A Good Day

Sometimes, we forget. Forget the fear and the unknown. Sometimes, like today, we feel normal. A normal couple doing normal things. Making fun of our favorite basketball coaches and eating bad arena food.

Today we went to the Vanderbilt women’s game. It was awful. We lost to ODU by 15. Pitiful really. But we did make fun of Wendy Larry, the ODU coach. And the lady who sat behind her who wore stretch leggings and high heels and could jump up on those high heels like nobody’s business. Wendy and her crying towel. Wendy and her close to but not quite inappropriate touching.

Yesterday we drove home from Wisconsin. It was cold there but we returned to 50 degree weather. We each played DJ on the way home. It is a surprise game where whoever is not driving gets control of the iPod. One minute may be Brooks and Dunn and the next be AC/DC. Well, on my iPod anyway. Heidi’s would include some Diana Krall. We had a mini dance party in the Expedition.

We play and then we remember who we are again. We remember what it is to be happy. Really happy. Laughing, making up dance moves (all while driving). Contorting poor Summitt into a break dancer. We remember what it is to live. To laugh and love. To be content. To look toward a future.

For a few hours.

Let It Snow...

We spent Christmas in Wisconsin visiting Heidi’s mother in Waunakee, a suburb of Madison. This was my fourth or fifth visit but my first when there was snow on the ground. Now, I have been when it was cold as a witches titty, but not snowy.

There were at least 22 inches on the ground when we got there.

Seriously.

Folks up there are used to it. I, however, am not. I still act as though I am 10 years old and out for school on a snow day. I was chastised because I got my pants wet making snow angels and I insisted on traipsing through snow banks instead of walking to the house on the sidewalks which were cleared of snow. It just made more sense that way.

But some things I had forgotten. Like how quiet snow is. It muffles any sound and seems to absorb even the slightest noise. I forget this as I live in an inner city neighborhood and even as I write this the sound of the interstate intrudes into an otherwise quiet night. Summitt and I ventured out each morning at 4:00 am. Her idea, not mine but despite the un Christian hour, I am grateful for the reminder. On our first night we were greeted with a full moon shining just above a neighbor’s blue Christmas lights. The silver and blue hue was beautiful. Even to my sleepy eyes. Summitt had to tug on me to go back in.

Friday morning brought another 5 inches. I ate breakfast in the sun room that looked into the backyard. I was mesmerized by the snowfall. Not heavy at all but it was enough for me who thinks 2 inches is a big storm.

Friday was a gift. I was reminded all day of my mom’s tense relationship with the weather. She lived in snow in upstate New York, yet dreaded it immensely here in the south. Not that I blame her. But on this day, I remembered what she did love about it… to lay on the couch with a book and a cup of hot chocolate, letting the dog settle in at her feet, and watching out the window. So I spent some time doing just that. It was good.

Yeah. I could get used to it.

Groovyness in a Conference Room

We are gathered in a library conference room. 5 of us. All women who have a desire to serve and to even save perhaps. An Episcopalian, two Disciples of Christ, a Presbyterian, and me… a mish mash of traditions.

It is this that keeps me hopeful. This community of faithful who want to DO and not just be. This community of the holy “together”.
As we struggle to find our voices, they become clear in our presence, the presence of each other. The struggle is not so much how to get our voices heard, but what they will say to a world broken and bruised. One in our midst is gifted in economic justice. She has traveled the world and made inroads into communities that are hopeful. She is graceful in her presence. And gifted in her ministry. And makes a great Pumpkin something or other one of her culinary treats she obtained from India.

Another is a former teacher who sees the world as a place to teach but better yet allows it to teach her. Although she will say she it only tells her she doesn’t “know shit.” Which isn’t true. She calls it like it is and that in itself is necessary and needed. And “groovy on the ground.” I think she is fearless.

The third is a woman from Ohio who has the heart of an angel. Who feels the depth of the hurt in this world. She too has interest in economic justice but also has a love for the community of the church she serves. She encourages me and loves me as the others here do in their own ways.

Our resident Presbyterian struggles with how to use her intellect in a world of congregations that appear to not care. She is a gifted analyst of how things work and how things are. She is not afraid to critique her own journey of faith, although I think she needs to give herself some grace. It is what got her to where she is.

And then me, who is basking in the cloudy day outside. Fearful of many big life challenges at the moment, but privileged to be able to share this journey … all of it... with people such as these.

If our laptops hold out, we might make a difference. As if we haven’t already.

An Advent Sermon

In the spring of 1983, my mother and I took a trip. It was a trip many of you have made yourselves or with your children. We went off in search of colleges. Our search took us up interstate 81 north. This particular stretch of road runs from just outside of Greeneville, TN all the way up to upstate New York. My parents drove this stretch of highway for many years when they came home for Christmas. They lived in Cortland New York and their trips home to Tennessee were always fraught with long drives through snow and rain, up hill both ways, with driving wind and darkness.

But this trip was much different. This was my trip not my mother’s and I had never been that far up the road much less that far from home. It was an anxious trip for both of us into the “wilderness” of Southwest Virginia of all places.

For those of you geographically challenged, contrary to popular belief there is a whole host of land between Knoxville and Roanoke Virginia. Rolling hills and tobacco farms for certain but beautiful country that I came to call home for a good portion of my adult life.
But as we took the Meadowview, Virginia exit, my mother looked around and said, “Are you sure we can get there from here?”

We may wonder much the same about our texts today. Isaiah’s description of the Peaceable Kingdom and John’s wilderness path. Both are troubling in their own way, requiring some thought and a good deal of action on our part.

The text from Isaiah, on the surface at least, is a beautiful passage of peace in the world… the whole world of all God’s creatures. This is not just any peace, but "shalom." "Shalom," Walter Brueggemann says, "is creation time, when all God's creation eases up on hostility and destruction and finds another way of relating." So it is easy to see lions and lambs lie together and the fatted calf sitting with the bear in this Shalom.

The poet Les Murray once called this time, the time when the apple was put back on the tree.

But the poetry of these verses is written at a time much like our own. There was war with Assyria and the capital city of Samaria, in Israel would fall in 722. What followed was a siege on Jerusalem.

As my friend Tom Warren says, “Israel’s time was indeed a time of wars and rumors of wars. It was a time when real leaders spoke only of national defense, homeland security and God’s favoritism. It was a time when only fools spoke of peace.”

So who is this fool that Isaiah envisions?

It is doubtful that this describes any one of our candidates for president this election season.

Instead the description of this leadership is rooted in the spirit of the Holy. This spirit is the same spirit the “ruah” we hear about in the creation story. It is the creative active powerful breath of life. Not the winds of war so often felt in much of our world.

A spirit of wisdom rendering decisions based on fairness and equity with decrees that enable and affirm the poor and oppressed. A spirit of understanding that declares a community just and faithful and one that does not uphold the way things are but up-ends the status quo to create a society the way things should be.

This leadership establishes a reign of justice and concerns for the least of these. Isaiah describes the poor and the meek of this recreated world.

Oh if it were that easy!!

How do we get there from here???

My mother’s question came to me as our directions took us to the Meadowview VA exit. Now Meadowview has a bank, a mercantile – and yes it was a mercantile with chicken feed, farm equipment, work boots and maybe a jug of milk in the back – and a little Methodist church at the corner of the exit ramp.

The directions said to take a right so we did. The road we were on, better known by locals as “old number 11” paralleled the railroad tracks. In my 17 year old mind I thought ok, so if we follow the tracks we will surely get somewhere. After a seemingly endless 5 miles of clapboard houses and tobacco farms and more cows than I could count much less than I had ever seen, my mother and I exchanged looks that could only be described as wide eyed.

How do we get there from here?

And then there was John! John the Baptist scares me and I often wonder if he is merely a plot character or a real wild and crazy guy. I have struggled with John in my life of faith. Not because of who he is or what he does but what he asks us to do.

REPENT!!

I can still here a preacher from my past speaking that word. In his imposing stance and booming voice -- Repent and be saved. Repent and turn away from your sin. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

This word has been so loaded with baggage that our caricatures of the phrase say “Jesus is coming, look busy!” And so we do.

John’s world was one where the oppression was prevalent in the ordinariness of their life, religious and otherwise. The power wielded by the Jerusalem elite and their Roman patrons was experienced in exorbitant taxes, confiscation of ancestral property, and chronic shortages of food, among other things. This contributed too much social unrest and desire for change. Unlike the Old Testament prophets or the annunciation story that we shall read on the last Sunday of Advent, the Baptist does not point toward the nativity of Jesus, but rather to his ministry, life, and death

This is John the Baptist, the crazy separatist who speaks of the eschatological renewal to come.

This is John the Baptist, the crazy prophet who knows there is more to life than what is before us.

This is John the Baptist who gets his name from what he DOES, baptizing not in the way the ritual immersions were modeled but in a way that sealed the deal for those who came to be baptized

No John’s Baptism was a once and for all thing. John’s repent is the stop sign at the crossroads.

We cannot ignore his calls for repentance.

John does indeed ask us to repent then we need prepare a road in the wilderness. Finally he asks us to look into the waters of the river and see our reflection. The reflections of who we are. The reflection of people who have fallen short of expectations. To look at the reflection of a people who have failed at being the people of God. And who are facing the reality that maybe our ways won’t bring about this society of peace of which Isaiah speaks.

But within those waters we also see a reflection of the children of God. Who are claimed as God’s own.

If we can imagine ourselves loved so much that we can be called children of God, then we can take a step toward the vision Isaiah so clearly describes. A place where we sit together. Where we sit across the table from those who are also loved.

A place where we do indeed eat together in a peace that passes all understanding.

My mother and were at a crossroads. As we looked past our stop sign we saw the gates to Emory and Henry College. The place where I would spend years learning and growing in a community that nurtured me, a place that has ultimately led me here.

John asks those at the river to stop and look into the future. A future that comes from out of the wilderness and into the peaceable vision of Isaiah.

How do we get there from here?

We are told to PREPARE. Prepare the way of the Lord, makes his paths straight.

If Isaiah’s words can be any encouragement, this leader, this Lord’s path goes straight from John to the peaceable kingdom. I don’t know about you but I can’t imagine this world from Isaiah. I can almost see the wolf and the lamb, the cow and the bear, the leopard and the kid, but I can’t quite get the children and the snake pit. I am sorry. That one is beyond me and is as disturbing of an image as I can conjure up.

Our poet writes

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod

The path we have taken to this point is soiled with too much. Is covered with too much mud and muck and blood and sweat and yes tears.

We have worn this path out. A path that places the fast lane over the slow lane. We have worn out the paths that are strewn with twisted guardrails and broken glass on the cement. We have worn out the express lane at the grocery because it means I get to get out faster than you do. It means I never look in your grocery cart to see if you are buying steak or noodles. I never see if you are paying by cash or food stamps. I never see if you drive or walk home. Or if you even have a place to call home.

The old roads won’t get us there.

We can’t arrive at this peaceable place without going through John’s stop sign. I don’t think we can blow through this one as if it doesn’t matter. As if we can keep doing things as we have always done and expect to get there.

After his conversion, St. Francis saw the world in a new way. A theologian at Claremont College “He saw everything upside down. He was not enamored at the strength and security of well-grounded towers, walled city states and impressive cathedrals. Rather, he saw everything hanging over nothing. And he was astonished, but grateful, that everything did not fall down.”
We must stop and reflect and look both ways before we cross at the crossroads.

John’s requirements are difficult not because he asks us to turn from our ways but he asks us to look at our ways. To look at what these actions do to the world around us. Maybe they are crooked. Maybe our roads need to be straightened. Straightened to lead to the reign of a God who can bring a Peaceable kingdom. It is John the Baptist, that scary guy who scares us not because of his less than conventional ways, but scares us because of who he points us to.

A God who loves us enough to let us dream about peaceable kingdoms and hopes with us as we prepare a new way.

A God who loves us enough to send peace on the wings of a promise and hope that comes like morning’s first call, and joy that comes on the winds of a Spirit.

Come, Lord, Jesus Come

Decorations of Blue

So it is Christmas. I think there is a song title there by some one I have heard. One of those Rosie’s Christmas things or some melody sung by pop singers who are past their prime.

I sit at the moment with Summit’s ear flopped over my computer. She is helping me type at least two papers. She has been a good helper girl. Heidi is on her way in from Chicago where it was 18 degrees and snowy. It is far from that here. This time last year I was in the midst of the first year franticness. I do not miss that. I don’t have exams but I do have enough papers for a small book. And that is fine. I prefer it that way. AR and Lyndsey promised me it would be this way but I didn’t believe them. I need to stop that cause they haven’t led me astray as yet.

The tree is up and Heidi is planning on baking cookies this Saturday. That will be a fete considering our world’s smallest kitchen. It got done last year but not without great consternation and gnashing of teeth. Soon enough we will reconfigure it, we hope. It is a little different this year. We are without Casey. It has been a full year now since he died. We still think of him in his fuzzy glory. And the sweetest kisses ever. I think he has re-incarnated himself in Summit at times as she has adapted (quite well actually) to life without him. She misses her buddy and still perks up a bit if she hears us mention his name.

And Heidi truly misses her boy. He was there at every turn during the last round of cancer. Always present and always knowing the best thing for the best momma. We are about to begin chemotherapy. A long course but one that promises to be a bit less intense with regard to side effects. We are taking a wait and see attitude on that one. There are a lot of miles to go before we sleep. But we have put up the tree and decorated the house albeit with a little less enthusiasm than previous years. The hope remains. The lights were a little brighter as we talked our way through the various travel ornaments as we decorated.

“Remember when we didn’t take snacks on the trip to Dahlonega?! Never doing that again!” (Dahlonega, GA Fall of 2004)

“How was it that the Apollo spacecraft landed again? Won’t it fit in our living room?” (Washington DC 1999)

“We never really went into the White House you know!” (ditto)

“But there is only one Mickey Mouse..well two really.” (Disney World, FL May 2005)

“Ah, the margaritas on the beach! YES!” (Cabo San Lucas, Mexico March 2004)

“MIND THE GAP… and which way do I look again?” (London, England May 2007)

“They were just socks!” (The Hermitage Nashville, TN December 2005)

“The BARN!! Where are the barns!” (See Rock City, Chattanooga, TN March 1998)

And there are others. And there will be more.

I hope.