Englishmen, hated the French. He so disliked them that he personally resented the Norman Conquest in 1066. That's powerful. I bring this up because good ol' JRR and Susan Cooper have that much in common. There is implication in all the books of dislike of other countries--all these important, world-changing events happen in jolly old GB, for one thing--but in Silver she specifically calls out each of the successive invasions of the British Isles as waves of the Dark. Interesting, that, particularly since there's a scene early on in which some of the Stanton children stand up for a little boy from India who's being picked on. We are treated to a dialogue between the bully's dad and Mr. Stanton in which the bully's dad is clearly ignorant, mean, conservative, and wrong and Mr. Stanton is patient, kind, expansive, and liberal. Conservative, liberal, we know these words are malleable. I'm just saying the book's conflicted.

Thoughts on How Things Work

Remember when you had to hand-crank your car window down? It wasn't just a small button that quietly lowered the window with no effort on your part. You had to work to get that sucker down.

I'm only thinking about this because, in a dazed moment late on Saturday night while finishing up my sermon for the next morning, I noticed a similar device on Loving Husband's laptop. You'd think that on such a technologically advanced machine, there'd be a password or a cyberspace-related mechanism. There should at least be an electrical catch. But, no, it's just a little lever that catches on another little bit. That's all that holds the thing closed.

Weirdly, I felt smug when I noticed this little catch. There is comfort in knowing that I can operate that catch. That I, technological simian that I am, could understand and possibly even fix it if it broke. There's satisfaction in knowing, what, that I'm in control? That this is understandable?

Honestly, when was the last time you fixed something yourself? And did it work well, the thing you fixed? It seems to me that, more and more, the things we have require specialists to service them. I'll admit I'm something of a luddite, but don't you sometimes long for the days when you could not just understand that something worked but see how it worked? Take the Krispy Kreme doughnut shops: if you go to the right one, you can see the actual process of making a doughnut, from the racks where the dough rises to the conveyor through the glaze. It's amazing--so that's how they do that, I say. And I do say it out loud. Ask Loving Husband sometime.

In my business, you don't see a lot of the workings. You rarely see the results of your labors. I won't get to see how the kids I hang out with now will turn out. The education, the fellowship, the empowering--I see some of it pay off, but most of it will really show up in 5, 10, 20 years. And when what you do and say are not received well, they're not often fixable. There is certainly no sense of being in control. Church work is hugely complicated with millions of interconnected wires and relationships. And it's as simple as a small catch.

How do I do what I do? How do you? What makes you frustrated? What gives you energy? What makes you see the interconnected wires and think, "Wow, so that's how they do that"?

Whedon on Women

One of my favorite television visionaries is Joss Whedon. He’s a brilliant director and a thoughtful guy. Normally, he’s a barrel of wacky laughs, but right now he’s got something powerful and important to say about women, how they're treated and how they allow themselves to be treated. If you have a moment, read this short essay he wrote. I’d be interested in your thoughts.

Book Thoughts

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Loving Husband's favorite book, it's taken me six years to read. And very much worth the wait. It's about hope in the face of inescapable odds, heroes living everyday lives, love in a time of cholera--no, wait, that's something else...

Seriously, an excellent book connecting the early years of comic books with World War II, magicians, Judaism, and love. (The following is an excerpt which sums it up but doesn't give away any of the plot. Made me a bit weepy because it's so true.)

"[Joe] thought of the boxes of comics that he had accumulated, upstairs, in the two small rooms where, for five years, he had crouched in the false bottom of the life from which Tommy had freed him, and then, in turn, of the thousands upon thousands of little boxes, stacked neatly on sheets of Bristol board or piled in rows across the ragged pages of comic books, that he and Sammy had filled over the past dozen years: boxes brimming with the raw materials, the bits of rubbish from which they had, each in his own way, attempted to fashion their various golems. In literature and folklore, the significance and the fascination of golems--from Rabbi Loew's to Victor von Frankenstein's--lay in their soullessness, in their tireless inhuman strength, in their metaphorical association with overweening human ambition, and in the frightening ease with which they passed beyond the control of their horrified and admiring creators. But it seemed to Joe that none of these--Faustian hubris, least of all--were among the true reasons that impelled men, time after time, to hazard the making of golems. The shaping of a golem, to him, was a gesture of hope, offered against hope, in a time of desperation. It was the expression of a yearning that a few magic words and an artful hand might produce something--one poor, dumb, powerful thing--exempt from the crushing strictures, from the ills, cruelties, and inevitable failures of the greater Creation. It was the voicing of a vain wish, when you got down to it, to escape. To slip, like the Escapist, free of the entangling chain of reality and the straitjacket of physical laws. Harry Houdini had roamed the Palladiums and Hippodromes of the world encumbered by an entire cargo-hold of crates and boxes, stuffed with chains, iron hardware, brightly painted flats and hokum, animated all the while only by this same desire, never fulfilled: truly to escape, if only for one instant; to poke his head through the borders of this world, with its harsh physics, into the mysterious spirit world that lay beyond. The newspaper articles that Joe had read about the upcoming Senate investigation into comic books always cited 'escapism' among the litany of injurious consequences of their reading, and dwelled on the pernicious effect, on young minds, of satisying the desire to escape. As if there could be any more noble or necessary service in life."
--Chabon, page 582 (New York: Picador, 2000)

Addicted to Television

It's true. Don't get me wrong--I am not equating my passionate love of TV with real, heavy-duty addictions like alcoholism or what have you. That would be rude as well as inaccurate. Suffice it to say, Loving Husband and I were simultaneously saddened to discover that we have no more discs of Six Feet Under to watch at the moment and we've just finished watching 5 episodes almost back-to-back. This one time, we watched all of Buffy Season 3 in a week-end. It was Easter week-end. And I had to preach. It's that bad.

On the other hand, we only watch when we have the DVDs available which is a neat built-in restriction. We just don't watch actual TV with the commercials and everything. Hate commercials. Really and truly hate them. I don't need to be sold more stuff. I've got plenty of stuff right here in my house.

I waffle between (a) being concerned about how much pixilated trash I'm absorbing and (b) justifying my watching by saying they're powerful stories and it's my time off so get over it. The key is, I think, how much is TV-watching getting in the way of "real life"? Am I late for meetings or socializing because of watching something? Sometimes. Does it get in the way of my other interests? Sometimes. Do I find myself connecting every conversation or situation I'm in with an episode or character? Absolutely. Does it get in the way of my relationship with my husband? Don't think so. Does it get in the way of my relationship with God? Now that's a toughie.

I see the image of God in all things--creation, people I like, people I don't like, grocerying, youth ministry, and, yes, television. I've been moved to tears by the presence of the holy in a television show. When Doyle says, "The good fight, yeah?", or when Fox Mulder finds his sister, or just the look and cohesiveness of Firefly--these are all God-moments for me. And since I've got a minor in art history, I can bs God into anything. God is in all things. But are all things getting in the way of my relationship with God? Because that's idolatry, pure and simple. I don't know, but I'll have to keep my eyes open.

A New Start

I've had this blog for nine months and originally set it up so that I would be allowed to post on my father's blog. Until now, I've only posted once. But that's all about to change, my friends!

The world we live in is a complicated place. The decisions we face every day, the relationships we form, our feelings and reactions to just about everything that happens--all complicated. We have mixed motivations for what we do. We're not rational. We're sinful creatures. Yes, I said sinful. That's kind of a bad word these days. Sin implies judgment and unpleasantness. It suggests that the things we do are not as good as we try to convince ourselves. We intentionally and unintentionally hurt those around us. And yet, in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the plants and animals and the light and the dark and us--when God created the world, God looked at it all and said "Indeed, it is very good." We are, at the most basic part of our natures, good. Yet we sin. We are saved and judged. Saint and sinner. Simul justus et peccator.

My brain works overtime thinking about this kind of stuff. Theology, spiritual journey, liturgy, how we live in the world--it's all going to come out here. Sometimes it'll be draft versions of newsletter articles, sometimes rambles on a theme, sometimes short posts about books I've read. I will probably cross-post some old entries from my livejournal blog, too.

Peace to you and all in your house.

Hallelujah

Listen to this:

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken "Hallelujah."

This is the last verse of Jeff Buckley's song "Hallelujah." He sings with only his guitar for accompaniment into an empty and echoing room. His voice is haunting, thin in places, as though he's about to give up on singing entirely, and powerful with anger in others. You feel rather than hear his despair—it washes over you in waves. His song ends, dejected and hopeless—love is a cold and broken "Hallelujah."

Leonard Cohen actually wrote the song and when he sings it, he ends with this verse:

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but "Hallelujah."

I've got a live recording of Cohen singing it and his voice is deep and rich and...perplexed. It's as though he doesn't really understand what he's singing but he's singing it anyway. He's trying to puzzle it out, trying to make some sense of his life. I can relate—youth ministry can be frustrating and overwhelming. There are times when I know I've done everything I can and a conversation simply doesn't work. I tell myself that it is God who turns folk's hearts and God who is in charge, not me. It doesn't always work.

It is frustrating to me that I can't find the definitive version of this song—it seems that everyone who records it, including Cohen himself, picks and chooses the verses they'd like to sing. The verses in some ways contradict one another: some seem to be more Bible-story-oriented—David, Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah—and some which are introspective and seem to be based on the singer's own history in love. How do they fit?

In the young adult Bible 101 group at my church, we've been talking about the book of Genesis and its two Creation stories. How do they fit together? Can we make them agree with each other so that it makes sense to us? Should we just take the one that makes sense to us this moment and sing its "Hallelujah"? What's the real story? What are they saying to us: are they short histories of what happened back in The Day, are they political machinations to uplift a downtrodden tribe, or are they poetic versions of a people's experience of their relationship with God?

The answer seems to be "yes"—that is, yes, they're political, yes, they're historical, and yes, they're a people's experience. I'm not saying I like that answer or even that I understand it. I do know that God's creation is so much more complicated than we can imagine and we can find God where things are the most frustrating.

Many days I feel like ending the song where Jeff Buckley does. More often I sing with Leonard Cohen who senses his sinfulness and his salvation in every breath, who sings:

…even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but 'Hallelujah.'"