Clever Title Here

time to go!

2012-01-26T23:46:00.007-06:00

ok, I've finished all my work for this week and next week, I've gotten my house cleaned, I've taken the cat to the vet and had a follow up call with the vet, I've arranged a cat sitter, I've made the copies for worship on Sunday, I've done laundry, and I've packed. It must be time to go!

I'm off to spend a week (back in the normal world next Friday) thinking about Mark and John and Ordinary Time and worship and creative stuff, with really amazing people, in the sun and surf. I'm ready. This is what it's like:

a year ago...

2012-01-25T11:10:00.002-06:00

it's been a year since the start of the Egyptian revolution. A year ago today, we weren't really sure what was going on. Was it just a small protest? A temporary disruption? A year ago, we were watching al-jazeera's live streaming from Cairo on the website and wondering what this all meant. A year ago we were pondering where our friends were, what was happening, and whether everyone was safe. We were watching cars burn, protestors camp, and even people cleaning up trash. We were worrying and hoping all at the same time.

A year later, much has changed, but at the same time little seems to have changed. Mubarak is out but the military is in. Women are still harassed. Photos and videos suggest that the streets of Cairo still have plenty of litter to go around. Schools are in session, people are trying to get jobs, and the economic uncertainty that plagued 25% of the population before the revolution is still there, seeming as steady as the pyramids.

2011 was quite a year for Egyptians and those of us who care about them. It was quite a year for the Arab world in general. But the one-year mark is not the end. There's still lots of work to be done. Keep hoping, keep praying, keep sending good vibes out into the universe--Egypt and its neighbors are on the cusp of possibility. May they move forward into 2012 with grace and peace and justice.

Friday Five: movies!

2012-01-20T09:15:00.003-06:00

Over at RGBP Jan asks....

Thinking of movie-watching, what do you prefer?

1. At home or at a theater?

Definitely at home. movie theaters weird me out--they're so odd. They smell like gross stale over buttered popcorn, the floors are sticky, and people always talk--except that I'm always trying to remember NOT to talk...sigh. But the seats are ridiculously comfortable, so there is that...

2. With whom? Whoever is willing to watch what I want to watch!

3. Movie you look forward to seeing? I've been wanting to see Hugo...and I love the colors in the Lorax trailers, so can't wait to see that. I might even go to a theater...

4. Movie you like to see repeatedly? The Princess Bride. heehee. The Lord of the Rings.

5. Food with a movie? It's so interesting how we're basically conditioned to eat while we watch movies. During the 30 Hour Famine we often watch a movie while fasting, and it's strange how much harder it is to fast while watching a movie than while doing other things. I don't love popcorn (though I do love kettle corn!) so my usual movie food is something like lemon heads or milk duds.

Bonus: Recommendations for home/theater viewing. I loved loved loved Puss In Boots. That's one I'll want to have so I can watch it again.

What movies do you recommend? I'm always looking for things to put in my Netflix queue!

It Takes Practice--a sermon for Ordinary 2B

2012-01-14T19:07:00.001-06:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
It Takes Practice
1 Samuel 3.1-10
15 January 2012, Ordinary 2B

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’ and ran to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call; lie down again.’ So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, ‘Samuel!’ Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call, my son; lie down again.’ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” ’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’

I admit to feeling a little bit odd reading that text then standing up here to talk. All week I’ve wondered why I didn’t just decide to say “speak, for your servants are listening” and then sit down for a few minutes? In addition to meaning less work on writing a sermon, it seems it would make more sense—why am I talking about a story that’s all about listening? Then I read again the words of the Second Helvetic Confession, which is the topic of our Monday online theology class on the blog. In the very first chapter it says “the preached word of God IS the word of God.” Right…no pressure, then. I’ll just come up with something to say that will be as valuable to you, the listener, as hearing directly from God standing at the foot of your bed or your pew.

I think many of us can relate to the opening of this story—“the word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” Or perhaps, if we’d read a little before and a little after this passage, we’d relate even more. As Samuel is growing up in the temple, the religious and political leaders (who are the same people) are corrupt, self-serving, and greedy. They claim God’s favor but act in ways contrary to God’s calling and character. So perhaps a better way to say it is “talk about God appeared everywhere, but the word of the Lord was rare.” Sound familiar?

In the midst of this reality—scandal, greed, temptation, abuse of power, corruption—comes, surprisingly, the word of the Lord. But Samuel doesn’t recognize it! There are so many voices, so many noises, so many opportunities, so many people…even in the quiet, in the middle of the night, in the holiest place around, Samuel doesn’t recognize the voice of God.

I think we like to imagine that if God were ever to speak directly to us, we would notice. Maybe because there would be a voice coming from the clouds, as at Jesus’ baptism, or a flaming bush talking in the desert, or a blinding light on our commute, or maybe even a whisper—but preceded by such great signs that we couldn’t possibly miss it. But when God talks to Samuel, it’s in a voice like any other voice, calling in the night. Eli has probably called Samuel countless times before, there’s no reason to assume this night is any different. Who else would be calling, after all?

Because—and here’s what I think is the interesting part of the story—Samuel doesn’t know God. He’s never heard or talked to God before. God calls Samuel before he even knows about God, before he’s learned God’s word. He’s been serving in the temple, helping Eli and his sons, but he doesn’t know God. And yet God speaks to him.
First there are the false starts—where Samuel doesn’t recognize the voice. He’s never heard it before, never spent time talking or listening to God, so why would he know this voice?
Then there’s the instruction—Eli finally realizes what’s going on and teaches Samuel what to do. Instead of rushing off to perform a task, instead of immediately speaking, instead of turning to the person beside him—or the facebook or twitter or blog or phone beside him—he is to simply listen.
And then I imagine there’s some practice. In my mind’s eye I can see Samuel reciting his line over and over, the way I recite my parking space number so I won’t forget it before I get to the train platform. “speak for your servant is listening. speak for your servant is listening. speak for your servant is listening.” I also wonder if he had to sit there in the silence, straining to hear, for a little while. Did God’s voice come again immediately, or did Samuel also have to practice his silent listening first?

Because most things we do take practice, right? It’s rare that we develop a skill without effort, and sitting in silence, listening to others, listening to God—these are no exception. We have to practice silence, even when our inclination is to follow the distractions down their fun rabbit holes. We have to practice listening, even when God doesn’t seem to be speaking. We have to practice discernment, even when we think we know the voice.

I suspect many of us are like Samuel—we haven’t heard directly from God before, and we might not even recognize God’s voice if we did. Sometimes that’s not for lack of trying, either! But for many of us, this discipline of listening is just too darn hard. Our brains don’t seem to be wired for silence, for listening when no one appears to be talking. It’s hard to connect with someone you can’t see, and the ways we can try to imagine—like talking to God on the phone or something—are too cheesy to take seriously. So…it must just be that the word of God is rare.

I wonder if the word of God was rare in Samuel’s day because so few people were willing to say “speak, for your servant is listening”? After all, the message Samuel gets is no walk in the park—it’s a message that will bring pain before the healing can begin. It’s not a message I’d want to hear—I would rather say “listen, God, for your servant is speaking” and not have to worry about the hard parts, because often when God talks it changes our lives. Could it be that God is speaking but we’re so afraid of what God might say that we keep on talking over the still small voice, or we delete the message before we have a chance to hear it, or we assume it's just another call from a friend or colleague or telemarketer?

If so, how do we remedy that? How do we become people who connect with God, who discern God’s voice in the midst of the cacophony of life, and who are willing to share the news which is both hard and good?

Sadly, I don’t think it’s just going to happen overnight. I think it’s going to take some work on our part. Samuel had to learn and practice—and he continued to practice throughout his life—and in the practice, he found a connection to the Holy that he could never have imagined.

We have heard the instruction. so the first step in following it is to, like Samuel, be there. Samuel lay down in his place and waited, and when God spoke he was ready to hear. It could have been seconds or hours of waiting in the silent darkness...are we willing to wait? To make space, however difficult that is, for God to speak? I know it’s hard—believe me. For one thing, I like to talk. For another, I think about things. Some might use the word “obsess.” And for a third, 99% of the time I also have a song or two or three running through my head. I’ve finally learned not to hum all the time, but the music still plays. And let’s not even talk about the allure of facebook and twitter and the 24 hour news cycle. To say that there’s a lot going on in my head is an understatement—and I bet that’s true for most of us. Turning that off takes practice and commitment. When we can’t, it’s tempting to give up. But we don’t give up on math or learning an instrument or soccer practice, so why do we give up on this? It took Samuel and Eli several tries before they figured out what was going on, but they kept at it. It took Paul literally being struck blind. It took Peter hearing himself deny before he could truly hear Jesus. It took Moses several rounds of excuses before he could listen to God. All these people, and many more throughout history, stayed in the game and found that God used them in amazing ways they could never have imagined, and certainly could never have done on their own. There is value in this discipline, in the trying (and even in the failing) to quiet ourselves and listen for the Spirit’s whisper. Let’s keep trying—even just a minute or a few minutes at a time—and eventually, we may find that there’s just enough room for God to enter. And then who knows what might happen?

May it be so. Amen.

Friday Five: AHA! moments

2012-01-06T11:57:00.002-06:00

Over at the RevGalBlogPals, Kathryn asks us to share five of our aha! moments...moments of clarity and understanding. I have some that are silly and some serious. naturally.

1. The day I realized that the song did not say "Secret Asian Man." I had always wondered what that was about--how could one be a secret Asian? Why would one want to be a secret Asian? Was this a song about living in the Seattle area during WWII? so confusing...and so much clarity the day I realized that just wasn't what it said at all.

2. The day I finished my petition to major in clarinet performance, was accepted to that major, and realized almost instantly that I didn't want to be a professional clarinetist after all. Of course, I argued with myself for a long time about that because it was something I'd worked so hard for...it was another year or so before I realized what I actually should be doing. And, honestly, I wouldn't trade a minute of that performance degree program.

3. I spent several of my pre-teen years on a small farm, and a lot of our food came from local friends with small farms. When I read Diet For A New America, and saw the pictures, and realized that most people in this country get their food from factory farms (and that we were now city people who would do the same), that was the moment I realized I couldn't be a part of that system. The raising of animals for the purpose of eating them, when it was unnecessary and inhumane and was a major part of the world's food crisis, was suddenly out of the question for me. (of course, we were also poor, and my mom was way too practical to cook two meals, so it wasn't until I was 17 that I could make my own choices about not eating meat and trying to eat as local as possible.)

4. When I returned from my weekend visiting Columbia Seminary (the last of 4 seminary visits), I went straight to church and then shared a cab ride home with my pastor. When he dropped me off at my house, he said "congratulations on your decision to go to Columbia." Of course, I hadn't consciously decided that, but he obviously could hear something I couldn't. I'm glad he shared that with me.

5. A couple of years ago, at Christmas dinner at my aunt's house, she made brussels sprouts that were not disgusting. I had no idea they could be not disgusting. Then this Christmas, Amy's (now husband) Dave made roasted brussels sprouts. I'm pretty sure I ate about 50. Who knew those could be good?

What's one (or more) of your realization-moments?

Day Off

2012-01-05T12:30:00.004-06:00

Recently it was decided that both of us pastors should not be off on the same day of the week, so I switched my day off from Friday to Thursday.

It's a weird thing, actually, to be off on Thursday, especially as the day ends and I have to keep reminding myself that it's Friday tomorrow, not Saturday, and that I have to go to work! I'm sure I'll get into the routine, but right now (this is only my third Thursday off) it's still odd, to remember that Sunday is not as imminent as it sounds, and that I still have another day to get work done.

So, on this Thursday off I am trying to remind myself not to check my email, I'm doing one small task (confirming our numbers for the youth group bowling party on Sunday!), I'm planning to pick up my house a little and run Roomba, I'm making risotto...but mostly, I'm sitting on the couch covered in cats. It's a good day.

Peace and Quiet

2012-01-03T22:15:00.004-06:00

I am an extrovert. I'm sure you all know that already. I can barely keep my mouth shut, I love to be in stimulating environments, and since I live alone I spend as much of my time as I can being connected to other people through the internet. When I wake up in the morning and when I come home at night, often the first thing I do is check facebook and twitter to find out what the rest of the world is doing. I like to be connected. This summer my peer learning group decided to take a once-a-month social media fast. No twitter, no facebook, no text messages, no blogs...and in order to do that, I basically had to shut down my computer and ignore it the whole 24 hours. I know that my self-control would not extend to writing but not checking the news, dealing with email but not checking facebook, etc. Those 3 days were some of the loneliest I remember in a long time--it's strangely isolating to be cut off like that.

But it's also strangely liberating, after some practice. One of my favorite places right now is my friend Cindy's cabin, which doesn't have internet or tv and where my phone only sort of works. It's quiet in a way that even the far-away-suburbs aren't quiet. It's dark. The disconnection is profound, and I have come to love it, even to crave it. I'm finding that if I don't have some disconnected and quiet time in my day, I'm distressingly unproductive and even crabby. I like to have time to just think.

It could be because of articles like this one, or this one, or this most recent one...it could be because I'm trying to write a book AND have a full time job...it could be because something in my spiritual or emotional life has shifted and I just need more space to contemplate. In any case, I long for the opportunity to turn off my phone and internet and just BE. The science tells me that my brain works better when I give it a rest. The history tells me creative juices flow best when given space to move. The spiritual experience of millions of people before me suggests that it's hard to recognize the movement of the Spirit when I'm busy with the movement of the next thing and the next thing, or with what's happening on facebook or twitter or email or the blogosphere. We need time and space to do nothing in order to be our best selves, to let creativity flourish, and to connect to the Holy. We need sometimes to just turn that other stuff off and just be with ourselves and whatever comes up. And, of course, I could do that at home. I could sit and do nothing, or just shut down the computer and read a book, or be disciplined enough to turn off the wireless while I write so I'm not distracted by that little blue twitter bird. But I'm not to that level of my practice yet, so I still need to be more physically cut off in order to really practice silence. I used to mock those people who have that computer software that blocks websites they choose, or that turns their internet off for defined periods of time--couldn't they just have some self control? It turns out...no. lol.

I think it's so interesting when people (including myself) claim that we're just not good at silence, or meditation, or prayer, or retreating, or disconnecting so we can reconnect with our center, or other things in this vein. I've said these words before. I've heard them frequently. But more and more, I'm thinking it's kind of a cop-out. Lots of things are difficult, there are plenty of things we're not immediately good at, but we still believe them to be valuable enough to practice. For instance, none of us learned an instrument, or a foreign language, or math, or how to ride a bike, or a sport, or creative writing, or anything else, instantly. Few of us were immediately good at those things either. They take practice, but we don't just say "well, I'm not good at that" and give up on it. But when it comes to practicing silence or prayer or even just BEING without DOING, we do give up right away. The twitter bird turns blue, or the phone chimes, or we walk past a place with free wireless, or we get a little bit uncomfortable, or start thinking of our grocery list, and we're right back in the thick of things, shrugging off the attempt as just "not my thing." And somehow that's okay in a way that shrugging off math or Spanish or learning to drive would not be.

The thing is...silence, retreat, meditation, prayer--all of these are practices that Christians (and others) have been doing for centuries. They have endured because they have value, and they should probably be a signpost for us too. We (hopefully) don't give up following Jesus just because it's difficult--though I think many of us do do that (hence the prevalence of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism). But when we just brush these practices aside as something we're not good at, it's likely we're missing something--something that could deepen our faith and change our lives. So the question is: what is it in that silence that we're afraid of, and how can we let go of the fear instead of the practice?

Grounded Joy--a sermon for Advent 3B

2011-12-18T23:55:00.002-06:00

This was last week's sermon. I didn't love it when I wrote it, but the feedback has been such that I decided I'd better post it. Happy Advent.

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Grounded Joy
Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11 (and the magnificat) (CEB)
11 December 2011, Advent 3B

With all my heart I glorify the Lord!  
In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
He has looked with favor on me.
Look! From now on, everyone will consider me blessed
because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is the Lord!
He shows mercy to everyone,
from one generation to the next.
He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts
and proud inclinations.
He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
He has come to the aid of his servant,
remembering his mercy,
just as he promised to our ancestors.

~~~~~

The LORD God’s spirit is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me.
He has sent me
to bring good news to the poor,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim release for captives,
and liberation for prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and a day of vindication for our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
to provide for Zion’s mourners,
to give them a crown in place of ashes,
oil of joy in place of mourning,
a mantle of praise in place of discouragement.
They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, planted by the LORD to glorify himself.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins;
they will restore formerly deserted places;
they will renew ruined cities, places deserted in generations past.
I, the LORD, love justice;  
I hate robbery and dishonesty.  
I will faithfully give them their wage,  
and make with them an enduring covenant.  
Their offspring will be known among the nations,  
and their descendants among the peoples.  
All who see them will recognize that they are a people blessed by the LORD.
I surely rejoice in the LORD;  
my heart is joyful because of my God,  
because he has clothed me with clothes of victory,  
wrapped me in a robe of righteousness like a bridegroom in a priestly crown,  
and like a bride adorned in jewelry.  
As the earth puts out its growth,  and as a garden grows its seeds,  
so the LORD God will grow righteousness and praise before all the nations.

It’s that time of year again—when happiness and cheer abound! Everywhere you go there’s festive music playing, lights twinkling, and happy people urging us to buy from their store. There’s Christmas Spirit in the air—that strange scent combination of apple cider, pine, and molasses that somehow equals comfort even though it’s almost impossible to describe in any appetizing way. The bumper stickers and TV pundits are, as ever, reminding us to keep Christ in Christmas, some of them while wearing santa hats and reindeer antlers. All that’s missing is a little dusting of snow—but not too much—to brighten up the barren branches, and we’ll have the picture-perfect multi-sensory Christmas Card life. We can sing our glorias and finish our shopping and hang our stockings by the fire with care, breathing deeply all this Christmas Cheer that guards our spirits against the long winter.

But sometimes I feel like the cheer is forced on us, spread on so thick it’s clearly designed just to get us to stimulate the economy. It’s like the whole of our western culture, which is built on being nice and making ourselves happy, is suddenly on steroids, and if we’re looking for something beyond “happy” then we’re obviously deluded. And if for some reason we aren’t happy—whether we’re grieving, or struggling with depression, or wondering how to pay for all those Christmas presents, or hoping to have enough money for Christmas dinner, or just not feeling the cheer this year—then something must be wrong with us.

Around the world today churches are celebrating God’s promise of joy—which sounds a lot like happiness, right? Sometimes people use the words “joyful” “happy” and “blessed” almost interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same thing. On some websites you can indicate your mood at the time of your post, and one of the choices is “happy”—happiness as a temporary mood, probably based on any number of circumstances, like whether you had coffee this morning, whether a friend called or didn’t call, what kind of headlines you saw today, or whether there are interesting plans in your day. Happiness is one of those sort of basic-yet-shallow feelings—part of the sad-mad-glad trio that never gets any deeper than the surface. The kind of joy that these prophets express, and the kind of joy they call us to seek, isn’t just happiness. It’s not just a feeling, not just a cheerfulness brought out by the smell of cinnamon wafting down the hall or the thought of a jolly old elf bringing fun new toys.

So then…how do we get it? Some of us have a hard enough time summoning up happiness or cheer, and others of us trade on our cheerful dispositions. Many of us at this time of year are so frantically rushing around getting everything decorated and wrapped and baked that we don’t have time for any of it. I wonder, if we were truly honest with ourselves, how many of us would admit that we pretend to be happy even when we aren’t—at Christmas time or at any time—because we think that’s what people expect of us. Do we use our smiles to mask something missing deeper down? Do we keep working on happiness, hoping it will one day be enough?

I wonder how cheerful Mary and Joseph were, that first Advent. Mary, an unmarried teenager suddenly pregnant, and Joseph a man who’ll be supporting a family before he even pays for a wedding, both of them in a small village where everyone will know their scandal before lunch, and in a culture where Mary’s choice to say Yes to God could easily have gotten her killed. Yet in the midst of that, she sings this song—“My spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has done great things for me. He has fed the hungry and lifted up the lowly, and holy is his name.”

Or the prophet Isaiah, looking around at the ruined city his people were hoping to rebuild, trying to preach the word to people of fair-weather-faith, proclaiming that God has promised to plant them in fertile ground so they can grow into oaks of righteousness that glorify the Lord, offering a vision of justice and joy.

If anyone had reason to mask their fear with false cheer, it was these two. Yet in the face of both, they proclaim joy instead. As Margaret Aymer, an Old Testament Professor at the Interdenominational Theological Center, told me yesterday, “Joy is an act of faithful subversion in a world that tells you to be scared and sad.” I would add that it’s also an act of faithful subversion in a world that tells you to cover up your true self with sad-mad-glad. Joy is well beyond anything our culture, our possessions, our country, our media, or even our relationships can give us. Joy comes from one place: from seeking God. And, interestingly, it seems that God has even shown us the way to joy. Did you hear it?

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the broken hearted, to release the captives…to comfort the mourning…to rebuild, restore, renew…I the Lord love justice…”

Could it be that the way to know the joyful fruit of the Spirit is to practice? Not to look to the sky, anticipating something better; not to turn away from suffering because it’s depressing and ugly; but instead to get more grounded, to reach to our roots, to push down into the earth and let God grow in us like a seed…to live fully into our calling as the anointed ones, the body of Christ, made to bring grace to a world in need, to shine light into a world of darkness.

It seems so obvious as to be almost trite. We’ve all heard the stories before—some of us have even told them—of giving, serving, helping, feeding, and finding more joy there than in opening the presents under the tree. Looking into the eyes of a child receiving their only Christmas present, or handing a hungry family a Christmas dinner, or helping someone find their way through the food pantry for the first time, or visiting a jailed immigrant who wonders if they’ll ever see their family again, or looking at the photos of students in El Vaquero, Mexico finally getting running water in their school, or meeting a missionary, or praying for the person sitting next to you in the pew—these are all things we’ve done, and for many of us we’ve found more of the Spirit in them than in the malls or decorations. Is it possible that the way to joy—to the real Christmas Spirit—is through being more fully who God has called us to be, in the place God has called us? Is it possible that Christmas Joy comes from US being the site of God’s incarnation, God’s taking on flesh, God’s coming to be with us? Maybe when we bear Christ into the world, the way Mary bore Christ in her body, when we don’t just speak good news but ARE good news, when we are creators of justice, then we will also find joy—a joy that is beyond mere cheer, a joy that is grounded and growing, a joy that is subversive and holy.

May it be so.
Amen.

an anniversary spent with no internet

2011-11-02T20:31:00.001-05:00

Living with grief is a strange thing.
Years, made up of months of weeks of days of hours
spent keeping busy
doing the job
getting things done
making people proud
proving you can do it
even when the person you most want to make proud
the only person you ever needed to prove anything to
is gone.
Every other anniversary (and many other days)
has been filled with reliving every moment of that day
and the days leading up to that day
wondering pleading crying
but not truly functioning, whatever other people might be able to see.
This year was different
a day in the muddle of days

in a place with no internet and no clock

where time stands still…
a day spent reading mystery novels with women detectives, just like she did
a day spent cooking, in a pot that once was hers, just like she did
a day spent, for the first time in six years,
just resting.
It seems counterintuitive—
we’re told to keep busy to keep our mind on other things to distract ourselves and move on
but that may not actually work
I thought a retreat would mean thinking more, obsessing more, crying more
but instead it meant rest,
and some relief—
relief from trying to hold it together,
relief from hiding the sobs,
relief from doing everything the best to make her proud.
This year was different.
No relentless memories of the phone call,
No wondering if the day would ever end,
No what-ifs about how the world might have been different,
No sobbing until throwing up.
Just…reading. cooking. rest. Finally.
I still miss her.
I still want to pick up the phone and find her on the other end.
I still want to go on those adventures we’re (in)famous for.
But maybe a little rest from all of that

was what I really needed on this year’s anniversary.

peace unity and purity

2011-10-23T20:44:00.002-05:00

One of the ordination vows every officer at any level of the Presbyterian Church USA takes is to "further the peace, unity, and purity of the church." Sometimes, this vow has been used as a club to keep people out, sometimes it's been ignored, sometimes it's been misunderstood...most of the time, I think we generally fall into the ignoring camp in my congregation.

Until last week, anyway, when the personnel team asked me during my annual review about how this vow is reflected in my ministry.

Of course, part of me had an internal freak out, as in "do they think I'm a troublemaker?" And the other part of me (the rational part) thought "ummm......."

So, I answered the question, kind of, but what it really came down to was that no one was sure entirely what we even meant by these words, and what the words mean in the context of the local church (not just on a denominational level), and how they might apply to our congregational life. SO...what I ended up saying was something about how "unity" is not about uniformity, but about unity of purpose--that we are all here seeking the same goal: to follow Jesus, to be transformed for the transformation of the world, to participate in the mission of God in the world, etc...and "purity" is not about what our current American culture labels as pure but instead about purity of intention, purity of heart, purity of love for God and neighbor and enemy. But "peace"--this is the hard one. Peace, of course, is not just the absence of conflict (though after a conflict, a little absence feels pretty peaceful!) but also the presence of justice. Peacemaking is a big part of our call as Christians, and so creating conditions for justice and peace to flourish in the church is a large part of ministry.

Having said that, I went home from that meeting wondering if I had done a disservice to the role of pastor in regards to peace. Is the role of a pastor to make peace in a congregation? Or is it to disturb the peace, so the people of God can go out and work for justice and peace in the world? I wonder how often we use the word "peace" the same way we use the word "nice"--as a cover for shallow relationships and vague understanding, rather than as the Shalom God intends. Particularly in situations where the pastor has a lot of things to do, a lot of people to work with, programs to administrate, and saints to equip, it can be easier to avoid conflict in order to keep the "peace" than to challenge the status quo. It's often been said that our job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable...and some of us do a better job and one side or the other of that coin, no doubt. But how often do we avoid one in favor of the other?

I'm contemplating giving myself a new title--because I think the church and world need more of these people, instead of people who will continue to live with the way things are. Plus, five years post-ordination, it's time to think about which aspect of my role I most live into right now (I keep hoping I'll identify most with "steward of the mysteries of God"...that'll probably be coming soon. LOL). Therefore, I will now consider myself The Reverend Teri Peterson, Disturber of the "Peace." (yes, with air quotes!)

Learning Love--a sermon for Ordinary 30A

2011-10-22T18:48:00.003-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Learning Love
Matthew 22.34-40
23 October 2011, October 30A

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Do you know the cartoon “love is…”? It’s a daily one-panel drawing with the words “love is” at the top, and words finishing the sentence at the bottom, with drawings of people that slightly remind me of the Little Miss… girls. Every day since about 1970 there has been a different description of what love is. Among the descriptions from the past few days, we have things like “Love is…an open door” “Love is…not even noticing you forgot the picnic basket” “Love is…not wanting to say goodnight” and “Love is…taking that second chance.”

We might almost say that love is one of those words that has so many possible meanings that it often means nothing at all. For instance—do I love mashed potatoes the way I love my family? Do I love celebrating my birthday the way I love pursuing my calling? Do I love scotcharoos the way I love God? In the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, a teenage girl explains the difference between like and love: “I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.” If all of those are love, what is love anyway?

Jesus probably had a similar problem—there are a lot of things “love” can mean. It helps, of course, if you speak a language with more nuance than English has in this case, and it helps if you live in a time with fewer material possessions and a culture that values people over things, and it helps if you are part of a religious system that tells you exactly what to do in every circumstance. So when asking which law was the greatest, the lawyer was asking Jesus to prioritize—among the 613 laws of the Torah, which one is most important? It’s a trick question, designed to force Jesus into heresy. But Jesus answers with the Shema—the Bible verse that every Jew would recite multiple times every day: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” In other words—with your whole being, love God. Then he adds a verse from everyone’s favorite book, Leviticus: “love your neighbor as yourself.”

The word “love” here is agape—one of four choices in Greek. Others include eros (erotic love), storge (affection), and philia (brotherly love). Philia and Agape are both words that imply self-giving, sacrificial, unconditional, steadfast, loyal, all-in love. So when Jesus, or Paul, or Deuteronomy, or Leviticus, call us to love God with our whole being, they’re almost being redundant—the poetic repetition tells us they really mean it, every word. In fact, the latest English translation of the Bible ends this passage with the phrase “everything depends on these two commands.”

Everything depends on these.

I’m reminded of The Five Pillars of Islam, which are confessing your faith in God, prayer, fasting, giving, and pilgrimage. In other words—the whole of the Muslim faith is held up by these five practices. Not five beliefs, not five words to say, not five books to read, but five actions to do regularly. They might say that “everything depends on these.”

What would our five pillars of Christianity be? We probably share some in common with our Muslim brothers and sisters—confessing our faith in Christ, prayer, and giving are fairly obvious. We may even say fasting or pilgrimage too. But Jesus says there’s one big pillar, and all these things are more like supporting columns—our big pillar is to love God with all our being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

How does this foundation play out in our faith and life, though? Just as the five pillars of Islam are practices, not simply beliefs, this pillar Jesus lays before us is also a practice, not a belief. I can say that I love God, and I can claim to love my neighbor, but does that mean anything more than that I love mashed potatoes? How does my neighbor—or my enemy—know that I love them? How does my neighbor know that I love God? Just as the letter of James says: ‘faith without works is dead.’ Or, to put it in terms most of us know: talk is cheap. Christian faith is not cheap, nor is it just talk. It’s a way of life, a practice. And this way of life changes us, and changes the world. Or at least, it should. But there are a billion Christians in the world, and still the Black Eyed Peas can ask “Where is the Love?” and we just don’t have an answer. Love has been so watered down into a song or a tv show or a feeling easily transferable between people and possessions or a nice thing that doesn’t have much to do with God. But the love of God is not nice—just as Aslan is not a tame lion, the love of God is not tame, not for our own use, and not to make us feel good. Love calls us to action—it’s a verb.

So if love, as Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Jesus and Paul call us to, is more than a feeling and more than words, then how do we do it? How do we learn love? What does it mean in a world where we apply it to backpacks and shoes and food and people and God all in the same breath? We know that God is love, we know that we love because God first loved us, we know that we are called to love God and God’s creation—including people we know, people we don’t know, and even our enemies. But that’s all so much easier said than done.

Saint Francis de Sales, who lived in the 17th century, might be able to help us out with this. He says, “the only way of attaining that love is by loving. You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and people by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves. If you want to love God, go on loving God more and more. Begin as a mere apprentice, and the very power of love will lead you on to become a master in the art. Those who have made most progress will continually press on, never believing themselves to have reached their end; for charity should go on increasing until we draw our last breath.”

We learn to talk by making sounds…we learn to read by reading everything our eyes land on…we learn to ride a bike by riding up and down the street, picking ourselves up when we fall and getting back on…in other words, by being disciplined in our practice. By doing it over and over until we have mastered the skill. Could love be the same—we learn to love by being disciplined in our practice, taking every opportunity to practice loving God and loving others, picking ourselves up when we fall down, and trying again? Eventually the training will change us—just as you never forget how to ride a bike, you can never forget how to love. So let’s get out there and practice together, because everything depends on this.

May it be so.
Amen.

oh yeah, it's my birthday....

2011-10-21T08:22:00.003-05:00

I heart birthdays. Especially mine, but I like other people's too.

Today is my birthday. I'm 31. The sun has come out, the rain has gone, it's a balmy 57 degrees (brrrrr), and the leaves on the tree outside my window are bright red. The kitties are completely indifferent to my desire for them to sit on my feet and let me pet them. For some reason the dishes have not washed themselves, but I live in a house with dishes and food to cook in said dishes, so that's okay.

It's going to be a good birthday, I can tell.

Maybe later (or tomorrow, when I'm procrastinating on a sermon) I'll post today's RGBP Friday Five, which is also birthday-prompted, about 5 stages in my life. But for now, I gotta get moving because I have a big day planned! :-)

Friday Five on Saturday...home sweet home

2011-10-01T09:04:00.002-05:00

I was away from home all day Friday, but I love these questions from Songbird over at RGBP, so I'm excited to play anyway!

1) Where was your first home?
I recently discovered that there was an apartment that I think was my first home, but I don't remember it. The first home I remember was a mobile home in Hubbard, OR. There was a very old man who was our neighbor. I lived in this home in this location until I was 8, and then in this home in another location (my grandparents' 40 acres outside Lebanon, OR) for another few years. While I remember the actual house well, and I remember a few things that happened there, I remember a grand total of nothing about that town, except that my school bus crossed railroad tracks.

2) Do you ever dream about places you used to live?

Sometimes I dream about my grandparents' house. Occasionally I have dreams about the house where my dad and brother still live. But mostly my dreams involve other buildings (church, former church, etc) or places I've never seen in real life, or intense distortions of places I have been (ie 3rd floor apartments, but you have to crawl through body-sized holes to get to the stairs, etc).

3) If you could bring back one person from your past to sit at your dinner table, who would you choose?
Hands down, my mom.

4) What's your favorite room in your current living space?
hmm...that's a hard call. I love the light in the living room in the mornings. I love my bed and the color of the walls and the artwork in my bedroom. I love the kitchen--not because it's a good kitchen, but because it's where the food is and the cooking happens!

5) Is there an object or an item where you live now that represents home? If not, can you think of one from your childhood?

I don't know...books, maybe? I'm always intrigued when there are no books in someone's home. Books make a place feel homey to me. The more books, the better! Also, cats. Where my cats are is home, I suppose.

yum

2011-09-27T22:39:00.003-05:00

I went to the farmer's market this morning, and even though I got home late tonight I decided I needed a little vegetable fix. I cooked up some kale, onions, and carrots and added them to leftover mostaccioli...even though it had a tomato sauce already, I added some multi-colored cherry tomatoes. Delicious!

In the process, I discovered the most delicious carrot I have ever eaten. Ever, in my whole life.

Family members and close friends will recall that I think carrots are disgusting. In fact, I think this about the vast majority of orange foods in the world (butternut squash being the exception).

However, I know carrots are good for you, so I decided to try to eat them. I've been trying to eat baby carrots with hummus, disguised them with ranch, and hidden them in salads. Hiding them in pasta is one of my favorite tricks. But today I tried a new kind of carrot, an heirloom variety called Atomic Red Carrots.

As soon as I heard the name from Troy, one of my favorite farmers at the market, I knew I had to have them.

The fact that they aren't orange on the outside helped too.

So I got the carrots home, sliced them up, and ate one before the rest went into the saute pan.

I have never said these words before, but it was kind of a spicy carrot! Not exactly what I was expecting, and not great but not terrible.

And then magic happened. When I sauteed them, they turned CRAZY red. And when I ate them, they were so sweet and delicious I thought I'd spilled honey (also from the market) into the pan. Seriously, the carrot tasted like beauty. I don't even think I can describe it.

I am a convert to the Atomic Red Carrot. I may never eat boring grocery store carrots again.

Growing Up--a sermon for Ordinary 26A

2011-09-24T21:12:00.001-05:00

The Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Growing Up
Exodus 17.1-7
25 September 2011, Ordinary 26A

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

I love to read. I read constantly—almost everything I can get my hands on. Novels, theology, blogs, news articles, church magazines, the Bible…I love stories. When my eyes or brain are too tired for reading, I listen to podcasts or radio dramas, I watch old movies or tv shows. In part this is because I like the escape—because I can find myself in the story somewhere. Sometimes I might identify with a particular character, or a situation, or sometimes even some part of the scenery. Sometimes I’m in the story because I’m so outraged at whatever is happening, or so sympathetic. Whatever the case, almost every time I can place myself in the story.
So I wonder today if we might try this out. I’m going to read this story again. I invite you to close your eyes and picture the scene, and see if you find yourself in the story.

(read scripture again)

Where were you in the story?

Some of us identify with the congregation of the Israelites—the people who want what we want, and we want it now. I have certainly fallen into this category often enough in my lifetime that I have actually had friends and family members just hold up cheese, in case I want it to go with my whine. We all whine from time to time. We all have needs that ought to be met—water, food, shelter, love, justice, healthcare. The Israelites were no different. Except that one chapter ago, when they were hungry, God fed them with bread and meat…and continued to do so every day, like clockwork, for the next 40 years. And except that two chapters ago, they were walking across the dry floor of the sea, then watching their persecutors drown as they tried to chase the fleeing Israelites. So maybe they were different—they had seen some amazing things, they were being directly provided for by God, and they were now following God toward the promise. What the promise was exactly, they probably weren’t sure. And who this God character is may still be a little unclear. After all, there wasn’t exactly time in the slave lifestyle to maintain a religion. Moses himself, while talking to the burning bush, had been concerned that no one would listen because they don’t know this God character—only when God gives a name, “I am who I am, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” does Moses even begin to think about agreeing to this crazy plan God has cooked up.
So the congregation of the Israelites can perhaps be forgiven for having their moments of toddler-style temper tantrums. They are people who have just been reintroduced to the God of their ancestors, people who are just beginning a journey with this God. In terms of their faith journey, their experience as God’s chosen people, their ability to trust God’s promise to provide for them, they are children who don’t understand why their every need is not immediately met, who will turn on the leader with the slightest provocation, who will have separation anxiety when Moses goes up the mountain to talk to God, and will demand to get their way but will never say thank you without being reminded.
Okay, so it’s not flattering to imagine ourselves in this role in the story. But sometimes it might be accurate. After all, we are a people whose culture is built on instant gratification. I’m the first to complain that we can’t seem to get the wireless internet signal to reach to the fellowship hall…because it would be so convenient if we could stream movies for youth group rather than having to plan ahead to get the DVD. And I know I’m not alone in my desire for convenience and quick service on my terms. There’s uproar every time facebook changes something. There’s some intense anger about the way Netflix will now have two separate websites—one for DVDs and one for streaming movies and tv shows—which means, gasp! we have to create two separate lists and go to two different sites to get what we want. There was an article yesterday about how Amazon warehouse employees are treated, constantly being required to increase their rate of work until they’re locating and packing up to four items a minute in the huge maze of a warehouse, all so we can get our items cheaply and immediately. We live in a 24 hour news cycle, a 24 hour advertising cycle, and a 24 hour buying cycle. There is no need to wait for anything—whatever we want, there’s a way we can get it right now. And if we don’t…
we complain.
The Israelites needed food and water. They were traveling with a God who had proved to be greater than their imaginations, but they still tested this God, requiring God to earn their trust. It takes time to change from persecuted slaves to the beloved community of God. It takes time to unlearn things, to undo the psychological and spiritual and physical damage, to learn new ways of being and doing. It takes time to grow up.

In the meantime, they blame Moses. If there’s no water, no food, no healthcare, no justice, no safety, it must be the leader’s fault. Why did he do this to us? Is he trying to kill us? Is this a plot to ruin the country, to put an end to our way of life, to get glory for himself at our expense?

But Moses doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he shows us that he’s been hanging out with this God for a while now. He’s had some time to get used to the idea of following God into apparently hopeless situations, and he knows that this complaining and whining and arguing and testing isn’t about him. He tries to turn the people’s attention to God, but that doesn’t work any more than it does with children. So he talks to God—he doesn’t respond to the sarcasm, the anger, the accusing words, he simply talks to God. Moses knows that he can’t create water…and he knows there is One who can. Moses knows that instant gratification isn’t the name of the game with this God—10 plagues, multiple stuttering audiences with the Pharaoh, a seemingly impenetrable ocean, and a vast expanse of desert are ample illustration that God is not interested in granting our most immediate desires at the expense of our deeper needs. But Moses also knows that without God, he can’t do anything except get himself killed by an angry mob.

But with God, all things are possible. Moses takes the leaders of the tribes, the elders of the congregation, and goes ahead, showing the way. Moses was a shepherd—he knew that sheep follow, they can’t be led from behind. This group of leaders goes ahead into the desert, and there they encounter the presence of God. There they experience God in a way they couldn’t imagine back in the camp. They know that God is with them—the question of the Lord’s presence among them is no longer a question. It’s a reality. With that knowledge, they can lead the people into the sure and certain hope that water, living water, is provided out of God’s gracious bounty. There is enough. In the presence of God, they grow up. Their faith journey is no longer just beginning—now they, with Moses, are leaders who know the way.

Moses isn’t a beginner at following God. His faith has matured as he’s spent time with God, known God’s presence, heard God’s voice, and seen God’s faithfulness. When the people complain, he knows that while the surface issue may even be as important as whether there is water to drink, it’s still just a surface issue—the real issue is the question of whether God is among us or not.

This is still the same question. There are lots of presenting problems in the life of a community—whether it’s our church, our nation, or our world. There are lots of important issues. There’s a lot of temptation to blame leaders, or to argue, or even for leaders to believe that it really is about them. But those are all toddler responses. It’s time for some growing up as we walk this faith journey. Yes, we are children of God, but that doesn’t mean we need to act like children. Paul writes about people young in faith and how he fed them with the spiritual equivalent of milk, but at some point it’s time to move on to solid food. Here’s our chance—to follow the example of Moses as we grow in grace. By creating that community of leaders, Moses found a way to spread the good news of God’s presence and God’s faithfulness, the life giving water of grace. It’s not just his word anymore—it’s the word of people whose faces are shining with the love and promise of God. The challenge for us now is whether we will join them.

May it be so.
Amen.

I keep trying...

2011-09-19T10:38:00.003-05:00

...and failing to write a blog post. I've started several and deleted them, or they're just languishing in my drafts. Sorry for the blog silence. It's not even for any particular reason, other than that I suppose I don't have much to say.

However, I did get a book contract from Chalice Press to write a book with my best friend Amy, so we are now feverishly writing a book! Sometimes drafts or sections of chapters may make appearances here for feedback, so watch for that.

The working title of the book is And Then We Just Got Really Busy: spirituality for a new generation. Send us good writing vibes!

Dear Politicians...

2011-07-29T12:40:00.004-05:00

...contrary to your apparent belief, you work for the country. Not just for those of us who live here now, not just those of us who voted for you, but for the country. And, because we live in a global society, working for our country also means thinking about the impact your decisions have on people around the world. This is not about you, this is about all of us together. That means that your job is to do things that will be in the best interest of the whole country in the long term. Not what will be best for you today, or your constituents today, or for your next election campaign.

So, if you wouldn't mind, put aside all your own crap, your ego, your ambition, and your pointless political posturing, and do your job. For all of us, and for our future.

In case you're too busy being interested only in your own gain and the "win" for your own ideological idiocy, I'll boil it down to one sentence. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU, SO STOP BEING DUMBASSES AND START GETTING SOME WORK DONE.

And for those of you who are claiming to be Christians...well, I have a lot of other words for you, but they all start with things you can find for yourself in the gospel according to Luke, or in the prophets (those are in the middle of that dusty book high up on your top book shelf...Amos is a good place to start, and is nice and short too).

You're welcome.

making my brain tired

2011-07-26T21:15:00.003-05:00

I think I've exhausted my brain with all the reading I've been doing. This is what happens when all your holds at the library come in at the same time.

I've obviously been in need of nourishing my imagination and having plenty of time just to sit around with piles of books. I don't get to do this very often, and when I do, I'm apparently a glutton for it. Surprise surprise. I'm a glutton for lots of things. books, ice cream, kitty snuggles...and we all know that when I get obsessed with something, I just go until the end. It's why I can watch whole seasons of tv shows (well, ok, *good* tv shows) in a weekend, or spend a day doing nothing but watching the Lord of the Rings, or playing facebook games until I'm perfect at them, or working until a whole program or idea is completely finished and ready for a whole year. I have a serious need to learn moderation.

I began the glut of library books with Mistress of the Art of Death (a book I received free from the library summer reading program!), and then its sequel The Serpent's Tale (which I started reading first, but a few pages in realized that it must be a second book--I was so glad to find I already owned the first book, thanks to my Reader's Quest prizes!). I kind of love this series and can't wait to see how the strong independent woman main character (a doctor from Salerno who lives in Tudor England) develops. She solves mysteries, refuses to be boxed in by cultural taboos, and is in general just super interesting. I like her a lot. I think there's a third book out, or will be soon...or at least I hope so!

I read two historical novels about the same time period and the same family (basically) by two different authors, which was a really interesting experience. Leonardo's Swans and The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi are both about life in Renaissance Italy, a period and location I haven't read many novels about. Big names (Lorenzo di Medici, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, etc) are littered throughout the stories. Small names too, like Jewish families and illegitimate children and servants and priests and such. Both were engaging stories, and each portrayed their main characters (the d'Este princesses) in really different ways. In one, Isabella d'Este (who married into the house of Gonzaga) was a rabid collector of beautiful things, a woman who would do almost anything to get herself painted by Il Magistro (Leonardo). In the other, she was a cruel woman who would stop at nothing to have the power she wanted, including crushing the spirits of people around her. However, in both books she seems to be a hospitable woman, helping her friends in times of need. Interesting.

Murder of a Medici Princess, which I hoped would be in the same vein, was a disappointment--it looks like a novel, but it's actually a history. With that cover art and that kind of title, it seemed like it would be an awesome intrigue with mystery and romance and art, but..... :-( I skimmed, but it was not engaging and read like a textbook on an important family rather than a story. Which, I suppose, is what it is. But again, the cover and the title seem so misleading!

The Song of Hannah is a lovely little book about Hannah, Peninah. and Elkanah (and Samuel, of course). The cover says it's in the tradition of The Red Tent, and I suppose it kind of is. I liked this book a lot. I wouldn't call it the best written novel ever, but I still really enjoyed the way the author imagined the story of two childhood friends who become two wives of the same man. They're both literate girls, teaching local kids reading/writing/Torah. They both know about love and pain. They are such interesting characters, and their children become interesting characters, and the way their stories intersect with the story of Israel...it's all very interesting. This is one flight of imagination I wish more people would take.

I just finished The Parrot's Theorem, which was such a different kind of book I thought my head might explode. It's about math, kind of. Well, mostly. It's a LOT of math. And I do mean A LOT. Equations, history, theorems, and whatnot. But there's a story in there too, a mystery and a found-family and a trip to Paris for my imagination. So that was awesome. I did guess the answer to the mystery about halfway through, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the second half of the book. I confess that I still don't remember/understand any more high-level math than I did when I started the book, but I know more of the history of math than I ever thought about before. It's always so bizarre to think about math-related things being "discovered." I mean, wasn't there always a number 1? well, no. Weren't there always equations that could be solved by balancing? Well, no...the whole business of learning the story behind math was interesting. I enjoyed this book a great deal, even if a lot of the actual mathematical stuff was well beyond me.

In between all that reading, I've also watched a few movies that we've been considering incorporating into the confirmation class curriculum. Let me just say: Karate Kid is so much more 80s than I remember it (which is not surprising, since, well, the last time I saw it was probably the early 90's), Legend of the Guardians was wonderful, and I think How To Train Your Dragon may be one of the cutest movies (and with the best message) ever.

And now, though I have three more books from the library here and another waiting to be picked up (and let's not even talk about the new books I got with the $100 worth of gift cards I still had hanging around when Borders announced they were closing!), I'm going to have to take a little break. I need some time to process, or to just go without any more intellectual stimulus. I can't decide whether to do that via mindless tv or just sitting around, or getting a coloring book and just playing with crayons, or playing the clarinet (a thing I'm doing sometimes now, though not very often), or what. I'm sure I'll be back to let the three of you who still read my blog know what I decided. ;-)

"what she thought was right"

2011-07-20T10:07:00.002-05:00

The other night I watched the movie How To Train Your Dragon (which, by the way, was an awesome movie). The main premise underlying life in this little Viking village is that dragons are evil and need to be killed. No one questions this premise, they just kill dragons. They fight them when they appear in the village, they hunt them, they search for their nest so they can kill them. Of course, the premise turns out to be wrong....and how many innocent and loving creatures and people suffered because no one thought to ask a question?

A few weeks ago I re-watched a two-part Doctor Who episode in which we discover that there is a whole race of "homo reptilius" living many miles below the surface of the earth. They look pretty much like people except for having a sort of reptilian face and green skin. They have a culture, a civilization, science, art, government...but because they are different, a human woman kills one of them, derailing peace talks and the possibility of cross-cultural cooperation for generations. The woman was desperate, her son having disappeared into the under-earth, but she had been given specific instructions to keep the reptile woman safe. Instead she killed her, and the excuse was "she just did what she thought was right." but what she thought was right was wrong...I hear this phrase all the time-- "they just did what they thought was right." Usually it's an excuse made when something goes badly...its sister phrase is "that's just how s/he is..."

Well, too bad.

I'm officially putting this phrases on notice, because, honestly, it's ridiculous.

At what point do we not say "oh, you did your best" and instead say "but your understanding of right and wrong was WRONG."???

There is a reason Presbyterians believe in discernment through community. We don't interpret the biblical text in isolation, we don't follow our calling without checking it with others, we don't discern direction only within ourselves. Together we learn, we pray, we listen...and all of that time together searching for the Right Thing leads us to do the right thing when the moment comes. (at least, that's the hope.) We don't rely only on our own "what I thought." Because, as we have seen time and again, that so often leads us wrong.

The difficulty comes, of course, when the whole community (or lots of it) is wrong. We've seen this with slavery, racial injustice, gender inequality, LGBT discrimination...too often we have allowed "what I thought was right" to overwhelm the Spirit moving among us. Eventually, the arc of the universe bends toward justice (at least I hope...I believe, help my unbelief!). But as long as we keep doing only "what I thought was right" instead of what God calls us to do, our communities will continue to hurt people and the earth, to damage possibilities for new life, and to obstruct the Spirit--which is the last thing we could ever call "right."

and don't even get me started on how this plays out in our political discourse and process...

a sermon for Ordinary 16A: What's a weed?

2011-07-16T18:48:00.007-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
What’s a weed?
Matthew 13.24-30
17 July 2010, Ordinary 16A

Jesus put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’

A few days ago, Harry Potter took to the big screen again, searching for (and finding) ways to root out evil in the world. As many of you know, when the wizards in the story enter their school, Hogwarts, they are first placed into a house. One by one each first year student sits on a stool in front of the entire student boy, and the Sorting Hat looks into them and declares to which group they belong—the group known for courage? For intelligence? For cunning? For compassion? Each new house member is greeted with cheers and applause. Everyone knows where they stand, where they belong—and where everyone else belongs.

It’s quite the temptation—to put people in categories, to declare who is good and who is bad, or at least more likely to be bad. It makes the world easier to understand, if everyone just fits into a nice little box—good, nice, disadvantaged, at-risk, poor, rich, liberal, conservative, wrong, right, American, foreign…we each act as a Sorting Hat all the time, putting people where we think they belong.

The trouble is—how do you tell? We don’t have all the information the Sorting Hat has—it can look into people, but we can only look at them. What happens when the boxes break down, or when something is not what it seems, or when something changes?

This week when I was reading about this story Jesus tells, I learned that the weed in question—it’s a specific weed, named in the Greek text—is darnel, or false wheat. It looks just like wheat until the ears mature…almost until harvest time, you cannot tell the two apart. Only when the grain matures can you see that the real wheat is heavy and bends over, while false wheat stands up straight and has a slightly darker color. In the meantime, while you’ve been watching the wheat grow, the false wheat has wrapped its roots around the roots of the real wheat, so pulling up one would pull up the other, or at least damage it. To add insult to injury, the fruit of false wheat is poisonous, and even a little mixed in can make a whole batch of flour toxic.

Nothing like upping the odds on a story, Jesus. Not only are there weeds, but they’re poisonous weeds…and not only are they poisonous, but you can’t tell what’s a weed and what’s legitimate crop until it’s almost too late. Fantastic. Makes you wish for a sorting hat for plants!

Even with all this complexity, the servants still want to go in and weed—to get rid of the stuff that’s not good enough, to pull out the bad even at the risk of damaging some of the good—wouldn’t it be better to get rid of a little good in order to save it all from being poisoned? But the master gardener instead says words every teenager longs to hear from their parents: just leave the weeds there. It always seems to me like the vast majority of time people spend gardening is actually spent weeding. But again, this particular weed would pull the wheat out too—which is often what happens, right? We work so hard at rooting out the undesirable elements that we damage the good things too. More than one family, more than one community, even more than one person has been ripped apart by weeding.

It makes you wonder why we are often still so intent on removing the people we consider to be weeds from our communities. It’s always someone, right—people lowering our property values, affecting our schools’ test scores, bringing crime with them, being a drain on the system, believing the wrong thing, liking the wrong kind of music, standing on the wrong side of important issues. Don’t we have to weed out the bad seeds, so they don’t affect the good seeds? But how do you know for certain what’s a weed? I’m reminded of the fact that the neighbors of people who commit crimes almost always say “I’m so surprised—he was such a nice guy” or some such thing. Or, conversely, as in the story of Harry Potter, there is surprise when someone we were so certain was a weed, so certain was evil, so certain was on the other side, working against all that is good…turns out to be on the good side after all, turns out to be some of the best wheat in the harvest.

Interestingly, this exact problem is one of the reasons Calvin wrote about the doctrine of predestination. He says that we do not get to choose—God’s grace is given to us as a gift, period. We can’t earn it, we can’t change it. That’s the good news part. The bad news part of predestination as Calvin wrote about it is that some people are weeds, and some people are wheat. But then the good news part again: it is not for us to decide who is wheat and who is weed, nor for us to worry about whether we are wheat or weed. The master gardener tells his servants to leave both and let God sort it out—which is what the idea of predestination does tells us too. We don’t get to judge others as weeds, nor ourselves as weeds—we grow together, we live under God’s grace together, we are intertwined, a community together. The question is not who is toxic and who is worthy of the soil. The question is not where we belong or what box we can put other people in. The question is: how can we live together to produce the best harvest?

Please understand—I am not advocating for allowing people to do bad things without consequences, or for perpetuating injustice because we’re just not sure. There is a place for discernment and for faithful kingdom work, but there is not a place for judging the worth of other beings with whom we share the field. So I am advocating—I think with Jesus—for reserving our judgment on what people are and where they belong. As Solzhenitsyn famously said, the line between good and evil does not run between us, but through every human heart. We all have the capabilities for wheat and weeds—and the only one who can change that is God.

In fact, change, transformation, is at the heart of the gospel story, isn’t it? Sure, in our world weeds do not become wheat (though apparently people eat dandelion greens, so weeds can become food, I suppose!). But interestingly, the same Greek word Jesus uses to describe the fruit of the false wheat is the one he uses when he calls Peter a stumbling block…and Peter turns from that toxic fruit into the rock on which the church is built, a guy who sometimes got it wrong, sometimes chose violence, sometimes helped keep people out…transformed into one who opened the doors of God’s grace wide, who taught and healed and brought hope, who helped spread good news even to those he once considered poison. And scripture is full of God surprising us—the last will be first, murderers become leaders, barren women become mothers of nations, blessed are the poor and meek and grieving, let the little children come. So…can God change false wheat into real wheat? I don’t know, but I have a suspicion the answer is yes. After all, if anyone—ANY ONE—is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything is made new. Maybe even the weeds, in the world and in our own hearts.

May it be so.

Amen.

2011-07-13T09:22:00.003-05:00

Today I am kicking myself for choosing this week's gospel passage from the lectionary, rather than something else. I'm sure that when I read the other choices, they were all somehow more awful to contemplate, but really? Weeds and Wheat? ugh.

So far I have learned that the weeds in this passage (formerly translated "tares") are a specific kind of weed that looks just like wheat until almost harvest time, when the ears form.

And I have learned that doing parables for three weeks in a row is silly.

And I have learned that a lot of times, Jesus' witty stories don't make any sense.

When I was an intern at Church of the New Covenant, I preached once a month. I set myself a challenge at the beginning of the year: to preach at least one sermon on every major genre of biblical literature--"history", poetry, prophets, wisdom literature, parable, epistle, etc. When it came down to the day I had to choose the Revelation text in order to fulfill my personal challenge, I nearly decided to drop it because I felt like I'd been overly ambitious and I didn't *really* need to do that anyway....but I did it anyway. That sermon was terrible, but I did the work and I preached it anyway, even though at the time I thought it was crazy hard.

That's how I'm feeling about the parable this week. I mean, really...weeds and wheat? Really? I didn't set myself a challenge or anything, I just made what seemed at the time like perfectly reasonable worship planning choices...and I ended up with something crazy hard. Here's hoping the Spirit comes up with something to say before Sunday morning.

Reading up (through?) a Storm

2011-07-12T20:56:00.003-05:00

So, the fact that I currently have about 20 books on hold at the library, 5 of which are available the next time I go (I tried to go tonight but...no power at the library) and 1 of which is currently in my possession but is a sequel to another book I own but haven't read yet, combined with the fact that I had an actual day off this weekend combined with the fact that the crazy crazy storm of craziness, with its 75mph winds, knocked out power to basically everywhere except Panera, means I've been reading a lot.

The storm damage around town is insane. Trees are down everywhere (including in my backyard). The wind was ridiculous--it looked like a hurricane, with full trash cans (full!) being hurtled through the air, tree branch flying, recycling fluttering about...basically anything that wasn't in a garage was airborne. My power was out only 26.5 hours. There are some people still out, 36 hours later, though most people have had theirs restored by now. The ComEd people have been working like crazy, and utility workers from other states have come to help out--nearly 900,000 people were without power at the height of the outage. Driving around, you can see why. Trees have been toppled from the roots, power line poles are down, trees are on power lines, lines are just broken and hanging around...wow.

So...reading. In the past few weeks, I've read...

The Meaning of Night (A Confession)--a book I didn't want to put down because I kept being surprised by plot twists and character revelations, though the writing style was sometimes tedious.

The Lace Reader--a book recommendation I saw on someone else's facebook page. It was pretty good. Outside my normal genre. The ending was a total surprise to me! I especially enjoyed the "quotes" at the top of each chapter, and how grief played out in the main character's life. And there was a pretty funny (and scarily accurate) quote about how Presbyterians have been trying to live down the PR disaster that is the label "Calvinism" for...ever.

Searching for God Knows What--I was sad that this was not as good as Blue Like Jazz. I really enjoyed BLJ and this was...not it. disappointing, overall, actually. A few worthwhile tidbits, but not enough for me to keep thinking or writing about it. I almost put the book down halfway through, but powered on...I wouldn't say that was a *bad* decision exactly, just that I wish I could have read the second half even faster than I did, because I have a lot of books to read right now and this one didn't top the list of things to spend time on.

Oh God Oh God Oh God!--a re-read for my awesome new book group. This time around I noticed that there aren't any single-young-women essays in this book, which made it feel odd. We had a really great discussion in book group, which cannot be summed up on the blog, so...y'all need to get your own awesome book groups and talk about these things too.

What's the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?--we are doing an online book group for church, and this is our first book. We're still in the first half (things we do not have to believe) and I find most of the things fairly obvious. I don't know if other people do, though--it's possible that some of these things are revelations for some. The second half of the book is things we apparently do need to believe. I can already tell from skimming the second half that I'm going to have some things to say about that half.

The New Interpreter's Bible--Luke volume. We're re-envisioning the confirmation class experience, and this year we'll be focusing on the gospel according to Luke. So, naturally, being a crazy overachiever, I decided that instead of *just* reading the gospel and the footnotes in the NIB Study Bible, I should read the commentary and reflection in the whole volume. um, this has turned out to be an unreasonable expectation of myself, and I had to abandon it only a couple chapters in. Now I'm only reading the reflections on each chapter, and will return to the commentary as we prepare for each individual lesson throughout the year.

Friday Five: summer livin'

2011-07-08T09:44:00.002-05:00

Over at RGBP, Dorcas asks: So, what's up, Rev Gals and Pals? How are you spending your summer? (I know, some of you are in a different hemisphere and it may be chilly...sorry!) Are you experiencing fire or floods or tornados? Vacationing? Working harder than ever? Experiencing change? Longing for change?

Share five things that are happening in your life, personally or professionally or some of each, in this season of life.

Well, let's see...

I got a kale plant of my very own, in a pot, to grow on my deck. However, my deck was slated to be powerwashed and stained this week, so I had to keep the kale at church. I'm mildly concerned that it might die because there hasn't been anyone at church all week to water it. oh please don't let my kale be dead, please please please...

My deck was in fact powerwashed (at 7am Wednesday) and stained (at 7am Thursday) and now that I've opened the windows again my house smells like deck stain. ick.

I currently have 16 books on hold at the library. 3 have become available today...I'm hoping I have time to read them before the other 13 inevitably become available all at the same time!

We are currently experiencing perfect summer weather--blue skies, green trees, light breeze, 85 degrees, low humidity, great sun. I love it. I'm so hopeful that it will continue like this so I can enjoy the outdoors (well, on my level, which might involve walking instead of driving to the library, or reading outside instead of inside--not camping or anything like that, LOL!).

I've been working with a friend and fellow confirmation teacher on writing our own curriculum for the coming year(s). We are excited about how it's shaping up, though now we're to the hard part of actually putting real-live-lessons together, not just brainstorming the stuff we want to cover and imagining the vague format. Even so, we're loving it.

What are you up to this summer?

new york and vermont

2011-07-07T08:59:00.004-05:00

I've been traveling a lot this year. At least 5 or 6 days out of every month, I've been off someplace. in January it was Montreat for the Blaze. February and March, S3 at Columbia Seminary and the RevGal Big Event in the Caribbean. April, California to visit family. May, New York. June, Vermont. This month is my first month with no traveling since...November. And it will be my last month with no traveling until...March. So I need to get better about reporting my trips and getting pictures out into the blogosphere!

May was an awesome trip to New York to spend some time with my S3 group. We started out at the Unconference (at Stony Point Conference Center), which was a fantastic event. It takes all the best part of conferences (the late-night conversations in the lobby) and turns them into a whole conference. When that ended, we headed back to NYC to take in the sights (yes, that's the back of the statue of liberty--there were too many people near the window for me to get a picture of the front, and we were on our way to Ellis Island, not stopping here...) and to see a Broadway show (that's right, we saw the Book of Mormon--and it was FANTASTIC--it really is God's favorite musical, I swear. And mine.)--we did lots of fun things, enjoyed some sabbath, and talked about our project. It was a great week. I was sad to come home (and I had to come home earlier than the rest of the group, due to some work commitments).

Then in June I hopped off to Vermont for a few days with my fantastic friend Elsa. We got some amazing deals thanks to Travelzoo, so we wandered about in Vermont, visiting wineries and cheeseries and oohing and aahing over covered bridges, quaint little towns, babbling mountain brooks, and such. We also spent a day at the spa in our inn, which was pretty much the best day ever. And we ate a lot. And laughed and talked, and just generally had a good time. I like Vermont.

On our way from Boston to Burlington, we randomly found ourselves here: listening to the Book of Mormon soundtrack and singing along loudly to "All American Prophet" as we looked at the "polished granite shaft" memorializing this man who started the all-american religion. It was quite the find. We spent several hilarious minutes there. Unfortunately, there were no signs explaining the thing about the planets.

In Burlington we stayed in a B&B, we walked along the water and admired the mountains, we contemplated renting bikes (but decided against it in favor of winery tours), we visited a very random and very strange museum that's spread over a big farm and 39 buildings and has things you just do NOT expect to find in a replica of a victorian building next door to one of only 12 remaining round barns in Vermont. (a collection of impressionist art! seriously!) We ate cheese--the best smoked cheddar we've ever had (seriously, best ever). We tasted some of the worst wine I've ever had--I was literally dancing around the tasting room attempting to wipe the taste off my tongue. Then, on our way out of town, some much much better wine (I just got a notice that the bottles I bought have shipped, actually, and will be here next week!) and some incredible cheese (I'm a sucker for the triple cream, and for the super nice people who run this creamery!). We drove around via wine and cheese and covered bridge for a day and ended up in Woodstock, which is called The Prettiest Small Town In America for a reason--because it is.

While in Woodstock we hiked, we wandered, we spent time at the spa, and of course we tasted wine and cheese. We visited the Sugarbush Farm, where we tried much delicious cheese (sage cheddar! 8 year old cheddar! omg.) and maple syrup (both of which came home with me...mmm...cheese), and I also got to pet a baby cow called Oscar. I don't have this photo (Elsa?), but Oscar loved me. He kept licking my arm. He's a baby Angus whose mother rejected him, making his life doubly sad because he's parentless and because one day he'll be hamburger. But for now he was adorable. However, he also led to me doing some serious hand/arm washing, followed by arm sanitizing (haven't done that before, LOL!).

At the end of our trip we visited Simon Pearce, where we got to see a hydroelectric dam in action, watch pottery being made, and watch glass being blown! Apparently this is the only place still selling a full range of hand-blown glass materials. We started out by drooling over everything in the store, and contemplating setting up a registry even though neither of us is getting married. After watching the glass blowers for a while, we ate lunch in the restaurant and enjoyed some of the best food ever, while eating and drinking from the very products we had just seen being made. it was cool.

I didn't really want to come home from here either. Though I probably would go insane if I lived in a town like this, I love love loved vacationing here! I would definitely go back.

summer love

2011-07-06T09:51:00.003-05:00

I love the summer reading program at the Crystal Lake Library. First of all, it's open to grown ups. Second, the theme is always amusing. Third, you get awesome prizes just for reading.

So far this summer I have turned in two logs (15 hours each) and have scored:
a canvas tote bag
a free book
a free hot fudge sundae
a coupon for Yumz (the new frozen yogurt bar)
a free donut

When you finish a log you get to spin a giant wheel and see what your prize is...so cool. I love spinning that wheel. I especially love that I get to spin it for doing something I would do anyway! Though I confess that I am more motivated to turn off facebook and open a book when I contemplate the prizes available.... :-)

The Good Life--a sermon for Ordinary 14A

2011-07-02T11:48:00.003-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
The Good Life
RCLPC
Matthew 11.25-30
3 July 2011, Ordinary 14A

At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Well friends, we’ve made it—into the long green stretch of the church calendar. This time of year in the church is called Ordinary Time—which does not mean Boring Time! Here Ordinary means that this is not a season focused on a specific aspect of Jesus’ life—as Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter focus on the mystery of incarnation and salvation. Instead, the readings during Ordinary Time seek to show us what it means to be a Christian in the everyday, in the ordinary. In the northern hemisphere this is also the season of growing—and here in the church community we too focus on growing. Our paraments are green to represent life and creation growing and bearing fruit, and we look to our lives as Christians to see if they too are growing and bearing fruit.

There are an awful lot of agricultural metaphors going on here—greening, growing, bearing, yoking…next week there will be seeds and dirt, the following week there will be weeds as well as crops…which makes it hard, I think, to contemplate these scripture passages in our not-very-agricultural lives. Sure, some of us garden, but even so the vast majority of us have little experience of an agricultural mindset or of the practices that would have been obvious to a farmer in a traditional society like Jesus’. When Jesus talks in agricultural language, he’s speaking the language of the people. When we read his words, we have to work at what that might mean. A good example is right there on the cover of your bulletin—Kim and I had a discussion this week about whether most people would know what this is a picture of. A I thought it was obvious, but she thought it was confusing and looked vaguely like something else unless we added the scripture quote underneath. It’s a yoke, of course—a piece of equipment used to hitch two animals together and to a piece of equipment, such as a plow. But few people in our context see things like these outside of museums anymore—so much of our farming is done with machinery, and so few people are working the land, that a yoke is an antique, not an everyday, ordinary item.

For Jesus and the people in his community, the yoke had a double meaning. The most obvious is the one used for oxen or donkeys to do the farm work, but there are also words like those in Isaiah 58: “Is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke?” A yoke is a system, often a system of bondage—whether that system is economic, political, or intellectual. Sometimes people are put under the yoke by an oppressive power, as the Israelites had been by the Babylonians, or as they were under the Romans. Sometimes the yoke is a choice—by choosing to follow a particular teacher, one took his yoke upon oneself. The yoke was the system of teachings, the philosophy, of the teacher. And sometimes a system that was supposed to be life-giving—like the Torah—is turned into an oppression, as we see with the wise and intelligent—the Pharisees and the scribes—who have made the good law of God into a religious and political system that oppresses people and needs to be broken.
So Jesus calls all of us who are caught in those systems, especially those who are weary of following all 613 laws to the letter and still wondering about the grace of God, especially those who believe God’s love has to be earned, to come to him and trade that yoke for another.

I always thought that the point of breaking the oppressive yoke was to be free. But we all know that isn’t exactly true—as a song we sang last week at 8.30 said, You Gotta Serve Somebody. The question is: will we be yoked to the letter of the law, yoked to the economic and political system, yoked to our possessions, yoked to our social status, yoked to our desires, yoked to our limited understanding of God, yoked to what we think the good life looks like….or will we come and slip into one side of a yoke where Jesus is on the other side, and partner with him in the work God has in mind for the world?

When a farmer has a new animal to train, he yokes that new animal together with an experienced one. That way the new animal learns the way while the experienced one carries most of the burden. Eventually the new animal becomes so experienced that he follows the way willingly, and finds the work easy, the burden light. His life is changed to follow a new direction.

Are we willing to take Jesus’ yoke upon us? Are we willing to take on his teachings, put them around our necks, and walk with him until we are so trained that our lives won’t go any other way? Are we willing to submit to this burden, knowing it means we cannot continue to pull our other burdens (however much those burdens may look like blessings)?

Submission is not a word I use lightly, but I think it’s what Jesus is asking for. We are being invited to come, to submit to a life that looks different from the one many of us would prefer. In the language just recently changed in our book of order, we are being asked to “submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of our lives.” All aspects of life…when we come to take the yoke of Jesus, we tether our life to his, we commit to learning from him, and it will change us. Do we want to be changed?

I know that sometimes I want to go my own way, dance to my own drummer, wander off into another field. Sometimes those other ways look more attractive—they look so inviting with their power, prestige, fame or fortune. They look like blessings, not burdens, and we pull away, looking longingly at the other yoke. And sometimes, frankly, I don’t want to work, I just want to lay down in the field and have a snack, and stay that way, leading a life of leisure forever, doing nothing—I mean, can’t God work the plan without me?

This is the part where Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. When we are being who God created us to be, when we are doing our part in God’s great scheme, and when we are partnered with Christ in his yoke (which is not the same thing as trying to get Christ to partner with us in OUR yoke!), the burden is indeed lighter. Life doesn’t get any easier—in fact, sometimes it’s harder—and pain and sorrow don’t disappear. But we have a partner who helps us pull the plow, who teaches us the way, who reminds us who God is and who we are, and who gives freely of himself in order that we might have strength for the journey. We do not submit to the yoke and get left alone—we take Jesus’ yoke upon us, and through water and bread we are refreshed and fed so that we can do the work God has for us in the world. So come, bring your burdens to God, lay them down, and take on the yoke of Christ instead. Let your life be tethered to his, so that you may be transformed, and so work for the transformation of the world.

May it be so.
Amen.

blog sabbath, accidentally and on purpose

2011-06-14T06:02:00.001-05:00

I apparently stopped blogging for a while there. Sorry about that. Nothing in particular happened to cause that...I guess I just didn't have anything to say (or nothing to say that wouldn't get me into trouble!).

but now I'm going on vacation for a week...you can find me on the Vermont Cheese Trail. Back next week. ta!

Jesus' Feet--a sermon for Easter 7A

2011-06-04T18:13:00.001-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Jesus’ Feet
Acts 1.6-14
5 June 2011, Easter 7A

When they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

This is one of those stories that makes those of us who plan worship actually consider the possibility of rigging up a pulley system that would allow Sherri to fly in and out of the sanctuary. Lucky for you (and for her!), we resisted the temptation. But really—what a strange story. It’s one of those stories that demands drama in the telling, and also one that requires us to suspend our disbelief the same way we would in a play or a movie. When I was new to the whole church thing, I remember looking at this story, then looking at my pastor, and wondering what on earth kind of crazy cult of nonsense I had gotten myself into. I mean….Jesus floated away into the sky? It’s almost enough to make me wish that the rapture had been predicted for yesterday instead of two weeks ago, because I could really use that story right now—it sounds almost normal compared to this.

But there it is, right there in the Bible…the opening scene of the book of Acts, which is filled with even more bizarre stories than this one. The full name of the book is “The Acts of the Apostles”—which sort of implies that this prelude we’re hearing now does in fact lead the apostles to do things other than stand around looking at the sky. Lots of people have said the book would be better called “Acts of the Spirit” because everything that happens in the book is a manifestation of what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world and the new church…and that’s fair, but since Pentecost isn’t until next week, we have to focus a little bit.

But focus on what? The artwork and iconography depicting this story almost uniformly shows either a floaty Jesus levitating with his robes wafting on the breeze or pictures the disciples staring up at a random pair of feet.
Well, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but yes, I do think we should be focusing on Jesus’ feet.

Just not in the way the artwork shows.

This story begins with the disciples asking Jesus “is this the time you’ll do what we all know a Messiah is supposed to do, bringing down Rome and reinstating the proper political and religious systems of Israel?” In other words, they look at their leader and say “are you going to do your job or what?” We’ve all done this—looked at a leader and expected them to do something for us. We’ve looked at the President and wondered why he can’t solve the country’s, or the world’s, problems by himself. We’ve looked at doctors with “can’t you just fix it” eyes. We’ve looked at our pastors or our session or our deacons and wondered why they won’t just do all the ministries of the church, why they won’t be the Christian on behalf of all of us so we could go about our lives, why they can’t seem to continually offer everything we want by themselves. We’ve even stood on the mountain with Jesus and asked him this same question—“is this the time when you’ll make everything right again?”
But Jesus redirects the disciples’ attention, and rather than giving a yes or no answer to what they expect him to do, he tells them what he expects them to do. “You will be my witnesses,” he says, “throughout this promised land, and beyond, all the way to the edges of the earth—to every place you can imagine, and some you can’t imagine.”

If that was how Jesus answered my question, I would probably stand staring up at his disappearing feet too.
Though, come to think of it, that pretty much is how Jesus has answered most of my questions. Almost every time I read scripture, and nearly every time I ask God to do something in the world or in my life, the answer I hear is more like “what are you going to do about it?” and less like “why yes, I can’t believe I overlooked this problem—thank you so much for bringing it to my attention, I’ll get right on it!” And I suppose if even Jesus wouldn’t fix the world for us, and if even Jesus won’t agree to just be the Christian for all of us, then it’s time for us to let go of that understanding of faith, the one where God just does things for us like a cosmic butler, and start thinking differently. Faith is about more than looking at the sky, whether in fear or in hope.

Then along come the inevitable angels, asking why we’re standing looking up at the sky when there are plenty of footprints to follow right here on earth. After all, hadn’t Jesus been walking around everywhere and showing us what to do? Hadn’t he washed our feet and called us his friends? Perhaps it’s time to go down from the mountain and look for Jesus’ feet somewhere else.

So we walk, slowly at first, down the mountain…heavy with the second wave of realization that Jesus is not going to make everything better according to our specifications…and then heavier with the realization that somehow he had just given us the job of making the world a better place according to HIS specifications. That wasn’t how we meant for this all to turn out. So we head home and fortify ourselves for the work ahead. It’s a long way to the ends of the earth, after all.

Once the disciples got back to the upper room, they did what any good church would do—they had a prayer meeting and a potluck. Which, honestly, is pretty darn close to following in Jesus’ footsteps! He taught us to pray, he taught us to eat together, he taught us to offer hospitality. By gathering in that upper room, the disciples were preparing themselves to look for Jesus’ feet out in the world rather than up in the sky. As they gathered at the table, they told stories—stories they would go out and tell to anyone who would listen. They prayed together—filling their souls for the journey ahead. They ate together—nourishing their bodies and practicing for the many meals they would share as a foretaste of God’s kingdom. They sang—letting their voices ring out so that others might hear the good news of God’s deeds of power. And when the Holy Spirit wind comes rushing in on Pentecost, pushing them out of the upper room and out into the world to be Christ’s witnesses, to walk in his footsteps and to be his hands and feet, all that practice will pay off.

What does it look like to be Christ’s witness, to look for his feet, to the ends of the earth? It might look like being a storyteller at Vacation Bible School. It might look like making PADS lunches on Friday mornings. It might look like Kristen Bauman’s journey to work with children in Vietnam, or it might look like following her blog and praying for her and the people she will meet. It might look like a week spent on an Indian reservation, or a day spent stocking the shelves at the food pantry. It might look like being a confirmation mentor, or teaching Sunday School, or going on a mission trip. It might look like being the best teacher or nurse or engineer or designer or administrator you can be, knowing that each person you work with is made in the image of God.

But in every case, without exception, it will look like watching in the world, not in the clouds, for signs of Christ’s footsteps, and then showing those signs to others. It will look like joining with others in prayer and practice, including at this table and every other table. It will look like keeping your eyes open, and following the feet.

May it be so. Amen.

Friday Five: Repeat, Re-Run, Re-Do...

2011-06-03T10:49:00.007-05:00

Songbird, over at RGBP, has noted that it's that time of year when TV shows end the season and head into summer reruns. Not having regular TV, I'd forgotten about that, but I appreciate the potential opportunity to catch up! Anyway, she writes, "In honor of this annual Time Warp, please share five things worth a repeat. These could be books, movies, CDs, recipes, vacations, or even TV shows."

let's see...five things worth repeating...I might have to do five categories so I can fit multiple things in each category! LOL.

In the realm of tv/movies:

*Any show by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse...).

*Doctor Who

*Battlestar Galactica

*The Princess Bride! (Yes, I'm *that* girl who can quote the entire movie from the beginning, including sound effects....)

*Harry Potter, especially the 5th/6th/7th movies

*The BBC/A&E Pride and Prejudice

honorable mention: Eddie Izzard...anything you can find on video or netflix, seriously.

in books:

*well, I'm a pastor so I probably have to say that the Bible falls in this category...

*Again, Harry Potter

*and again, Pride and Prejudice

*and again, the Princess Bride. who knew books could be so amazing?

*Almost Christian

*The Gifts of Imperfection

*Mary Oliver...all.

honorable mention: Lamb, Good Goats, the Margaret of Ashbury trilogy, Animal-Vegetable-Miracle

in music:

*the Indigo Girls--umm, everything they've ever put out is worth putting on repeat

*Mozart's 23rd piano concerto

*Beethoven's 6th symphony

*Styx...perhaps not their entire repertoire, but a good chunk. The Return To Paradise 2-CD set is a good start.

*Carrie Newcomer--again, everything she's got is incredible.

honorable mentions: the Book of Mormon soundtrack, the Barenaked Ladies, the soundtrack to Rent, David LaMotte, Mendelssohn's 4th symphony.

in live performance, should I ever have the opportunity again:

*The Book of Mormon (hands down the best musical I've ever seen)

*The Rite of Spring, fully staged by a ballet company with live music. There is NOTHING like this, nothing. you will be blown away.

*The Lion King (again, I've seen it twice and would go again in a heartbeat)

*David LaMotte (ask for a song from his children's collection!)

*The Indigo Girls (omg, amazing...every time, amazing, and no matter the venue, amazing.)

*Wicked (which I've seen twice and loved!)

in food:

*almost anything with potatoes, especially mashed potatoes.

*seitan "pot roast"

*locally grown illinois corn at the height of summer

*my aunt's s'mores cupcakes (vegan!)--I wish I had the recipe

*asparagus from my local grower, in season right now

*turtle sundaes

honorable mention: Annie's deluxe mac-n-cheese, green bean casserole, bean burritos, papa john's pizza

and a bonus: places to visit:

*Iona.

*Rome.

*Petra (Jordan).

*Damascus (well, at least before...I don't know what it's like now.)

*San Diego.

*Athens.

*Jerusalem and Bethlehem (not far apart geographically, but...).

honorable mentions: Disneyland!, the pyramids, Nile Cruises, Edinburgh, Amman (Jordan), Washington DC, Hawaii.

and a few minutes later, another bonus: restaurants worth a re-visit!

*the Laughing Seed Cafe, Asheville NC. best vegetarian restaurant in the country, imho.

*Abreo, in Rockford IL. yum.

*Chowpatti International Restaurant in Arlington Heights, IL. Indian Nachos...delish.

*the Flying Biscuit in ATL. dude, the biscuits...so good.

*Sipz Vegetarian Fuzion Cafe in San Diego. vegan sushi...and so much other goodness!

honorable mention: The Brick Store in Decatur GA, Duke's here in Crystal Lake, Krystal Thai (about 2 miles from my house), Graham's 318 for sipping chocolate in Geneva IL, The Chicago Diner, and Bin 36.

and you? what's worth repeating?

a variation on pad thai, with asparagus

2011-06-01T20:49:00.003-05:00

for those who've asked, here's what I made for dinner...

soak some rice sticks (not too long, they get mushy-sticky--just until they're slightly harder than al dente) in warm water. drain.

make peanut sauce: peanut butter (I like crunchy), sesame oil, rice vinegar (substitute a mix of plain white vinegar and lime juice if you don't have any), tamari/soy sauce, brown rice syrup/agave. mix. you'll need more than you think. and it'll keep if you have too much.

yes, I know pad thai is not made with peanut sauce. but seriously, I'm not going to make a vegetarian tamarind/fish sauce at home, and peanut sauce is delicious.

cut up asparagus and half an onion.

get wok very very hot. add sesame oil. when oil is hot, add onion, minced garlic, asparagus. when asparagus is very green, add noodles. pour sauce over noodles. stir fry quickly!

You can crack an egg into the wok in between the vegetable and noodle steps, if you like egg in your pad thai.

I served mine on a bed of fresh spinach, and topped with shredded carrot. if you don't use lime juice in the sauce, a squeeze of lime will really bring out the flavor.

mmmmmm.......

twitter

2011-05-29T22:32:00.004-05:00

Tonight I've been in the midst of a conversation about all kinds of exciting things, bouncing ideas around, brainstorming, giggling, despairing, hoping, and planning. There's been a fast-paced back-and-forth about music, liturgy, church, children/families, discipleship, and our least favorite praise songs. New resources are being born, new ideas are taking shape, energy is flowing.

And the whole conversation has taken place in 140-character snippets, on Twitter.

I have all kinds of new ideas, and can't wait to try some of them out with people here...and it came from Twitter.

Never let anyone say it's just a silly collection of what people eat for breakfast--there's cool stuff going on there.

also, for the record, I only post about my breakfast on facebook. ;-)

Friday Five--allergies

2011-05-27T09:22:00.005-05:00

It's been what feels like a hundred years since I played the Friday Five...but I'm starting a long weekend where the only thing on the calendar is to show up at church Sunday morning. Off today, tomorrow, Sunday afternoon, and Monday--it's like a pajama party for me and the kitties! Not to mention the sun is kind of shining, which makes everything better. Therefore today I'll join the fun over at RGBP, where Mary Beth says she is allergic to ligustrum.

Ligustrum is a type of privet hedge and it is very invasive. VERY. It's a spready green bush with leaves of various sizes and tiny white flowers of a head-piercing sweetness.
The house I grew up in had 14-foot ligustrum bushes on three sides. The house I live in now, 250 miles to the north, also has several...they are a different variety but the flowers still get me. Instant sinus attack, that's what these are. And: they are in bloom.
You can remove them, but they grow back. Forever and ever. My husband recently had his helper cut all the blooming branches off of this one, next to where I park my car. What a guy!

So, thinking about allergies:
1. Do you experience any seasonal allergies? Are you allergic to anything else?

I have lived almost my entire life with no allergies. I'm one of the lucky ones, I know. However, after living in Atlanta where the pollen is so thick it covers everything--even inside houses with closed windows--and then in Cairo where the air is basically made of pollution, I have developed some allergies of the sniffly type. I don't know exactly what I'm now allergic to, but it's something gross.

And, of course, in the realm of things-it-sucks-to-be-allergic-to-if-you're-a-pastor, I'm allergic to easter lilies. in a hardcore eyes-watering (and not because the service was so moving), can't breathe kind of way. Which I discovered my first Easter here, when the sanctuary was covered in lilies and I spent 4 services completely unable to see or breathe. There are some other flowers I have trouble with if I'm going to be up-close-and-personal with them (aka if they're next to my seat on the chancel or something) as well.

As a vegetarian, when I lived in Egypt I told people I was allergic to meat. "vegetarian" is a word but not a concept people understand. LOL.

2. What kinds of symptoms do you experience during your allergic reactions?
sniffliness mostly, except RE lilies, which also involve copious amounts of eye watering and itching.

3. How do you manage your allergies? (ie: medication, avoidance, alternative therapies, etc)

mostly I avoid avoid avoid. We no longer have lilies on Easter--now we have tulips and daffodils, which are beautiful and not nearly so difficult. I do take Claritin on high-flower-concentration Sundays, and occasional other days when I'm going to be out and about near flowers or pollution.

4. What is the strangest allergy you've ever heard of?

One of my dear friends is deathly allergic to oregano. (She also has allergies to eggplant and bell peppers...) I find this completely bizarre, and also a good reason to go out for sushi or Mexican food rather than the Italian/pizza places so popular around here....

5. How do you feel about school and social policies that banning peanuts and other allergens?

I have to admit I kind of like the no-peanut rules. We do have one teenager at church with a peanut allergy (thankfully just ingestion, not contact or airborne) and it's so much easier to just remind people we have a policy than to ask them to remember the one child with the allergy. It makes it safer all around. School-wise, if I were a parent of a child with an allergy, I would love the help on that front because it can be so hard if you're the one kid who can't eat something, or the kid who hasn't figured out how to ask/say no yet. (For example: vegetarian kids who are given hot dogs that look just like the veggie dogs they eat at home, and they don't know to ask, and they don't want to be the one kid not eating one...)

imagining myself back to sunny SoCal...

2011-05-25T09:05:00.007-05:00

The weather here has turned from kinda-nice to completely-gross, with sky so dark it looks like twilight, pouring rain, and booming thunder. And the temperature has dropped about 30 degrees (or more) since two days ago. blah.

Therefore, I will blog about my vacation, which was a month ago and therefore needs to be refreshed in cyber-memory. :-)

The weather was gorgeous...

I visited the LaBrea tar pits for the first time. They are super weird..and you can totally see how animals got stuck. It looks like just a mud puddle, until the creepy tar bubbles start oozing out.
Ground sloths (shown actual size!) are one of many species now extinct whose bones have been found in the tar pits. can you imagine these things wandering around southern california?

We went whale watching and saw thousands of dolphins. they were so fun, playing in the wake, joyriding along the front of the boat, and generally just being dolphin-y.

we also saw lots of sea lions lounging around--on the back of boats, on buoys, on anything they could find to lounge on. On the other side of this buoy was one sea lion who was clearly swimming around going "when is it my turn? come on, guys, you said we could swap out...let me up!"

Max engaged in the ever popular rolling-down-a-hill activity. Good times! much giggling ensued.

Of course we visited the Land of Mickey....

I did not ride the teacups, as they make me want to vomit. We did, however, ride basically everything else in both Disneyland and California Adventure. There were very few lines, and Max is tall enough for everything except California Screamin'...he even got to ride Indiana Jones for the first time (and second time!). Indy is still my favorite ride in the park. Space Mountain is a close second. And I rode the Matterhorn for the first time in 24 years and it was not as rough/jerky as I remembered--it was hilarious. At every ride, we would ask Max who he wanted to ride with and he always said "I want to ride with Teri!" oh yeah. :-)
We played in the Bugs Life water area when it got hot...immediately after which, he was freezing. LOL.

We visited the San Diego Zoo twice (the benefits of membership!), so I got to see all the pandas. yay!
Bai Yun loves her some bamboo....we're hoping she's preggers again and there might be a new zoobaby this summer!

Gao Gao almost always has his back to the crowd when I'm there...munching away.

Yun Zi has gotten so big--he's a real grown up panda now. he had some treats and was looking to see if there were any more. delish!

of course, there are also other animals at the zoo. (LOL)
baby hippo! mom was pushing him around the floor of the tank, then up to breathe, then around to "swim"...it was hilarious.

it was bird mating season...the ducks were insane, and the peacocks were strutting their stuff in full regalia.

Max appears to be peahen colored...luckily, the peacock still saw a difference between a girly bird and a 6 year old. :-)

Aside from all the incredible food (which I ate too fast to take pictures of...nomnomnom) and the fun conversations had with my fam (including some very intense conversation about various games for the iPod), that pretty well sums up my awesome vacation. Loved it! :-)

Jesus Glasses--a sermon for Easter 5A

2011-05-22T10:43:00.004-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Jesus Glasses
John 14.1-14
22 May 2011, Easter 5A

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’
Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

I feel like there's some serious irony that this is the lectionary text for the day after the rapture--I mean, wouldn't it be better for the rapture to be tonight, after we've all heard about this?

Jesus said, “I will come and take you to myself”…and even though he also said that even he did not know the day or the hour, we have a long and proud tradition of predicting the date for the return of Jesus, the rapture when the faithful will be caught up with Jesus and transported to heaven or, depending on your tradition, to the newly re-created earth. People predicted the rapture for March or October of 1844, for sometime in 1981, for 2000, for 6pm last night, and for the year 2060. The fact that we’re all here after last night’s rapture is a little surprising, and either means that Presbyterians didn’t make the cut or that our fascination with The End is obscuring the rest of the story.

Looking around at the world, you can kind of see why. I mean, something is obviously not right. In a world where children die of hunger, tornadoes wipe out whole towns, war is seen as a solution, and Justin Timberlake’s Saturday Night Live performance trends on twitter while people riot for food and water, sometimes it seems like the only thing we can do is hope for a way out.

But Jesus doesn’t seem to be offering an emergency exit slide. In fact, he doesn’t seem much interested in exiting at all—he tells Phillip that he’s already seen God, and he tells Thomas that he already knows the way. Is it possible that we can already see God, and that we already know the way, and we’ve all been so busy looking for a way out that we’ve missed the way in? Jesus says that his mission is to bring abundant life, that in God’s house there are many rooms—enough for everyone—that loving God by loving our neighbor, and vice versa, are how we are to go about life. It’s as if he sees something different when he looks at the world. Instead of seeing a hopeless and horrible place that needs to be destroyed and re-made, he sees a place loved and redeemed, a place of wonder and hope.

We need to get ourselves some of those Jesus Glasses. Because it seems like we’ve been looking at the world all wrong…fuzzy, like watching a 3D movie without the cheesy paper glasses. It turns out we really need those glasses, because our vision is in need of some correction.
In the early years of the church, people preparing for baptism were taught that when they were baptized and entered into the community and the community’s sacred space, their eyes would be opened to how God sees the world. They came up out of the water and the first thing they saw were beautiful mosaics evoking the garden of Eden, and their first food was the overflowing bounty of communion from a table filled with bread, fruit, cheese, wine, and all manner of good things. They joined a community that saw differently, a body that believed its mission was to show the rest of the world what God could see—a world beloved, a world created with purpose and called good, a paradise, right here on earth. This paradise was not utopia, with no problems and no work required, but it’s God’s paradise nonetheless. And their job was to share their vision with others, to show what living as a citizen of the kingdom of God looked like.

This is not an easy task, to live as a citizen of the kingdom of God right here and now. It’s much easier to think that’s something we do when we die. But in a world where food rationing was used to control and pacify the masses, Jesus fed people and showed them how to share their resources; in a world where children were property to be used, Jesus said we must all become like a child; in a world where violence is equated with power, Jesus showed the power of love. Living with kingdom vision will mean following in Jesus’ footsteps here, today—did you catch in that reading when he said that those who believe in him will do the works he has done, and even greater works. We’ll feed the hungry, and also create a system where no one goes hungry in our world of plenty. We’ll heal the afflicted, and also stop hurting people. We’ll love our enemies, and work to create a world where hate is no more. It won’t be easy, but with our Jesus Glasses on, it’s possible. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is here…we just need to open our eyes.

I wonder, then, if we might think about the rapture differently. Perhaps the end of the world as we know it is just that—the end of our way of knowing. Maybe it did happen yesterday. Maybe it’s been happening to people all along, for centuries. Maybe it’s happening right now. Because what if being caught up with Jesus is not about people floating up into the sky, but about people seeing with kingdom vision, seeing God here and now, and living in the kingdom of heaven right now, today? We look through the lens of Christ and behold, God is doing a new thing—we can see a new heaven and a new earth, because for us, the old is gone and the new has come. There are glimpses of God’s work all around us, and glimpses of God whenever we look into the face of another person created in God’s image, and glimpses of the kingdom wherever people are living and loving and doing justice. Through the Body of Christ, Jesus comes again to show us the way, the truth, and the life, and they are more beautiful and more difficult than we ever imagined.

The church used to teach that we, the body of Christ, are living in the kingdom of heaven right now, that in baptism the scales fell from our eyes and we could see paradise here on earth, that our citizenship is in God’s kingdom and so we live differently and show the world a glimpse of that wonder.

Over the years that message has often been lost in all the hubbub, but it’s still there—in scripture and even in the good old Presbyterian Book of Order, which lists one of the 6 most important purposes of the church as “the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world.” Our job as the body of Christ is to show God’s kingdom to the world, wherever we go and whatever we do. Once we open our eyes, we’ll see the beauty and hope and love infusing the world. We’ll see that God has not failed to bring the kingdom, we have failed to see the power of God in unexpected ways. We'll have kingdom vision, and there’s no going back. We’ll no longer be willing to settle for the status quo, we won’t be able to step aside and let the way of the world go on as it has been. When we live as kingdom-citizens, we can’t help changing the world—and we’ll be so busy doing justice, loving mercy, and walking with God we won’t have time to look for an escape from the world God so loves. When people look at us as members of the body of Christ, when people look at us as a community, when people look at the church, they should see the kingdom of heaven. If that’s going to happen, we need to see it too—so let’s put our JesusGlasses on and get to work. We know The Way, after all.

May it be so. Amen.

(for the complete experience: hymns today are Christ Be Our Light, Open My Eyes That I May See, and Come Great God of All the Ages. Alternative service music included the sending song Salt and Light. Special music offerings: Ordinary Miracle and He Never Failed Me Yet. awesome.)

a new day

2011-05-10T22:31:00.005-05:00

I have been wondering for a long time what I would say if this day ever came. This is a day that I have been working toward for several years -- almost as long as I've been in the church, in fact. It's a day I have dreamed about, despaired of ever seeing, hoped for, longed for, prayed for, and worked for. It's also a day that brings out fear--fear of what might happen, who might leave, what will be said/misrepresented/misconstrued/misunderstood...

But, I have to say, even with a large amount of compassion for the many people for whom this day is sad, I celebrate.

Today, the 87th (and 88th!) presbyteries voted in favor of a change to the PC(USA) Book of Order's ordination standards, putting the "yes" vote in the majority. The language that was inserted 15 years ago with the sole purpose of keeping GLBT people out of church office will be removed and replaced with language that more closely adheres to our historic church standards and that raises the bar pretty significantly for all of us who presume to undertake the task to which God has called us.

No longer will the standard be "fidelity in the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness." Now it will be that we all "submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every aspect of life." No longer will everything the confessions call sin disqualify people from leadership (since that disqualifies every single person who ever lived, in my read of the Book of Confessions), instead the standard will be the living Word of God, with the examinations focusing on our character and conduct and ability to uphold our ordination vows--and not just our favorites (energy intelligence imagination and love!) but all of them.

To be clear: as I said when the PUP report was released, I do not believe this is going to cause a wholesale change in the way we do preparation or examination for office. The reality on the ground has always been that sessions and presbyteries prepare candidates, oversee their education, and determine whether a) they are called AND b) are suitable for the office. While the "standard" has been in effect, it has been applied inconsistently at best, because the way ordination in the PCUSA words it is inherently local-on-behalf-of-the-wider-church. We don't all gather at a central place once a year and have the bishop do examinations and ordinations. We discern and learn in community, and prayerfully consider who is called and how we can best support them into their ministry. Sessions ordain the people they believe have been called to lead the local congregation. Presbyteries ordain people they believe have been called to serve. There's never been a national body double checking those ordinations. In that sense, this is not a change--each session and presbytery will have to prepare, examine, and determine the calling and qualifications of each candidate, just as we have been doing for decades now.

People have been using the words "lowering" or "relaxing" to talk about this "new" standard.

I don't know about you, but fidelity or chastity seems like a pretty low bar. I mean, how hard is it to not cheat on your spouse? Is that really the requirement?

Submitting *joyfully* to the Lordship of Christ in every aspect of my life? Let's just say that I don't submit to many people (anyone?) and that joy isn't part of my understanding of that word. This is a high bar--and I try really hard! This is actually a major part of how I understand what it means to be a Christian, and I still choke a little on the word "submit."

I also think it's a hard thing for us to admit that we do not get to choose whom God calls. We are Reformed Christians, we believe in a God who is sovereign over all things, including who gets to do God's work. Scripture is full of unexpected and unworthy people being used to do God's will in the world...and so is the church; it's just that we've often forgotten that we're just as unlikely to be good enough as the next person. None of us live up to God's expectations--but God uses us anyway. None of us is equipped and ready for the work--God equips us with what we need for the task at hand. None of us is a likely candidate--but we're all recipients of grace upon grace.

Now...can we extend that grace to those with whom we disagree? Can we work together for a kingdom of God that has many mansions within? Can we work together as parts of the body who cannot say to one another "I have no need of you"? Can we allow the church to be a reflection of God's grace in the world?

I am hopeful and even joyful about today's turning of the page in the story. I believe we have made the right step toward being the people God calls us to be, loving, serving, and caring for the world. I am grateful for the friends and colleagues who have suffered in their work to be accepted as people called by God, and saddened by the loss of so many people who had to seek other outlets to live out their calling. I celebrate with those who finally know there is a place for them in God's church.

I know there are people who disagree. May we all find ways to serve the living God, who would not be contained in a tomb or a book or a church.

Dear mom...

2011-05-08T22:59:00.002-05:00

This is the first year I haven't written to you on mother's day. I mean, it's not midnight yet so I suppose technically, this counts, but you know what I mean.

I spent my day trying to relax, but often thinking about you. Except that's not different from any other day (well, if you replace the word "relax" with "work" anyway). What's different about this time of year is the build-up. The emails, the internet ads, the newspaper ads, commercials, etc. They always say things like "don't forget mom..." Which always makes me wonder: who forgets their mom? In our advertising saturated world, you can't forget mother's day anyway, but who forgets their mom? I haven't been able to talk to you in five and a half years, but you are not forgotten. I think of you every day. I wish I could pick up the phone or send a card or get you a present from one of those ubiquitous email advertisers. Instead I stay home from work, I sit on the couch with my cats, I make myself brunch...

I don't think much of the world has turned out the way you thought it would. I know it hasn't turned out the way I thought it would. But one thing is the same: I won't be forgetting my mom. Ever.

I love you.

Reading

2011-05-02T11:37:00.000-05:00

I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately...but because I can't seem to keep track of calendar dates, only how things work within the program year of the church....this winter (the middle of the program year) I've read:

Millennials Rising

I disliked this book, because it felt like it was premature. Published as the first Millennials were graduating from high school (2000), I felt it characterized the bridge people (born between, say, 1979 and 1985) more than most Millennials. It's pre-9/11 and pre-recession, two serious markers of the growing up/coming-of-age years of most Millennials, so its understanding of the generation is, in my opinion, inaccurate. The way the world has shaped them, and the ways they have shaped the world, is lightyears different from how this book reads.

Sustainable Youth Ministry

I loved this book. We are working on getting a team together to try to make our youth ministry more sustainable (ie not so much dependent on me and 7 other amazing youth leaders who are basically irreplaceable), more integrated (we're better than many churches, but we have a long way to go), and more about vertical relationships that nurture and sustain inquiry about faith and life rather than about just playing human battleship (which is important too--don't worry, we're not jettisoning game nights!).

Almost Christian

Yes, yes yes. Everyone needs to be reading this book...and then trying to figure out how we do something about the issue of our churches being full of people who not only teach our children but also believe themselves that God is just "there when you need him." First of all: not a him. Second: not a servant. Third: shallow. We need to find ways to engage a serious biblical and reflective faith. This book is a good start.

The Hundred Foot Journey

I really liked this novel, though my colleague did not. I confess that I mainly liked it as food p0*n but it had some engaging story to it as well. The family dynamics and intersections of cultures via food were interesting. My colleague thought it betrayed a colonial mindset of assimilation, I thought it was about two cultures meeting...so there you go. It was not the best written novel ever--it was clearly written to be a movie, not a book, but then the author died or something and the movie was never made, so it reads a little sparsely--there are things that would have been better portrayed on screen that are not well written into the script. But overall, I kinda liked it.

Reframing Hope (a re-read in preparation for the BE4)

I heart Carol Howard Merritt. This book didn't bring up new things for me, exactly, but then again I'm hardly the target audience. I'm a young adult who IS in the church, and I work in a congregation that is intentionally seeking to be more intergenerational, that has a long history of mission and social justice, and that is invested in trying to BE the church, not just go to church. I love this book because it makes accessible the things that many church leaders (lay and ordained) need to be thinking about. The book is not long, nor is it hard to read (no dictionaries necessary here!), and it brings up things I wish more people were talking about. I feel like a large portion of the church is busy hand-wringing about my generation and the one(s) after me, but simultaneously ignoring what it means to be church in a world that is constantly changing. It's about time someone wrote a book that explains in plain english that each generation is different enough that while the faith remains the same, the ways we go about living it do not. Thanks Carol.

The White Queen

I love me some princess books! Philippa Gregory is always a good go-to-princess-book writer. I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading The Red Queen as well. This was a pre-Tudors story, and just as engaging as most of her work is. I love that she finds women in history and plays up their roles, instead of the usual downplaying of women in "important" stories. I like that the women are both feminine/traditional and strong/independent/interesting/stereotype-defying. I like that the story has plot twists I wouldn't necessarily expect. I like that I get to escape into a story that is both so different from my own and yet so related. loved.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

I could not put these down. The story was so interesting, the characters so intriguing, the plot so not-predictable (at least at first) that I couldn't help myself. I read all three books in less than a week, because seriously...could.not.stop. The violence was a little out of control, and the sexism and heterosexism...oh my god. I nearly threw my kindle across the room more than once. But the story felt so real, and so important...and I wanted to know what was going to happen to these characters. They were just so...human. I haven't watched the movies yet, because I don't know if I can handle all that violence again (it's seriously graphic) but I probably will eventually. They're streaming on Netflix, after all. And I want to see how other people see these characters and places and interactions...my imagination ran a little wild as I contemplated all the possibilities while simultaneously devouring every page.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Sometimes you just need a little classic poetry in your life.

Alice in Wonderland

And sometimes you just need to read something you read as a young person...and then discover that it was completely drug induced in a way you had no idea about. I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY? I had no clue when I was little...it was a fanciful story. Now I read this and go "Oh My God, what were you taking???" It's completely bizarre in every possible way. Still a great story, but wow. I did not remember it like that...

The Apothecary's Daughter

Kind of a princess book, sort of...it was fluff. But I liked it a lot. Again, plot twists, good character development, interesting people you get sort of invested in. I found this book a good escape, amusing, thought-provoking, and full of gentle commentary on the place of women in society. Then again, every historical novel is probably a commentary on the place of women in society.

Saving Paradise

This may be my favorite new theology book. It should clearly be required reading for, oh, everyone. I tried to finish the book before the lecture and workshop I attended, but didn't quite make it...I got halfway through though. Then I realized how long the book was (I was reading it on my kindle and could not figure out why the percentage wasn't increasing as I kept turning pages...now I know that it's because the book is 560 pages, but over 100 of those are notes and whatnot...it's just over 420 of actual text and images...but that 100+ pages at the end skews the kindle percentage significantly!) and I didn't feel so bad about not finishing before I went to the workshop. Anyway: Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker do amazing research, write great church history and theology, and delve into an art history mystery all in the same book. It's eye-opening and thought-provoking, and relieves a great burden for those of us who have trouble with the "traditional" theories of atonement. Of course, I have been saying for years now (along with some other people like, oh, Jesus) that the kingdom of God is here and we just lack the eyes to see it...which is basically what they say. So since they confirm my beliefs, they are of course the best scholars *ever*... ;-) No, seriously, read this book. Because I want to be able to talk about it, and about the work we did in their lectures and workshops. They were awesome.

Abundance: a novel about Marie Antoinette.

We all think we know about Marie Antoinette, the supposedly callous queen who valued herself above her people and sparked the french revolution with her extravagant indifference to the rest of the population. This novel, drawing on significant historical evidence including MA's own letters and letters of her court, suggests otherwise. First of all, as is pointed out in the introduction, "let them eat cake" was not said by MA but by the queen of Louis XIV, two generations before MA. Second, this novel portrays her as a compassionate, loving, interested and interesting woman whose life did not turn out as she planned. In this novel she is a woman who knows anxiety, disappointment, uncertainty, love, hope, dreams, friendship, fun, despair...in other words, she's a human being. Again, it's often a commentary on the place of women, on class and status, and on the political realities of 18th century Europe. It's intriguing. I read it mostly on the plane...it looks long, but it doesn't feel long. Enjoy.

I'm moving on now to Open Leadership, a book I'm reading with my S3 group....I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T12:28:00.001-05:00

I'm headed out to visit some family...back in a week.

Happy Easter, all!

In the past 24 hours...

2011-04-21T12:38:00.003-05:00

...I have:

* written a new section for, and adapted the rest of, a series of monologues for Friday's Tenebrae service, which may be one of my favorites ever. Was very impressed with myself.

* pretended to be the children's choir teacher for the preschool choir (which apparently comes under "other duties as assigned" sometimes).

* shepherded 10 children through their first Taize service.

* practiced my awesome awesome children's sermon for Easter morning with the choir.

* gotten a speeding ticket on my way home from church.

* read said speeding ticket in my garage, by the light of the "reading lights" in the car, to discover that it will cost me $120.

* discovered this morning that I'd left that light on inside my car, and the battery was dead.

* re-learned how to jump a car battery (red first!).

* drove around randomly letting my battery charge, kicking myself because my stupidity last night translated into wasting $4.15/gallon gas today.

* blogged instead of planning tonight's Maundy Thursday service.

Here's hoping the next 24 hours are slightly less eventful.

1400

2011-04-19T08:43:00.003-05:00

This is my 1400th post on this blog. I've been writing here since May 29, 2002...and in that first post I said that I might sometimes write about the weather, "if it ever changes from cold to hot, because there's nothing in between."

Which is pretty funny, since yesterday (4.18.2011) it SNOWED and today it is cold and gray and rainy and disgusting...but 8 days ago, on the 5th Sunday in Lent, it was 80 degrees. While right now I long for 80 degrees (it's disgusting outside and this weather makes me want to just curl back up in bed), I wouldn't mind some in between. Or just a flat out shift from cold to hot.

It seems that in 9 years and 1400 posts, I'm still saying the same thing. And that thing boils down to three little words: I. Want. Sunshine.

:-)

In Her Place--5th sermon in the Lent series "Choices on the Way"

2011-04-09T23:32:00.001-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
In Her Place
Mark 7.24-30
10 April 2011, Lent 5A (off lectionary—Choices On The Way)

From there Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

She was just a woman. She was just a woman, a Gentile woman, a woman who should know better, who should never have been seen and certainly not heard, a foreigner, with the wrong skin color and the wrong religious beliefs and the wrong accent.

She was a woman who needed to be put in her place.

I mean, we all know how the world works. We all know that there are systems and norms and rules, and we know how to play the game. We know that our position of privilege—whether privilege of education or status or gender or color or wealth or being the most chosen of the chosen people—gives us certain…opportunities. Among those is the opportunity to remind people where they belong.

She was just a desperate woman, looking for help anywhere she could find it. She was willing to break the rules because—well—when you’re desperate, rules don’t matter.
And suddenly, against all the odds, we hear it.
We hear a voice calling out to us, a voice that is simultaneously familiar and discordant, a voice we half recognize though it comes from a body that can’t possibly contain it.

We know, of course, how God works. We know that God plays by the rules, always uses the best people available to do the job, always lays out the map and gives us fences to mark the path…and to keep the wrong kind of people out. Sure, there were a few aberrations with that murderer who led us out of Egypt, and that adulterer who was our greatest king ever, and those women of questionable morals and questionable breeding in the family tree. But overall, we get it. We know where we chosen people stand, and where others stand, and we know what to do when the wrong kind of people try to get in, when the wrong kind of people answer the call, when the wrong kind of people start calling out to us for the same kind of love and care we give our own.

So when we hear the voice, and we see the body it comes from, we know that something is up. This does not follow the rules—though we try. We were brought up to believe that she was bad, an outsider, not to be trusted let alone touched or conversed with. Our whole society, our whole religious system, our whole identity, our whole understanding of who God is and what God calls us to do, tells us the proper response: to put her in her place.

And we tried, we really did. We tried the racist slurs, the sarcastic tone, the condescending glare, the cold shoulder. We looked down on her—on her choices, her upbringing, her ethnicity and her religion. We used the most derogatory words we could call to mind, and we spat them out at her, hoping she would understand that we play by the rules and so would slink away, tail between her legs, to go back to wherever she belongs.

But then that voice…clear as a bell, both as desperate as our psalmist crying out to God from the depths of despair and as sassy as wisdom calling out to us from the street corner. The container doesn’t match, but we would know that voice anywhere—that’s the voice of the Spirit, hovering over the waters, breathing new life into dry bones, calling light out of darkness and love out of hate.

So we have to make a choice—to answer the Spirit’s call, though it breaks all the rules we think we know, or to close our ears and avert our eyes.
This is the moment when our divine nature tries to assert itself, when the image of God tries to break forth through our human ways. And we realize—this is what it means to be fully human, fully divine. This is what it means to live as God calls us to live. This is what it means to hear and obey. This is what it means to follow God’s will, to suddenly the systems of sin in which we are oh-so-humanly caught and turn into a new kingdom of hope. This is what it means to break open our hardened shells and let God’s light stream into the world.

And so we turn to this woman, this child of God, this vessel of the Spirit, and let love flow out from us, out past the walls we’ve built, out past the cage we’ve kept ourselves in, erasing our lines in the sand and growing the circle ever wider. Instead of putting her in the place we think she deserves, we step aside, make room for the Spirit to move among and within us and others, and allow her to take the place God has prepared for her, at the table of sassy saints. And then we turn again, following God’s call into the unknown, toward Jerusalem. For that is where this journey of obedient love will take us.

May God guide us on our way. Amen.

who prays "best"?

2011-03-30T08:34:00.005-05:00

Presbyterian with the letters rearranged = "best in prayer"....awesome. (ignore the fact that it could also rearrange to "britney spears")

This morning a friend tweeted about this article, where one of the myths is that the pastor's prayers are more powerful than "normal" people (I don't even want to think about what that means for my normalcy quotient!)...and it reminded me of a conversation we had last night in which, after I opened the Bible study with prayer, someone asked "how do you do that? I could never pray like that." (It wasn't even a particularly stellar prayer--it felt sort of...well...standard. You know, the usual prayer at the beginning of a class or meeting.) I actually said that I had a lot of practice praying essentially the same prayer over and over again, because those prayers are just a few sentences and always say the same things--thanks for this day, for the privilege of gathering around the Word...be with us as we discuss and learn and ponder...so we can be faithful disciples in the world.

You know the one.

Anyway, in this conversation it quickly became clear that everyone in the room really believes that they can't do that. That they can't pray out loud, that they aren't good enough to talk to God on behalf of a room full of people, that because they stutter or their mind wanders or they might ramble or whatever, God and the other people in the room will be judging their praying ability. Pastors should just do the praying because we are so much better at it.

Um, no.

We're protestants. One of the key things about the whole Protestant idea is that every single one of us has direct access to God through prayer; we don't have to wait for the priest to go to God on our behalf, we don't have to wait for someone else (priest, saint, monk, pope, whoever) to pray for us, we can do it all on our own. And I have spent years now trying to convince kids that they can talk to God and whatever they have to say, God will listen to. It doesn't matter what other people think of their ability to speak in public, it doesn't matter whether the grown-ups in the room think the prayer is fluffy or "cute," it doesn't matter if you have to pause and think about the next word because you're not sure yet what you even want to say. Everyone can pray, everyone can pray out loud, everyone can pray on behalf of others, everyone can pray at Bible Study or in worship or at a meeting or a potluck. It's not like pastors have some special power that gives us the right words to say, or makes us unusually eloquent, or whatever. We all have that same power--it's called the Holy Spirit. Some of us have more practice, but that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be practicing. And in this case, practice doesn't make perfect--like any other spiritual discipline, this practice makes us more comfortable chatting with God despite our imperfection.

Apparently I should have been reminding the parents, not just the kids.

Next week: one of the parents will pray. (mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha....)

wisdom...

2011-03-28T22:22:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about wisdom lately, but not "wisdom" in the traditional sense, or at least the sense it usually seems to get talked about in our culture. We have this picture of wisdom as something you sort of magically get when you're older--as in the phrase "older and wiser"--or through lots of really hard and tragic experiences.

But "wisdom" is also a spiritual gift listed in 1 Corinthians and it shows up on all the spiritual gift inventories, described as (different from knowledge) knowing God's will and being able to see the connections between everyday life and spiritual matters/God-things.

I think there's also another kind of wisdom--the kind that allows us to see ourselves clearly, to see others clearly, and to make room in that clarity for the movement of the Spirit.

I don't think many people (myself included) have this kind of wisdom.

But this is the kind of wisdom that we need if we are going to stop saying things like "it's not my fault there aren't any women leaders at this conference--we were just looking for the best people." This is so arrogant/condescending (especially when talking to a woman), and it shows that the speaker has not seen clearly the gifts of others or made room for the Spirit to work through people the speaker doesn't see fitting the usual mold of leaders. (Because really? all the best people just happened to be white men? really? hmm.) It's also the kind of wisdom we need if we are going to stop meeting new ideas with "that won't work because ______." Because as soon as we utter those words, we have shut down our own vision of others, we have blocked their creativity, and we have closed the windows and kept the Spirit outside. This is the kind of wisdom at work when we choose to listen without fixing the problems of the other person, when we show compassion without needing to solve everything for them...because when we fix it, we not only give the impression that we believe we are better than the other person, we also close down room for the Spirit to work in that person's own creative solutions to what's going on in their life.

The trouble is, this kind of wisdom requires that we know ourselves really really well, and that we simultaneously allow others to know themselves (and show that self to us) and to know us. So few people in our culture are truly self-aware, and so few people seem interested in really knowing The Other, and so few people want the Holy Spirit blowing in and messing up their worldview and plans, that this kind of wisdom seems scarce. When we're around it, we know. But most of life (at least my life) is not lived in that wisdom atmosphere, and we barely notice its absence until we breathe that life-giving air for a few moments...and then it's awfully hard to go back to the way things were.

So today I'm working on making space, because I breathed that other atmosphere and now I want it back.

BG (Before Google)--a sermon for Lent 2A

2011-03-20T17:45:00.004-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
B.G. (Before Google)
Genesis 12.1-4
20 March 2011, Lent 2A

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Often, when I am preparing to go somewhere, I check out all kinds of things. I head to google and I look up the hotel, the restaurants, the attractions, the community news and statistics…I read reviews on yelp and trip advisor, I plot which places I want to try and which I’d rather avoid, based on other people’s experiences. I even do this here at home, looking up businesses I’ve not used before to find out about them before I ever make a call or walk through the door, to find out about the churches hosting Presbytery meetings, or what else is good at a local restaurant besides the thing I always order. And when I, or a friend, get ready to meet someone new, whether we’ve been set up on a date or we’re just making new friends, I almost always google them to see if I can figure out what they’re like ahead of time. Employers are now doing this too, googling candidates before they interview them, checking to see that there’s nothing embarrassing or controversial about them floating around the web, checking up on their history or their time management or their ability to keep the shocking photos off facebook.

And, of course, before I go anywhere—sometimes long before I even decide to go anywhere—I map it on google. How long will it take to drive there? Can I walk between these different places I want to go? Are there alternate routes I might prefer? I put in the addresses, I move that little blue line all around—because who wants to drive down Randall Road all the way to 90 when we could drive down 62 instead?—and I check out all my options. Sometimes I print the directions, sometimes I just put the address into the gps, sometimes I do both…but I almost always have a map before I leave, and I have a fair idea what to expect when I get there, thanks to Google.

Abram had none of these things. He heard the voice of the Lord telling him to leave his home and his family, to set out to this unknown place that God would show him. Abram didn’t have the opportunity to google who this God character is—this is the first time we find out that Abram and God have talked, we don’t know whether Abram and God had a prior relationship, and yet Abram asks no questions like “who are you?” or “can I see your photo?” or “what other things have you done, what other journeys have you guided, what other people have you blessed?” He doesn’t whip out his iPad and google “God” which will, as of this morning, get you about 726 million results, the first of which is the Wikipedia entry about God. Abram also doesn’t manage to ask God for a map—where is he going, how is he going to get there, how long is it going to take, and what’s the traffic adjustment? He just seems to believe that this voice is trustworthy, so he packs up all his stuff and heads out into the desert.

I don’t know if many of us would do that.

When God calls, we probably would prefer to do a quick Google search and ask for a map first? It’s so tempting, and so easy, to try to mitigate our fear of the unknown by doing some research ahead of time. Of course, then it’s also easy to get distracted by the millions of other things out there, the myriad options, the many voices. And it’s easy to find reasons not to go—it’s dangerous, it’s humid, it’s cold, the people are snooty, the food is only so-so, it’ll take a long time and cost a lot with today’s gas prices, there are a lot of 1 star reviews. Or it’s just that sometimes following God is too difficult a path, it doesn’t fit in our busy schedules, it might ruin our social status.

Presumably Abram had a busy schedule—he appears to have an entire household and a large extended family, and we know he has large flocks and servants which means his household was like a small village of tents. He was probably a respected member of his community. Not to mention that he was 75 years old! And yet, off he went, leaving all that behind. It kind of makes me wonder what people said about him after the last of his camel caravan was out of sight…I can practically hear the gossip. But he went anyway. Once he’d heard God’s call, he had to make a choice—he could try to return to life the way it had always been, before he heard God’s voice, or he could follow that call and see where that led him.

Dropping everything and following God’s voice into the wilderness is a common theme in the Bible—from this story of Abram to the Israelites leaving Egypt to Elijah to John the Baptist and Jesus and Paul. But even if we never leave home, God still calls us to a journey—a journey involving risks and life-changing choices. Once we hear God’s voice, things can never be the same. We have to decide whether to set our face back toward the past, pretending nothing has changed and that we can go on leading our safe old lives, or to set our face toward Jerusalem and accept the consequences of following God’s call.

One of my favorite quotes says, “faith is believing that one of two things will happen—that there will be something solid for you to stand on, or that you will be taught to fly.” Now, of course, I prefer to think about flying, because it sounds more fun and adventurous, but sometimes the journey just involves stepping out and finding the path is there, waiting for us even though we couldn’t see it before.

Indy didn't believe until this moment...he heard the voice of someone he trusted, and he chose to take the step.

This Lent, we too have some choices. God is calling…but to where or to what, we may not be sure. Who does God want us to be? What kind of people? What kind of work are we to do? How can our lives, both individually and as a community, be part of God’s kingdom quest here and now? Our church is at a crossroads—now we have to discern which voice is God’s amidst that jumble of voices, and then we have to decide…we can’t just stay where we are, looking at the sign—signs point somewhere, they’re not meant to be stopping places. We have to turn one way or the other. And perhaps this is a decision we need to make BG—Before Google, or maybe even live life Beyond Google, because there’s no way to remove our fear of the unknown, so at some point we have to decide whether, with Jesus, we will set our face toward Jerusalem or toward something else more comfortable and predictable. We know is that God has great plans…the question is—once we know God’s voice, which journey will we choose to walk?

May the Lord guide us as we travel together.
Amen.

Lenten Discipline

2011-03-14T21:32:00.003-05:00

Normally for Lent I take on the discipline of being more intentional about what I put in my body. This means giving up eating out and drinking pop, both of which are things I do because I didn't plan ahead for my day. So in being intentional, I try to bring my lunch (and/or dinner, if I have evening things, which I do almost every night). I pack my water bottles. I pass by Taco Bell rather than giving in to my every crunchwrap supreme craving. Etc.

This year I managed to fail at my discipline within about 36 hours. More than once.

And after talking with my therapist last week (and again this week) about my perfectionist tendencies and my not-helpful self-talk and my general feel of failure when I don't do things perfectly and all the time, I've decided to change my lenten discipline mid-stream. Granted, we're only a few days into Lent, which helps...

So this year I am going to give up perfectionism--in the sense that I am not going to talk badly to (or about) myself when I fail at something. I don't write every day? Not a cause to tell myself I'm lazy or stupid. I forgot my lunch and ran to Subway? Not a reason to remind myself of my idiotic forgetfulness. I skipped a morning workout? Doesn't mean I have to give up exercise because I won't get 90 minutes in, and doesn't make me a fat slob.

You get the idea.

So if you catch me talking bad about myself, please hold me accountable. Thanks...love Teri.

a life for a life

2011-03-11T23:15:00.004-06:00

This week the death penalty was abolished in Illinois. I am unspeakably proud of the legislature and governor for taking this step, and yet I find that I'm almost unable to write anything about it.

All the news coverage I have heard has been interviews with people who disagree with this decision, and I find the things they say so horrifying I don't know what to do other than to turn off the radio or the computer and sit in the silence instead.

Now, I've never been the victim/survivor of a crime for which someone could conceivably receive the death penalty. I don't pretend to know what those people are feeling. I would like to think that the values I hold would hold up under those circumstances, but I also know that you can't know that until they're tested (and, frankly, I'm a big wuss and don't want to be tested in that way!).

But still.

I heard a woman say that since she was robbed of seeing her loved one grow old, another family should also be robbed of that privilege. That's not what she said, but it's how she framed it: "I don't get to see him grow old, so this other man should die." Which means another family grieves, and the cycle of violence and grief and anger continues, with healing for no one.

I heard a lawyer say that now we will have more trials because they won't be able to use the person's life as a bargaining chip to get them to agree to plead guilty, thus avoiding a trial by a jury of their peers. All I could think was "please tell me we have not been using someone's LIFE/DEATH as a carrot/stick to get them to give up their constitutional right to a jury trial.....oh lord, I think that's what he's saying."

I heard law enforcement officials insisting (even when confronted with statistics that give the lie to their assertions) that the death penalty is a strong deterrent to crime and now there will be more crime.

And that was all in less than 10 minutes yesterday. If there were interviews with people who support the decision, I didn't hear them because I had to turn off the news.

It turns my stomach and makes all sound an assault on my ears and brain to hear these things. I can't imagine saying them out loud and I don't know in what world they are okay. I don't even know what to say. I want to start a sentence with "as a person of faith..." but I'm not sure what the next words in that sentence would be. All I can do right now is pray for people and for our systems, and maybe even for the english language because all the words I want to use (justice, mercy, grace, peace, repentance, forgiveness, punishment, etc) have been co-opted in ways that make them almost impossible to use in a theological sense in this context. Which makes me even more sad and speechless, even as I celebrate a decision that I believe to be in the best interests of the state, of justice, of humanity, and of faithfulness.

Sigh.

Ashes to Ashes

2011-03-09T21:10:00.003-06:00

I'm sitting on my couch, a smudge of ashes still on my forehead, thinking about this strange ritual that kicks off this very strange time of year.

You should know two things about me before I tell you what I'm thinking, though:

1. I like meaningful ritual. I like actions with symbol and communal meaning, rituals that connect me (and us) to something bigger and older than we are.

2. I did not grow up in the church, so I lack a lot of the baggage many others seem to carry.

Now...

I have many colleagues and friends who are, at best, ambivalent about Ash Wednesday. Part of me understands this, because when I came to the church I too thought it was a weird thing, a meaningless ritual that had been rightfully jettisoned from church practice during the Reformation, some kind of fake magic that was designed to control and manipulate people into giving more money to the already richest-thing-around overbearing church institution. (I've never been one to mince words, either...) The first year I went to an Ash Wednesday service, nearly a year after I started going to church, was the first time that congregation had done ashes in...ever. And I was one of those people who went forward but asked them to put ashes on my hand, not my head, because I thought it was creepy and weird and Catholic and I didn't really want to do it but I wasn't about to be the only person just sitting in the pew all alone either.

Now I love Ash Wednesday. It's one of my favorite services of the year, and it leads into one of my favorite seasons of the year. (Full disclosure: I seem to have particular love for the church seasons that are opposite the cultural season...I love Advent, which is all about waiting even as the culture runs around like headless chickens, and I love Lent which is all about darkness even though in the northern hemisphere our days get longer and warmer and sunnier and flowers bloom and whatnot.)

So...what is it that I love about Ash Wednesday?

I love that it gives us an opportunity to stop and repent -- to turn and focus where we should be focusing. Sure, we're Presbyterians so we have a prayer of confession every week, we admit our failings, the ways we wound our lives and the lives of others and the life of the world. We confront the ways we fall short of the glory of God, and we turn our attention to where it belongs...every week. But on Ash Wednesday, it's what we do...and that's about it. We name the ways we have fallen short, we pray to be turned toward the light again, we admit that we prefer darkness, we spend time focusing on looking for the right path.

But even more than that, I love that it's a service that reminds us that not only are we not perfect, we're also not immortal. We may try to cheat death with medical miracles, we may try to cheat aging with products and chemicals and makeup and hours of exercise, we may try to live forever through our own legacies. but we can't. In the end, we are all dust, and to dust we shall return.

And yes, we can think about this at other times...but not many other times. Most of the time when these ideas come up, it's at a funeral. But on Ash Wednesday we can remember, contemplate, and even celebrate our own mortality outside the context of individual grief (frankly, I didn't want to contemplate my own mortality while sprinkling my mom's ashes into the ocean....and that was the first time I ever touched ashes. I was busy grieving.). It's not often we get to acknowledge what we all know deep down--that no one lives forever, no one is perfect, and no one can walk this journey alone. We try to remind ourselves of these things throughout the year, but this is a day when the stark reality is all there is. We can look each other in the eye and say "We are dust, but God's love endures forever." We can affirm these two most crucial things about us as human beings: We are not God, but God is.

I am glad that protestants are (slowly but surely) reclaiming Ash Wednesday and Lent. This journey is an important one, and the ashes are a marker on our road, reminding us to let go of some things, embrace others, and turn to the light.

International Women's Day

2011-03-08T08:49:00.002-06:00

March 8 is International Women's Day--a day celebrating (and working for) the economic, political, and social achievement and well being of women worldwide. It's quite an organization--and this year is the 100th International Women's Day. It also happens to fall on Mardi Gras this year, because Easter is so late, making it a day of celebration on many fronts. (I'll gloss over the New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition of objectifying women, at least for the moment....)

I come from a position of privilege, at least in terms of my race, my socio-economic status (on a worldwide scale--on a local scale, not so much), and my country. I have always had a lot of opportunity open to me, from fantastic education to support in every endeavor I've tried. I've always been told I can do whatever I want to do and be whatever I want to be. The only expectations from my family were that I do something good, and that I do it well. Quitting something I'd committed to was never an option, and doing poorly wasn't really an option...and those non-options are marks of a position of privilege in many ways (and of growing up in the lower class in many other ways!). (and let's not discuss how those are also marks of being the firstborn of a firstborn...)

In any case, I have not run into the kind of gender discrimination that people in many parts of the world have. I've had some experiences, both at home and abroad, that have made me aware (sometimes painfully so) of the plague of sexism and the desire to subjugate powerful women. I've also had some experiences within my regular life that I attribute to subconscious sexism, though when I've pointed those out people always say I'm imagining things. And I've been one of those people pointing out that the leadership of various events--whether conferences, seminars, church events, etc--has lacked diversity. The response to that is similar to "you're imagining things" and generally sounds like some kind of anti-affirmative-action soundbite: "we're not trying to fill any kind of quota, we were just looking for the best people."

and the "best people" are, of course, strangely similar in gender, skin color, and cultural background to the person speaking.

As a woman who is intelligent, witty, a fast learner, a good speaker, talented in many areas, and willing (even desiring!) to serve the church and world in a variety of ways, I find that kind of statement so offensive as to almost be funny.

But not quite funny.

There's just no way you can tell me that the best people are always men. Or always white. Or always Americans. Or always hip. Or always over 40. Or always the highly paid people in our biggest churches (who almost uniformly call only white men to be their pastors...coincidence?).

Yes, those people are no doubt talented and wonderful and have things to say that we need to hear.

And so are the people who aren't invited.

Plus there are, frankly, some people in both of those categories who are not the best people to be speaking, but they fill the right position and they look right, so there they are on the glossy brochure or on the stage.

SO: dear world, you are going to have to make a choice. And International Women's Day is a great day to do it. It's time to choose: do you believe that stuff you've been teaching us girls, that we can do and be anything we want? Or do you believe that we can do anything we want as long as we don't tell anyone about it, and as long as we don't complain about being paid less than men to do it, and as long as we come to the conferences led by the famous rich white dudes without murmuring? Because the theme of this year's IWD is education and training, and if we are going to have all the great education and training, then you'd better be prepared to let us in to the subsequent arenas--good (and equally paid) jobs, voices in the wider church/business/culture, and the opportunity to stand on that stage and prove that we too are some of the best people out there, quotas or no.

playing

2011-03-05T13:30:00.001-06:00

I am playing around with a new blog template...now with pages, changeable background pictures, and other fun features. So please...suggestions and feedback are welcome! Especially if you find it hard to read or if colors are confusing or if you can't tell what's a link or any other things like that, please let me know so I can keep updating until it's perfect. Thanks!

Not Deathly Ill

2011-02-19T18:02:00.003-06:00

There are waves in the PCUSA right now about a letter that came out from a bunch of men who pastor big churches. When the biggest uproar was about how no women or elders had signed the letter, they issued a follow up clarification letter, as well as adding a zillion new signers practically overnight. The letter claims that the PCUSA is deathly ill and that the main cause of this illness is the fight for (and now trend toward) inclusion. They name the LGBT "issue" as the primary symptom of our illness, as well as including a list of other fun things like "creeping universalism" (which is just fun to say and to picture). The bottom line is that the denomination is getting smaller and we have to stop it ASAP before we fade away into irrelevance or just...well...fade away. They lament the lack of young people, the disproportionate funeral-to-infant-baptism ratio, and (I think) a lack of passion for mission and evangelism. They believe these problems to be the result of lax theological standards and loose morals, and somehow both the cause and the effect of institutional decline.

There have already been a number of fantastic replies to these letters. There have also been defensive replies to the replies. There is a vibrant, if sometimes heated, discussion going on in the church. There is frustration, disappointment, and even anger all around, as well as love and hope and fear and joy and wonder. Some feel the initial letter was condescending, some feel the replies are hateful, and in general everyone is focusing once again on, in my opinion, the wrong thing.

Yes, the PCUSA is getting smaller. Yes, most mainline denominations are getting smaller. And, in fact, most megachurches are even getting smaller.

I do not believe that to be a symptom of deathly illness.

I believe this is a symptom of our culture's move away from institutions. I also believe, along with those who write about generational theory, that this anti-institutional fervor is likely to change in the next 25-50 years as Millennials take the stage with their communitarian and institution-building and institution-trusting tendencies.

More important than the generational theory (and I think it is CRUCIAL, frankly, but few are likely to listen to me about it....go read the book), though, is the fact that we may finally be in a position to stop believing that the institution, the building, the Sunday attendance, is the church. The church is not a building, is not a theological system or a moral code, is not a set of rules, is not a denomination, is not a fight over "issues," is not even a book of order. The church is the people of God, working with God, doing God's work in the world. and in that sense, the church is nowhere near death. In fact, it's quite presumptuous and extremely condescending to declare the church deathly ill when the people of God are working with God all over the place. The fact that they are not joining the PCUSA or any other denomination is not the point (and attendance trends often seem to suggest that people attend but don't join). The fact that the birth rate in the US has dropped, particularly among the educated white families that the PCUSA tends to attract, is not the point. The fact that Millennials are not flocking to church (gee, do/did their parents?) is not the point. In other words--the writers of this letter have missed the point. By a lot. The point is: the people of God are out there doing God's work all over the place. People are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, loving the unloveable, connecting with the image of God in every person, caring for God's creation, loving their neighbors and their enemies, sharing their resources, shining a light, bringing a little joy, offering grace...they are studying, teaching, learning...they are worshipping, gathering, fellowshipping...and it may not be happening in a church building, but it sure as hell is the church. And the church is not deathly ill.

In fact, it is more obvious than ever that the church is alive. The institution may not live in the halls of power, the big-steeple pastors may not have the influence they once had, the culture may not care what we as a whole have to say...but those things aren't what Jesus did anyway, and the early church didn't have any of those things and yet thrived anyway.

So I would argue that the way these letter writers have framed the issue, viewed through my biblical, theological, socio-economic, political, and generational framework: the church has indeed been ill. For the past 60 years (or more, if you head all the way back to Constantine), we have gorged ourselves on power and influence and numbers and programs and attractionalism and big buildings/salaries/pensions and assumptions. Those things crippled our ability to be the people of God working with God to do God's work in the world--to transform the world into the kingdom. And now we are beginning to get well. But like any healing process, some parts are painful.

be yourself--a sermon on the text for ordinary 5A

2011-02-12T09:48:00.000-06:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
be yourself
Matthew 5.13-16
13 February 2011, Ordinary 6A (5A text)

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

When we give advice, whether it’s about a relationship or an outfit, choosing a school or interviewing for a job, one of the most common phrases we use is “just be yourself.” We want people to be who they are so they can get the best fit, best express who they are and what they are looking for, and be happy. Of course, sometimes when we say “just be yourself” what we really mean is “just be nice” or “just be the bubbly, happy, enthusiastic you,” which is not always the same as being yourself. And occasionally, “be yourself” really means “be who they want you to be” in order to land the interview, get the job, or score the second date.

If we stop to think about it for a moment, the advice to “be yourself” is not the simple proposition most people seem to think it is. It’s actually pretty difficult to first know yourself well enough, then to be able to express who you really are, in all the various settings you might find yourself in. Knowing ourselves, and being ourselves, is hard work. There’s a reason therapists always have full practices and the self-help shelves take up so much of the bookstores.
There is a story about a rabbi who was wandering through the forest one evening. As he was praying and walking along, he lost his way and found himself in front of a military base, where a guard brought him out of his reverie by shouting, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" The rabbi replied, "How much do they pay you?" "Why do you ask?" the guard wondered. "Because," said the rabbi, "I need someone to ask me those questions every day.”

So we are here to wonder together: who are we? And what are we doing here?

The very first question in one of our Presbyterian teaching tools is: “who are you?” and the answer is “I am a child of God.”

Not, “I am an enthusiastic and passionate person,” not, “I’m a pastor/teacher/computer geek” or “I’m a daughter/parent/friend,” but “I am a child of God.”

Today Jesus reminds us what that means, and he says to us, “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” He doesn’t say “you should be” or “one day you will be” or “you are like” or “work harder at becoming” the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He says, “you ARE the salt of the earth, you ARE the light of the world.”

I wonder how many of us think first of these kinds of descriptions when we think about who we are. We are children of God, made in the image of God, salt of the earth and light of the world.
We are things necessary for life—salt and light. Nothing can live or grow without them.
We are symbols of covenant—in the ancient world salt was exchanged to seal the deal, to create an unbreakable promise.
We are the ingredients that bring out the flavor and character of things around us, the way salt brings out the flavor of veggies or tomatoes or chocolate and caramel; the way light makes it possible to see the details of what’s around us.
And we didn’t become this by ourselves—God created us this way, and called us very good.

So I am here today to tell you that regardless of what other words you might use to describe who you are—whether you look at yourself and think “beautiful” or “plain” or “fat” or “stupid” or “awesome” or “freak” or “witty” or “geek” or “teacher” or “unemployed” or “sad” or “passionate” or “graceful” or “frazzled” any of the other millions of words we use to think about ourselves, good and bad…no matter what words you think when you look in the mirror or hear the question “who are you,” you are a child of God, loved by the creator, and made to be salt and light for the world.
The same is true when we think about the church—whether we start out with words like “welcoming” or “dynamic” or “broken” or “lost” or “dying” or “faithful,” our primary identity is that we are the people of God, salt and light, made to bring zest and show truth and offer flavorful hope to the world, pointing to the glory of God.

So then the question becomes WHY do we so often turn to those other identities first? Why do we so often believe the other descriptors but not the ones God has given us? Why is our saltiness always either too strong or too weak, our light so often hidden under a bushel basket? Why do we so often forget the answers to “who are you?” and “what are you doing here?”

Sometimes I think we forget because those other words are so much more prevalent, so much more accessible, so much more real-feeling. That whole business about needing 10 positive words to counteract one negative word is true for adults as well as children. It’s easy to become who the culture tells us we are, whether that’s beautiful, smart, and talented or whether that’s lazy, at-risk, and dangerous.

Sometimes I think we choose to forget, we choose to hide under the bushel basket, because we are afraid of making a scene. We don’t want to be the one who points out the problem or the one who suggests the unpopular solution. We don’t want to do too much—to blind people with bright light or to over-salt the dish. We want people to like us, we want to be part of the in-crowd, and that means not drawing attention.

And sometimes I think we reject our primary identity because we DO want to draw attention to ourselves, and so often the purpose of salt and light is to enable us to see something else—salt is there not to be tasted on its own, but to bring out the natural flavors of other ingredients; light is there not to be looked at directly but to let other things be seen. Which means that salt and light are not the center of attention, and for some of us that is just too much to handle.

But we don’t get to choose…God has created us to be mirrors of the divine image, to reflect God’s glory into the world, to be children of God, salt and light. God has told us who we are, and what we are doing here. In the words of another of our teaching tools, “the chief purpose of humankind is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.” There’s a reason that’s the first sentence! So, friends, it’s time to cast off our bushel baskets. It’s time to claim our true identity, to let go of our fear and our need to be liked, to stand on the lampstands of the world and let God’s light shine through us.

I’m reminded of a quote from a book by Marianne Williamson. She says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

Friends, we’ve just received the best advice in the world: just be yourself, the person God made you to be.

May it be so.
Amen.

the way--a sermon

2011-02-05T20:02:00.015-06:00

Rev Teri Peterson
RCLPC
the way
Psalm 25.1-10, Micah 6.6-8
6 February 2011, Ordinary 5A (text for 4A)

In you, LORD my God, I put my trust.
I trust in you; do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.No one who hopes in you
will ever be put to shame,  
but shame will come on those
who are treacherous without cause.
Show me your ways, LORD,
teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,  
and my hope is in you all day long.
Remember, LORD,
your great mercy and love,  
for they are from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;  
according to your love remember me,
for you, LORD, are good.
Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.
All the ways of the LORD
are loving and faithful  
toward those who keep the demands
of his covenant.

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? 
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old?  
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? 
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you 
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
~~~~~~~~~~

This morning I have a confession to make. I spent this week not particularly interested in writing a sermon. Instead, much like last week, I’ve been glued to the news, watching and reading everything coming out of Egypt. I’ve been waiting to hear from my friends and colleagues and students, hoping and praying for justice and peace…and I’ve been disappointed and frightened that the peaceful revolution turned violent. I’ve watched as protestors have camped out in the square downtown, as the army has been cheered through the streets, as the police first disappeared entirely and then came back with guns and rocks. I’ve laughed hysterically and yet with hope and awe at videos and interviews that show protestors picking up trash from the streets of Cairo, and shed tears at the video from a friend showing bullet holes in the windows of the church where I worshipped and preached. I’ve waited anxiously as internet and cell phone service was cut off, and then been one of those people trying to get through when it came back on. I’ve followed the news on al-jazeera, twitter, facebook, cnn, blogs, and anywhere else that’s publishing or broadcasting. And thinking of the people of Egypt has consumed my time and my energy for the past two weeks in ways I would never have imagined. So I want to tell you about some of these people who have been on my mind this week. People like Naadia and Marsa, who kept our house and made sure we stayed out of trouble and helped us with all kinds of things from shopping to cleaning to cooking.

Like Sabray,
my taxi driver, and his family who offered not just a way around the city but also hospitality and love, even though we lived such different lives and were of different religions. Like the people who took care of us and made sure we had enough fruit and vegetables to eat, who found us great treats and great prices nearly every day.

Like my Arabic teacher Ashgan, who helped me communicate and always had a smile even when I was so slow sounding out words or writing my own name.

Or Mehir, the gatekeeper at the school, who greeted us, gave us directions, rescued me from more than one sticky situation, helped us find our way, and was always good for a late-night conversation or a joke or story over a glass of mango juice.

I’ve been thinking of my students—girls who are now in the 6th grade and whose futures are being fought for in the streets of Cairo…I’ve especially been thinking of the troublemakers from Class C, Ireny, Nourhan, Maria, and Sandy, and wondering what they are doing now as their classes are disrupted and their country is in turmoil around them.

Or the teenagers in my English class, girls who are now in college, many of them at universities near Tahrir Square.

And of course there are the students and teachers and families of Fairhaven. I still haven’t heard anything from them, but we continue to pray that they are okay.

I think of the teachers I worked with at the Ramses College for Girls—6 women who gave their lives to first graders,

and of the congregations pastored by my friends from the protestant seminary. And I think a lot about Martha Roy, who is now 98 years old and has been in Egypt for most of her life. She’s seen a lot of change in that country, and she’s done a lot of good. She taught, built schools, helped run clinics, and transcribed the music of the Coptic liturgy so it could be preserved and studied and used outside of Egypt. As late as her 93rd birthday she was still playing the organ every Friday and Sunday for the St. Andrews United Reformed Church downtown, the one that was damaged by looters. She lives in the nursing-home wing of a hospital a few blocks from Tahrir Square, and no one seems to have heard anything about her. As I think about and pray for Martha, I can’t help but worry about her even though this is hardly her first revolution.

Egypt is changing, and I think it’s safe to say that no matter what happens in the politics, the country will never be the same. The hopes and dreams of generations of people are on the line…millions are praying for a way forward, but that way seems unclear.

As I talked with the confirmation class about these two scripture texts, we wondered together how we find the way. How do we discover the path we are supposed to follow? There are a lot of options, a lot of possibilities, and often they’re all good. Sometimes we look for the way by following our friends or our families, sometimes by taking facebook quizzes or reading our horoscopes, sometimes by being so perfect that God will be forced into helping us, sometimes by just going along with the flow and avoiding the subject entirely. Sometimes we even read Scripture and pray and discern in our church community. We prayed this psalm together—“show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.” And then we flipped over to Micah and read that “God has shown you what is good—to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

It often seems that our prayer for God to teach us or show us goes unheeded…we flounder around in our own ways, confused or worried or detached, looking for a burning bush or a flash of light. We say we put our hope in God, that we want to walk God’s path if we could just find it…and here’s the prophet Micah pointing us to the path laid out before us. And then we call to mind the example of Jesus, who directed us to love others as he loves us…and the path still seems unclear. I think we often prefer the unclarity, because it’s a hard road to walk. This road requires us to both realize and act: to realize that we have been given everything we need to travel this journey—freely God has given God’s own self to us, in life and in death and even at this table; and to act on love, justice, mercy, and humility. Our first reaction to hearing these things is always “but HOW do we do that?” much like the man who asked Jesus “but who IS my neighbor?” I’m reminded of Stephen Colbert, in a show near Christmastime, who said that we are going to have to start either openly pretending that Jesus is as selfish as we are, or acknowledge the things he commanded us and then admit that we don’t want to do it.

I think we know what we are called to do…and we know how to do it. We know that in our everyday lives we can love as we have been loved, we can give as freely as we have received, we can build community and feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. We can work to change systems, we can lobby and vote and pray and even protest, we can be beacons on the path of justice and mercy that God has shown us. The question is whether we’ll choose that path, or another, or whether we’ll be too consumed by looking back at where we’ve been to move down any path at all.

I want to leave you with one more picture. This picture has been widely distributed since it was taken on Thursday, and it’s a perfect example of people who have so freely received grace upon grace…giving out of that abundance, acting without fear, and doing justice together. This is downtown Cairo, during noontime prayers. Thousands of Muslims are gathered to pray, and they are vulnerable. Or they would be, if not for the ring of Christians who have joined hands, standing between those praying and the mob intent on violence.

May we too do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Amen.

more brainstorming-by-blog

2011-01-22T19:09:00.003-06:00

Our confirmation class is thinking about Psalm 25.1-10 and Micah 6.6-8 and the theme of finding and walking in God's path. One of the questions before us is about what other ways we've tried before finding and following God's way?

So I wonder...where are some places you have looked for God's way but haven't found it? Or some detours you've taken? Some attempts you've made that didn't get you further down God's path?

(the idea comes from Micah 6, where the question seems to be about which thing God has asked for--an extreme ritual sacrifice of material goods? a bargain? a way of life?--and also from the parts of Psalm 25 in which the psalmist asks for forgiveness for following other paths before finding God's. So what are those other ways? What are some things we thought were God's way but weren't?)

sermon video for "Telling"

2011-01-20T23:23:00.001-06:00

from the 930 service on the 16th. A few times I had trouble getting the words out exactly right, but overall it's pretty good...and good sound and video quality!

in search of the perfect metaphor...

2011-01-18T17:41:00.005-06:00

....for our Lenten journey.

This year in worship we are on a journey, exploring the points along the way when we have to make a choice to move forward or go back. We're contemplating the choice between moving into God's future or looking back at the way things used to be "back in the day." The question is whether we're ready to take a leap of faith and see where God is leading, or if we'd prefer to go back to the way things have always been.

The initial metaphor was something like turning points, decision points, crossroads, etc. But none of those is quite right, for various reasons.

The scriptures we are using are:

*Adam and Eve choosing to eat from the tree of knowledge;

*Abram and Sarai leaving everything and everyone to go to a land God will show them;

*The Israelites "going back" by making a golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai;

*Peter declaring Jesus the Messiah, then backpedaling when he finds out what that really means;

*Jesus meeting a woman who changes his understanding of his mission (the Syrophoenician woman).

So I'm in search of a metaphor...a catchy phrase, an image, something we can work with in advertising and in the worship space, etc. I know it has to be there somewhere, but I can't seem to get all the pieces of the phrase or metaphor to fall into a coherent space.

Thoughts?

Telling--a sermon for Ordinary 2A

2011-01-15T14:26:00.002-06:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Telling
John 1.29-42
16 January 2011, Ordinary 2A

The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

Many of you know that I did not grow up in the church—my grandparents were de-churched and my parents were secular humanists who believed that religion was a crutch and we could be good people without buying in to some pre-scientific mythology. The world could be explained by science, morals were perfectly possible without religion, and the purpose of life was to do your best to make the world a better place. My parents also believed their children should make their own decisions about these things when we were old enough to do so—that was their answer when asked about why other kids went to this thing called church.

It’s hard for many people to grasp—the idea of growing up completely unchurched and unaware of the whole God-concept. I never felt like there was something missing, like Christmas was meaningless because it was about family and giving instead of about the baby Jesus, or like my family was bad because we didn’t go to church. I didn’t know Easter was about anything other than bunnies and chocolate until I was probably 15. The whole Christian story was completely alien to me.

However, I was a voracious reader. I was planning to somehow double major in music and literature, and I had come to realize that there was a whole background story that I was missing when I read great books or important authors. So I decided to read the Bible, straight through from beginning to end. It was quite an undertaking, and at first I thought it was completely insane. Which, you have to admit, some of it is—especially when you read it alone, with no context and no community to help you understand. By the end, I knew it wasn’t just a story, but I still didn’t understand the whole church thing…or, if I’m honest, most of what’s in the story either.

It wasn’t until my first year in college that I joined the church. People ask me all the time why I did that, why then, why there, and how on earth that happened. It’s like I’m not just an anomaly but some kind of freak of nature. And that’s true, especially among Presbyterians, I am something of a freak of nature. Not because I didn’t join until I was an adult, and not because college was my seeking time. Instead, my freakishness comes because of how I got there.

It was holy week, 1999. I needed to go to a choral concert to fulfill a class requirement. A friend invited me to a “concert” happening during the service on a Friday night. I went, and I wrote the paper, and I tried not to be weirded out by the fact that I had just gone to church. But then my friend invited me to go to church on Easter morning. This sounded like the worst idea ever, so naturally I called my mom to ask for her advice—which ended up being even more startling than the fact I’d gone to church on Good Friday. She told me that relationships are about experiencing things with other people and sometimes about compromise, so I should go. Being a mama’s girl, of course I went.

I don’t think my mother knew what she was getting either of us in for. I don’t think my friend who invited me knew what was going to happen. I know I had no idea. I just turned up at 11:00 on a Sunday morning, because someone I knew invited me and someone I trusted encouraged me, and my life was literally changed forever. I was back the next Sunday, and then only 10 days after my first ever visit to a church I was sitting in an Inquirer’s Class not all that different from the one we’ll have here starting in two weeks. I wasn’t about to join the church, I just wanted to know what it was all about. Except, of course, within a month I had taken the plunge, been baptized and joined a church, all in what now seems like a whirlwind but then seemed just like the right thing to do. It was the beginning of a journey that has taken me all over the world, through lots of encounters and conversations and educational experiences, all the way to this place and time where I can tell this story to you.

All because someone I knew invited me, and someone I trusted encouraged me.

Did you notice that Jesus doesn’t call anyone in this story? The first two disciples start following Jesus because John, their teacher, tells them about Jesus. The third comes because his brother invited him. Someone they trusted told them about Jesus, and off they went to check it out. And what did they find? An invitation to Come and See. Not answers, not a roadmap, not assurances of heaven or threats of hell. They found an invitation to a journey, an invitation that would change the course of their lives forever. They found themselves part of a story with roots extending through time and a future they couldn’t even imagine.

I wonder how often we’re willing to tell this story, or at least our part in it? I’ll be the first to admit that talking about my faith or even my church makes me super uncomfortable—when people ask me what I do I sometimes tell them I work for a non-profit, to avoid the inevitable conversations that come with saying I’m a pastor. But I don’t think this is about talking to strangers. This is about people we know, people we trust. Do we invite them to come and see—come and see what’s going on in this part of the Body of Christ, come and see God, come and see a story, a journey, a community that we believe has value and can help make the world a better place? And if we won’t, what kind of story does our silence tell?

Now, I know I’m newer to this whole church thing than most of you, but I’m still Presbyterian and therefore allergic to this word I’m about to use. But remember that the root of the word is Good News—we believe we are part of a story that is good news even in the midst of a world filled with bad news. That’s right…it’s time to talk about evangelism. I know it’s a scary word, and if we could reduce it to four letters and outlaw saying it in polite company, we would. But it’s not scary—it’s about good news. Evangelism is not standing on street corners or telling people to Come To Jesus Or Else. It’s not knocking on doors or pushing your views on people or even insisting they come to your church.

It’s an invitation, offered to someone you know, an encouragement to someone who trusts you. It’s about relationship, storytelling, and a journey.

I think it’s telling that we don’t think twice before recommending books we’ve read or movies we’ve seen or restaurants we’ve enjoyed, yet when faith or church is involved we so often keep silent rather than offer a simple invitation or encouragement. That silence speaks volumes, and it often says that avoiding discomfort is more important to us than the journey is. I’m just as guilty, maybe more guilty because this is my job. But it’s not my job because I’m a pastor—it’s my job because I’m a Christian, and part of our calling is to invite people to come and see. Come and see God at work, come and see what’s happening in the Body of Christ, come and see a story that extends through time and has a future we can’t yet imagine. Come and see what God can do through you, and through us together.

Have you all thought of a story of God at work in our congregation? My invitation to you this week is to share that story with someone who is not sitting in this room. It doesn’t have to be a sales pitch—just a story and an invitation to join that story. John the baptist, Peter’s brother Andrew, my friend, and my mom all had it right. No pressure, no threats, no promises—just an invitation, just an encouragement…God will do the rest, in God’s way and in God’s time.

May it be so.
Amen.

ambition

2011-01-14T21:47:00.004-06:00

In the past week or so, I've been watching period dramas...The Pillars of the Earth and The Tudors. Slightly different periods, but with many similarities.

One of the things I've been struck by is the blatant fact of ambitious clergy -- clergy who are so obviously not following God's call but are instead in it for the power and monetary gain, to advance ever higher and get as much as they can. We all know this about the medieval Church, that it was rife with corruption and oppression and people who were in it for power. We know that the church was a pathway to power and wealth and prestige, an "in" with the political rulers and more of a diplomatic career than a religious one (though they certainly used God to get what they wanted).

What I don't know that we've grasped is that that's not really the case 5-800 years later.

(Or it shouldn't be, anyway.)

People often ask me when I'm going to "move up" and "get my own church" as though there's some kind of hierarchy of calling, that my current call and position are just a stepping stone to something better. The assumption is clearly that a) I should harbor ambition for something bigger and better, b) that the place and people I serve now aren't worth the talents and effort of an experienced pastor or someone staying a long time, and c) there is a ladder and I should get busy climbing it.

There's been plenty written about this before, particularly by female associate pastors. Generally it's a phenomenon attributed to thinking of the ministry in the same way we think about corporate type jobs. But I wonder if it's a combination of that and the history of ambition in church professionals. I know it's true that there are people serving now how are ambitious, who seek bigger churches and taller steeples and more money and more power in the denomination or the culture. And it's also true that there are hundreds of pastors who simply serve where they are called, regardless of the power or prestige of the position, loving people and serving churches and making the world a better place. Both categories can and do contain faithful (and less faithful) people. The second category is not lesser, or less talented, than the first--though many of us are made to feel that way sometimes.

But as I watch the story of priests, bishops, cardinals who serve their ambition and not the gospel, I have to wonder how much of that history plays into our current understanding of clergy, power, prestige, and ambition--and into the things we think about those who choose to follow a calling to stay in small churches or associate positions.

friend

2011-01-04T20:42:00.005-06:00

I have some amazing friends--people who have walked with me on the journey of life and faith, people who listen well, people who tell amazing stories, people who know how to share laughter, people who have challenged and supported and generally been fantastic.

Among these friends:

Rachel (my best friend from high school), with whom I shared the excitement of the Running Start program, where we went to college during high school, and who has been an important partner in my seeking and discovering both faith and ways to do good in the world...who recently got married in a fantastic (if I do say so myself) ceremony in Seattle. (why yes, I did do the ceremony! and I did refrain from using my impromptu "sermon" in the ceremony to tell Alan, her new husband, how funny I think it is that one of the things Rachel keeps saying is that she likes to hang out with him, in spite of the fact that Rachel is the only person I know who has ever declared a moratorium on "hanging out." (scroll down to January 13) LOL.)

Amy (my best friend...we met in seminary), who I didn't like at first and who didn't like me! Amy has been with me through so much...seminary, relationships, good choices and mistakes, adventures and explorations (which is NOT the same thing as being lost!), travels, hopes and dreams both fulfilled and dashed. We may live hundreds of miles apart, but still our friendship grows thanks to cell phones and airplanes.

Elsa (a fantastic friend I met through the young clergy women project), who opened her heart and her home when I so needed both of those things. Elsa also knows how to challenge and support simultaneously, which is a little ridiculously impressive. She calls me on my crap, listens when I spout my neurotic issues, and knows how to use twitter and text messaging to great effect. I particularly appreciate the way she is compassionate and loving and blunt all at the same time. And, of course, the parts of our journey that we share in common make her a wonderful sounding board and comforter when I'm particularly neurotic about health issues or grief stuff.

The PFC girls--my McHenry County friends, amazing women who play and laugh and cry and are generally wonderful. They are fun to hang out with, good friends and wonderful people. Their compassion, willing spirits, and great laughs make my life here very good.

Among these PFC girls is one who is moving away. I know from experience (obviously) that it is more than possible to maintain and even grow friendships without living near each other. But it's still hard--to know that the days of random dinner parties or late-night tv watching or shouting at Mario Kart or spur-of-the-moment hot cocoa with bailey's nights are coming to an end, to know that when I forget something I can't just call this friend to help, to realize how much that friendship has come to mean and to contemplate the ways it will change now that we have to drive 4 hours to visit in person. We'll still be friends, and we'll still be close I'm sure, but it will be different. So I think I'll take this moment to just say thanks: Thanks for being my friend, for keeping me sane, for listening and talking and watching The Doctor and talking about Buffy and commiserating sometimes and doing rituals and making up youth group games. You're awesome. I'll miss you.

As is probably obvious from my list of good friends, I'm not used to being one who stays behind. I've almost always been the one who moved away. It's a weird feeling, but I suppose it's part of being a grown up and part of living in a culture where people move for economic and family and other kinds of opportunity. I understand it, but I don't have to like it (lol).

Things I Did at the End of 2010

2011-01-02T23:46:00.004-06:00

This year I finally joined the rest of the country on a couple of random bandwagons. Among them...

* I joined Netflix. Thanks to a gift subscription for my birthday, I'm now on the get-DVDs-in-the-mail-and-watch-whatever-I-want-streaming plan that everyone else has been on for, oh, 10 years. And for all the pooh-poohing I've done, and all the claiming that I don't need that, I will say that I absolutely love it. And that I'm watching more TV and movies than at any time in recent memory. You would not believe the stuff that's out there, just waiting for you to add to your queue.

* I started playing video games other than Wii Fit. I became obsessed with Mario Galaxy 2, for instance. obsessed. Sadly, this has not improved my ability to play the float-your-bubble-down-the-river Wii Fit game, which I had hoped would be a side-effect of my eyes and brain getting used to how video games look and move on the screen.

* I joined Skype. Yeah, I know, everyone's been doing that for even longer than netflix. whatever. I had iChat with video chatting, so why did I need skype? Oh wait, so I could keep in touch with friends who don't have macs. duh. My campaign to just get everyone I know to buy a macbook has failed due to cost, and skype is free.

* I got a Kindle and also managed to download a ton of stuff before I even knew what hit me. I heart my Kindle and read on it almost every day. My favorite part is that I can read while lying down and never have to worry about the left page, which always makes my arm tired when reading regular books. I do still love books, of course, and I don't think they're going anywhere. There's something about the tactile experience of a book that you just can't replicate. but I finally got over that and joined the zillions of people who've been doing the e-reader thing for half a decade already.

* I decorated my house for Christmas. I don't normally do this, but it seems like the thing to do this year. So my living room/dining room/kitchen have lights and ornaments other other fun. No tree (cat hazard) but it is sort of festive when the lights are on.

~~~~

There are some things I did not do this year that everyone else is doing, too. For instance:

I did not get on any of the no-really-you-can-keep-your-house-clean-in-5-minutes-a-day bandwagons. I'm not sure they're for real anyway, at least not without significant up-front time investment, and besides that I'd rather relax my five minutes and clean once a week. (Well, okay, who are we kidding...I get to the end of the week and would prefer to sit on the couch, so it's more like once every 2-3 weeks...but that's where Roomba and a dishwasher come in. Praise the Lord.)

I did not join any weight-loss programs, though I did exercise more and attempt, generally, to eat better. People seem to think I've lost weight, which is lovely of them. Whether it's true or not is unknown.

I did not pay my quarterly estimated taxes on time. sigh. I swear I'm going to be better about that this year.

I did not file a single thing at my house this year. I made a pile of all the stuff to be filed, but I filed nothing. This year I have to decide whether to go ahead and file it or just shred everything and start over.

I did not blog or tweet as much as I should have. This community is important to me and if I want it to be community for me I need to participate more...so I'm working on that.

I did not get a smartphone. I did get a new cell phone, touch screen and everything (hello, 21st century, nice to see you 10 years in)...but no internet, no email, no apps. My one hold-out in the culture of always-available.

And now it's a new year, with new possibilities. May it be filled with good things.

traveling

2010-12-14T16:51:00.002-06:00

I used to make a list when I traveled--everything I needed to pack went on the list, and I carefully ensured that everything on the list went in the bag.

Now I just toss things in and hope I remember everything I need...and assume that if I forgot something, I can probably get it or else it's just not that essential.

Tomorrow's trip involves packing both a bridesmaid dress and a preaching robe. And, presumably, some clothes for the other two days of the trip. And a computer. And wedding-appropriate shoes. And possibly a raincoat (Seattle's looking....wet.). I'm not certain yet whether I'll take the list or the hope-for-the-best approach, since I don't leave for another 12 hours and 36 minutes. I do know that I'm hoping to fit everything into carry-on luggage (yes, everything including some Christmas gifts that need to travel that direction anyway!). At $20 each way for a checked bag, it's just not so practical. Then again, I don't know how practical it is to try to fit a dress and a preaching robe and some christmas presents and clothes all into carry-on/personal-item sized bags either.

In any case...I'm leaving on a jet plane in the morning so I can be a part of Rachel's wedding. I'll also see some family while I'm there. And, in theory, I'll be back in time for youth group Sunday night.

Dear weather: please cooperate. Love Teri.

how I know winter is really here

2010-12-08T23:05:00.003-06:00

Every winter is full of firsts, just like every year and every other kind of adventure. The first frost, the first freeze, the first snow, the first falling-down-in-a-parking-lot, etc.

Tonight was the first night that the temperature gauge on my car engine went backwards, showing that even as I drove alone my car was getting colder rather than warming up.

It happens every year, and once winter really gets going it'll happen nearly every day (unless I let my car run for 10 minutes before getting into it...and even then it might happen anyway). But the first time it's always a bit of a shock. One minute there are two or three dots there (it's digital). I'll glance away and look back only to find there's just one dot left. Sometimes it happens at a stoplight--during the time I sit there, my car gets colder. Sometimes it happens while driving (as it did tonight) which is even more shocking somehow. I mean, the car is moving and still getting colder!

Intellectually, I understand how this happens. I realize it often has to do with how high the heater is turned on to defrost the windows. I know about the physics involved.

But it's still shocking when it actually happens.

slide

2010-12-02T12:52:00.002-06:00

It's the first day, and I always forget.

Short as the non-cold season may be here,

it's long enough to forget

how it doesn't take much--

a dusting, really, along with a cold night/day.

The snow turns to ice,

and what looks sparkly and pretty

and maybe even crunchy, if you get lucky,

is actually slippery.

One wrong step,

one extra swing of an arm,

one slightly-off-balance-from-carrying-a-bag-of-groceries move,

and suddenly I'm down.

and a car is coming.

Quickly enough I'm up again, hoping no one saw,

wondering what the bruise will be like,

glad I didn't get run over...

and glad to have gotten the first parking lot slide of the year out of the way.

clouds

2010-11-29T12:03:00.003-06:00

We've reached the time of year when it's cloudy almost every day. As I look out my office window this morning, there's gray asphalt and gray sky and even gray-ish barren trees. Once snow falls and then gets old, freezing and re-freezing with dust and dirt and salt inside, it'll be gray ground and gray sky for pretty much all of the foreseeable future.

To say that clouds are not my favorite type of sky-adornment would be an understatement. I love the sun (though it does not love me, thanks to my ridiculously fair skin), I love blue sky, I love to see stars at night and vibrant color in the daytime. But here in the midwest, the blue sky and stars hide behind the clouds for months at a time.

It's not even so much the cold of winter that I find problematic -- though I don't prefer cold! -- it's the drabness. The gray everywhere. But on the other hand, blue skies in winter mean colder days (because the cloud cover does trap the heat a little), so that's a double edged sword. It makes it hard to hate clouds when they keep it slightly warmer, and when they do all their important water recycling work. But still...it's the beginning of the cloudy season, and I miss the sun already.

Be Peace--a sermon for Advent 1A

2010-11-27T08:00:00.001-06:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Be Peace
Psalm 122
28 November 2010, Advent 1A

I was glad when they said to me, 
‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’  
Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.
 Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together.  
To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, 
as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.  
For there the thrones for judgment were set up, 
the thrones of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: 
‘May they prosper who love you.  
Peace be within your walls, 
and security within your towers.’  
For the sake of my relatives and friends 
I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’  
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, 
I will seek your good.

Every Sunday we say these words to each other: “Peace be with you. And also with you.” Each and every worship service includes the sharing of peace—the peace of Christ, shared among the Body of Christ, and hopefully extended into the whole world.

On a day when we’re still stuffed from a feast, the tryptophan barely worn off, the leftover mashed potatoes beckoning, peace seems easy. Besides the food coma many of us are still in, there’s also the post-family-gathering peace, when we can take a deep breath and let go of the anxiety that often comes with those big family holidays. Once they’ve all gone home and things settle back into normal, the most conflict any of us expect is over who gets to eat the last bite of cranberry sauce. Things seem peaceful enough.

Of course, though, that’s not true in many places in the world. Conflict rages in homes, communities, and nations, and even within individuals. Sometimes those conflicts are supposed to lead to peace, sometimes they are waged only for monetary or political power gains, sometimes they simply end in chaos and tragedy with no redeeming qualities at all. But even when conflict ends, there’s often no peace. Because peace is not simply the absence of conflict—peace is something more than that.

The Hebrew word “shalom” is generally translated “peace,” and it’s a word we hear often enough that we often think we’ve got it down. We know that “shalom” is about wholeness, about healing, about redemption…and together, all these things make up “peace.” But when we use the word “peace” we don’t generally mean all those things…instead we settle for shallow “peace” which is really a façade behind which we suppress our feelings, and so suppress true community. The peace we generally think of is more of the calm surface, even if underneath the waters churn. But shalom is the kind of peace God has in mind for the world, the kind of peace the psalmist prays for, the kind of peace we are to make. This is peace that demands that we be real with ourselves and each other, peace that requires true listening and compassionate speaking, peace that will not settle for any to be left out or left behind. This is not only the absence of conflict, but also the presence of healing and growth. The words of the prophet Isaiah still ring in our ears even as they stick in our throats—the vision of swords turned to plowshares and all the nations walking together in God’s light. We yearn for this vision to be a reality, and yet so often we do nothing to make it a reality. Instead we do what is easy, we practice instant gratification, we turn a blind eye to peace-breaking even as we proclaim “peace be with you.”

During Advent we have an opportunity. Well, we have a choice, I suppose. Advent is a time of waiting—a time when we acknowledge the darkness and the “not-yet” nature of the kingdom of God. We wait with hope and expectation, looking for light that shines in unexpected places and for the coming of God who will bring peace on earth and goodwill to all people. We say no to a culture of instant gratification, no to the commodification of God’s kingdom of love, and no to the desire to skip the hard part in favor of the fun part of the season. The church is a place where we recognize the grief and darkness of the world even as we proclaim that God’s peace, justice, joy, and light are both coming and already here. These are good things, important reasons to observe Advent as a season even as the malls and radio stations skip right ahead to reindeer and jingling bells.

But on the other hand, Advent is a season of waiting—but that doesn’t mean a season of passivity or even patience. Too often, I think, we fall victim to the idea that waiting means doing nothing. That is not what Advent is for—because the kingdom of God is also “already” even if it is “not yet.” We are waiting for God to come and bring peace, and sometimes we forget that God has already come, has already broken in to our world, has already shined a great light, and has already sent us the Holy Spirit in order that WE may BE the Body of Christ in the world—that we may not just wait for peace, not even just make peace or work for it, but that we may BE the peace of Christ in our homes, churches, communities, nations.

We don’t just go up to the house of the Lord—we ARE living temples of the holy spirit, we ARE the body of Christ, we ARE the hands and feet, the hearts and voices, through which God works. Just as the psalmist was transformed from one among a crowd to a proclaimer of peace, when we pray and praise, worship and work, we are transformed from those who simply wait to those who embody the truth of God’s grace for all people, the promise of peace for a world prone to turn plows into swords rather than the other way around. That is why our mission statement says that “we ARE an ever-widening circle of grace.” That’s not something we’re waiting for, or something we’re like—it’s who and what we are. Have we lived up to our full potential, fully given ourselves to God’s will, completely followed God’s call to us? Not yet. But that doesn’t mean we ought to wait for God to do something about that. Instead it means that we strive to be who God calls us to be.

How can we BE peace in a world of ubiquitous violence? I don’t have an answer for that, and I suspect each of us will have to discern our ways. A good start would be to not engage in violence—and while it seems easy to refrain from physical violence, it’s much harder to discipline our words, our language, into peace. Perhaps that can be our Advent challenge—to speak only peace. Another way to be peace is to recognize where there is brokenness and work toward healing—to conspire with God to reconcile and lift up, to see truly and help wherever there is need—to feed people who are hungry, to give warmth to people who are cold, to offer hospitality to people who are lonely, and to recognize and encourage the humanity, the child of God, in each person we meet, whether we meet them at the food pantry, PADS, the grocery store, work, on the train or on a sidewalk. When we truly see one another, then we can truly have compassion for one another, and then we are on the road to shalom.

In many ways the world lives in Advent, though we don’t often recognize it. We are waiting for something…for someone to do something, for the world to get better, for God to break in and bring the kingdom, for a light to shine in the darkness. And waiting is important and good, it’s true, particularly if we can do it without filling the void with more gadgets and toys and things. Yet waiting can also be a distraction, a false idol of its own. At the risk of sounding cliché, I quote the elders of the Hopi nation, “we are the ones we have been waiting for.” And the ones God, and the world, has been waiting for. We are the body of Christ, called, equipped, and empowered to BE peace in and for the world. May that be our Advent task.

Peace be with you.

Amen.

giving thanks

2010-11-25T08:17:00.002-06:00

Today I am thankful for:

safe travels.

friends who invite me into their family.

my many sets of extra parents around the world (I'm looking at you, John and Betsy, Martha and David, Norman and Ruth, Naadia and Marsa, and now Suzanne and Theo).

my family, who almost always pick up the phone when I call and are awesome.

my kitties.

having more food than my body needs to survive, and more space to live in than is absolutely necessary.

electricity and running water.

a comfy bed.

the time to relax, play games, talk, and laugh.

Today my favorite things to eat will all happen together!

Mashed Potatoes!!!!!!

Green Bean Casserole (the traditional and bad for you Campbells/French's goodness)

Bread

Pecan Pie

possibly ice cream...

Oh yes, it's going to be a good day.

What are you thankful for, and what are you excited to eat?

you

2010-11-18T10:34:00.003-06:00

Every day I write on 750words.com. (I'm on a 60 day streak!) It's like morning pages, but typed...sort of a form of stream-of-consciousness free-write journalling, an opportunity to get all the stuff in my brain out of the way so I can think more clearly and be more creative (at least in theory). It's private, so don't bother looking for that writing, and don't be concerned that anyone is reading what you write (like they can on a blog...though whether anyone reads my blog is up for debate!).

At the end of your 750 words, the site will tell you your "stats"--things like how long it took you to write them (I average 10-15 minutes), what the weather was like, how many times you got distracted (stopped typing for more than three minutes), and your mood. It also tells you which voices you tend to write in, and which tense. I'm pretty equal on tenses--talking about past, present, and future. But when it comes to voice, I lean heavily on first person (both singular and plural) and occasionally third person...but I hardly ever write in second person.

So I was thinking about this yesterday....and I realized that I would have a very hard time writing "you"--particularly consistently for 750 words. I am not entirely sure why this is, but I have a suspicion.

Most of what I write are sermons.

And from the pulpit, using "you" does a couple of things I really abhor.

1. It separates me from the congregation, the people who need to hear the word, when really I am just as much in need of hearing the word (and Word) as any listener.

2. It is extremely difficult to use without sounding condescending, patronizing, or accusatory. In fact, I think I've heard it done well maybe once in the past 11 years of listening to sermons.

Now, obviously, my 750 words each day are not a sermon (though they are close in length, LOL!). No one is reading or hearing anything I write there--and believe me, most of what I brain-dump there is so awful no one would *want* to read or hear it. But I still persist in avoiding the second person voice. I don't know if that's a deficiency in my writing, a skill I haven't developed (or have intentionally suppressed), or if it's actually a good thing to keep avoiding it there so I don't get into a habit of using it and then end up with it in places I really don't want it to be.

I don't know that I'll change this, but it is interesting to think about.

not playing on purpose

2010-11-13T09:55:00.002-06:00

I confess that I didn't play the Friday Five yesterday on purpose. I could have--I have answers for all those questions, I had the free time, etc.

But I didn't do it because I'm just not ready to think about snow yet. The photo there looks exactly like my backyard will look any minute now. The cold and gray and snowy blah of winter is on its way--we've already had a reprieve of almost a month, so I know it's going to be here soon and it's going to last a lot longer than I want it to (I can handle snow and cold and yuck for about 6 weeks...then I'm just annoyed/sad/bitter/frozen).

So I didn't play the Friday Five because maybe if I pretend it's not about to be snow season, it won't come. that works, right?

language

2010-11-11T23:19:00.003-06:00

I know this sounds kind of petty, but I have been irritated by the ways people have been using language lately. I don't know if I'm more sensitive to this kind of usage or if it's been getting worse, but here it is anyway.

"They" are not "the gays."

Nor are "they" "the poor."

these are people we're talking about...people who are gay, people who are poor, people who are homeless, people who are hungry, people who are straight, people who are rich, people who are in debt, etc.

Unless I'm going to start hearing about "the straights" on NPR, I don't want to hear about "the gays" either. (can you tell I was listening to a story about DADT on the radio this afternoon?)

Ditto for "the poor" or "the needy" or "the homeless." Those are not descriptors of WHO they are, they are descriptors of the situation they are in. That is not the same thing.

Please, people, use language in a way that does not devalue human beings. Because that is what we all are, regardless of any other way we might find ourselves described--we are people, children of God, part of a community, and worth the extra effort to avoid de-humanising.

/rant

Freeway Feud

2010-11-10T07:50:00.002-06:00

On the way home from the (totally awesome) high school retreat, we in the lead car got to witness a freeway feud! I promised I would blog about it, so here it is.

We were a four-car caravan on I39. It wasn't late, but it was dark (thanks, time change). We passed a red truck as it entered the freeway...and then, about 45 minutes later, it passed us. And I don't mean that after 45 minutes he zoomed around us, I mean that he stayed in the left lane "passing" us for probably 35 of those minutes. There was a silver van behind the red truck...driven by an obviously irritated person. The van's bright headlights kept getting flashed...and so the driver of the red truck chose to block the van in. This stretch of freeway was 2 lanes in each direction...so our four-car-caravan was in the right lane, and this truck-and-flashing-light-van was in the left lane. Together. In sync. For almost 40 minutes.

When the truck finally got past me, the van took the exactly-van-width space to go around in front of me...and naturally then the truck sped up, zooming ahead until he was even with the next car up in the right lane, where he promptly slowed down to almost exactly the same speed as the right lane car. I mean, the truck must have been going about .08 mph faster than cars in the right lane, so he was *technically* passing...but not really. The van tried to go around but got stuck behind the truck again...repeat the whole sequence...and then here's where it gets interesting.

The second attempt ended with all of us trying to get around the car in the right lane, which was driving exactly the speed limit. (aside: ugh. we were only going 3-4 mph over, and still were irritated.) By now all of us in the car are on the edge of our seats, engaging in all kinds of commentary about what is going on in front of us. Then another truck we'd passed earlier came zooming up in the right lane, only to be stuck behind the speed-limit-observing driver. Soon the red truck and black truck were even with each other, and the red truck driver decided it was time to exit...and so tried to cut off the black truck. Unsuccessful...back into his left lane. Then he tried just drifting purposefully into the right lane, essentially attempting to sideswipe the black truck and force them out of the way. Also unsuccessful, though very nerve racking for those of us behind them watching this whole thing unfold! Finally the red truck slowed down precipitously and went around behind the black truck to exit, from the left lane, at the last possible exiting moment (not even really *on* the ramp, exactly).

And then the freeway was once again boring, the feud having ended.

But...wow. The whole time we're watching this happen, all at 65 miles an hour, and hoping that there's no accident (though one was likely more than once)! It definitely gave us a chance to talk about defensive driving, too--seeing something like that happening and then anticipating various moves, like the van cutting us off or the truck trying to exit. It was more excitement than we anticipated for the drive home, that's for sure!

And, in case you're wondering, the moral of the story is that we ALL know, even teenagers, why you drive that huge truck and why you're acting like an a** on the freeway. Your ...ahem... compensating... is obvious to all.

going visiting

2010-11-04T00:14:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to visit more RevGal blogs more regularly--it's such a wonderful community and I want to be sure others feel that community too, and besides that...I like to know things. That's right, I'm curious and inquisitive and I hate to miss stuff.

So...I've been visiting down the list (we don't have a ring anymore because ringsurf had become a nightmare in more ways than one). I'm trying to read one letter (or sometimes two) per day...so I'm through D right now. It occurred to me that I should perhaps post links to blogs that I find particularly interesting along the way...sort of like the old-fashioned round-up, only more subjective and, frankly, slower since there are so many blogs in the ring now!

So, in no particular order, here are a few of the blogs that caught my eye, or my imagination, or my prayers, in the A-D:

Ciona is in Malawi and is blogging about her adventures, complete with photos!

Karla caught my eye by blogging about sitting around doing nothing on her day off (which is one of the things I also like to do sometimes), and today she has some beautiful and prayer-provoking poetry up.

JJ has been practicing my other favorite thing to do on my day off: get out of town and do something fun...elsewhere!

MperiodPress is having adventures in Italy and in bridges (both physical and metaphorical). I love Rome, so I was excited to read her accounts of the city and her experiences both with the city/culture and with her group and the language and other difficulties.

Kirstin has had some good news and some disappointment, and needs prayers and support and help from people who might be nearby. Warning to people sensitive to cancer issues: Kirstin has cancer and is currently in treatment, and if reading about that is going to be difficult, please just pray for her.

Silent is doing the post-every-day-in-November blogging challenge. I always look forward to the tidbits about BabyGirl and their transition to a new home.

Katherine has posted some adorable Halloween pictures of Juliette, the cutest chicken on the block!

What (or who) have you been reading?

ordination anniversary

2010-10-30T10:36:00.002-05:00

As previously noted, I love the liturgical calendar. In fact, I love it so much that instead of celebrating my ordination anniversary on the calendar date (October 29) I celebrate it on the liturgical date (Reformation Sunday).

That's right, I was ordained on Reformation Sunday. How awesome is that?

It's been four years since that Reformation Sunday when I knelt on the cold marble steps of Fourth Presbyterian Church and felt the weight of hands laid on. Four years since the first time I got to break bread and remind people that whenever we eat together we literally Re-Member ourselves as the body of Christ. Four years since my house was overflowing with people I love yet empty of my possessions (which arrived a few days later).

In those four years I've done weddings and funerals, celebrated communion in all kinds of settings, laughed and cried, eaten and fasted, played and prayed and planned and preached, and survived multiple transitions in work and personal life. In some ways it's hard to believe it's only been four years. In other ways it's hard to believe it's already been four years.

I chose Reformation Sunday for my ordination very intentionally--not only because this liturgical and historical day is important to me (what's cooler than being ordained on the day on which we celebrate being able to read the Bible for ourselves--the very way that I came to faith? or being ordained on the day when the church changed forever, paving the way for people like me (girls) to be able to be pastors?) but also because it was the Sunday closest to the day my mom died, and that day was important to me for different reasons.

This year Reformation Sunday falls ON the anniversary of my mom dying (that's right, she died on Reformation Day/Halloween), and the whole weekend feels different. I don't know if it's bad different or good different, but I do know that I am glad to have this Sunday off, and glad to be celebrating life from two perspectives. And also sad, of course--sad that my mom never lived to see my ordination, or the anniversaries, or even me-becoming-a-productive-member-of-society. Sad that I can't share the things of life and work and home and whatever with her. And at the same time glad that I was able to arrange the dates that way so she could be with us even if in a different way than I had hoped.

Four years...time flies...and will continue to fly...

So, on this Reformation weekend, don't just eat candy but also crack open that Bible and give thanks for the people who made that possible, and for the people who have made all kinds of things possible, including your parents.

Friday Five--comfort media

2010-10-29T09:57:00.002-05:00

Kathryn writes over at RGBP:

It seems no matter how many new movies, tv shows or books come down the pike I still have my ol' stand by favorites that I can watch/read over and over and when I do they actually bring me comfort - like an old sweatshirt or a favorite food.

Today's Friday Five is an opportunity for you to list five of your favorite 'go-to' movies/tv shows/books. You can use images, links, explanations or netflix.

Well...let's see...five go-to movies, tv shows, books...

First, of course, is a movie I have probably seen 100+ times since it came out when I was 7 years old, and a book I've read probably two dozen times at least. I can quote the movie, word for word and sound for sound, from the beginning...by myself. I love it. Oh, Princess Bride, you are fantastic.

Second would probably have to be Buffy/Angel. I can pull out an episode for almost any feeling or situation, and I've watched both series multiple times through.

Third I think is Pride and Prejudice--either the book or the BBC miniseries with Colin Firth. Because what about Colin Firth doesn't scream "comfort media"??? ;-) NOT the Keira Knightley movie, which was a wonderful art film but not Pride and Prejudice, in my opinion. But seriously, I love the story and the characters...

Fourth...hmm...Harry Potter movies. In particular I love rewatching the first and the 5th/6th movies. I love the first because I can remember the excitement of seeing Quidditch played on the big screen for the first time and how awesome that was, and also I just love the story of Harry discovering this whole hidden world. The latter two I like because of the way the storylines are played out. I also like to re-read the books, because the description is so engaging and yet the books are fast reads.

Fifth...Lamb and Good Omens. I realize these are not related books, nor are they written by the same author, but they are similar in some ways, and they are both books that make me laugh laugh laugh about religion and life and everything. I re-read them each at least once a year if not more, and I give them away to others in need of a chuckle. Hilarious!

words words words

2010-10-25T14:30:00.003-05:00

This is probably going to sound weird, but just go with it.

I think I've been word deficient.

It's sort of like being iron deficient (which most meat eaters will never be, but vegetarians know to watch out for...). Not quite anemic, but just in that stage of not ingesting or effectively processing enough iron to keep the body running top-notch. The general symptoms of iron deficiency (in my experience anyway) involve fatigue, more fatigue, and slightly paler skin than usual.

I know...I am already as pale as most people can even imagine, but trust me, I can get paler.

Word deficiency seems to be kind of the same--fatigue and unhealthy pallor. In a metaphorical sense, of course. I've noticed my imagination is less active (except in unhelpful ways). My writing is either non-existent or terrible. My sense of wonder and even general happiness is sort of lacking. And any poetic sensibilities I may have harbored at any point are completely missing. Even my listening skills seem dulled.

I think this is because I have not been reading as much as I normally do/should. My word intake is below the RDA.

I mean, yes, I read stuff. I read news stories online and I read facebook status updates and tweets and blogs and the occasional church-related magazine. And I read material that I'm planning to teach or use in preaching. But for several months now my general reading has been low.

I noticed it most when I was away on retreat and I read 4 books in 6 days.

Yeah. That's a lot of reading.

the thing is, it felt so GOOD! It was almost like replenishing my internal word count--like I had somehow depleted the sheer number and potential combinations of words inside of me, and was now coming back to healthy levels.

So now that I'm not on retreat anymore, I'm working on some kind of routine that will either allow or force (depending on your perspective...and probably mine too!) me to read something, or several different types of something, every day. Not just online, but in real books or kindle editions. Not just church related magazines but novels, sociological stuff, spiritual practices, poetry, theology, maybe even some other kind of non-fiction.

Just like I have to be intentional about iron, I think I need to be more intentional about my word intake. Healthy sources, plenty of them, and in combination with the right things that will make the words digestable, useable, things I can process. I'm taking suggestions for reading...

Reframing Hope--a book review

2010-10-23T11:38:00.003-05:00

Well, as much as I do a "book review" anyway. I don't really follow that formal format...it's not quite how my brain works. But I will share with you where my brain went while reading this book!

It’s taken me a long time to find the time to focus and read just one book that isn’t for an immediate (like, in a few hours) adult ed class. But wow, I am glad I spent the time reading Carol Howard Merritt’s latest work, Reframing Hope.

The thing I love about Carol’s writing is that I feel like she may be the only person writing about a new generation without talking down-to/about-from-the-outside. I realize that she is part of this generational shift and so speaks from within rather than outside, but she also manages to write in that sort of inside voice. (By contrast, books such as unchristian, They Like Jesus But Not Church, etc, all feel like they are attempting to talk about “us” via the GenX/Millennial stereotypes and caricatures common among older generations, rather than from within.)

This book was, for me, a relatively quick read, and while I didn’t find it earth-shattering for my worldview or faith or church involvement, I could see in every chapter something that others in my church life would find surprising, new, or challenging. I also heard echoes of my own preaching, which is often characterized as “always being about community.” Well, yes, of course it’s about community—because I believe that is one of the defining issues of our time and one of our greatest needs as human beings…and something that has been so changed by technological advances over the past 50 years. Carol also talks repeatedly about the importance of community, and what community might look like in generations that have grown up in a postmodern era/the internet age, and during a generation-long distrust of institutions. (And, of course, even as these cultural changes play out we see how the turnings of culture and generations are relatively predictable—see Strauss and Howe’s Fourth Turning for more about how we now live in the midst of a culture shift that is likely to bring about a greater desire for, and building of, community.)

As leaders (ordained and not!) of established congregations, particularly in the mainline, we need to be reading this book (and Tribal Church, too!). These shifts are real, the culture change across the generations is real, and the needs of a new generation are real. New generations are not going to turn into the previous ones—there is no chance that GenX-ers are going to magically turn into Boomers as we age. Instead we continue to live out our experiences and our archetypes (drawing again on Strauss and Howe), only older. GenX and Millennials and the new generation of children are not going away, and we are not going to change to be copies of our parents and grandparents, so it’s time the church learned what that means for ministry, for community, for sharing and living the gospel, for caring and bringing hope and loving one another as Christ has loved us. This book is a good start as we seek to understand and minister to/with people of a new generation.

30 and 1 day

2010-10-22T22:57:00.003-05:00

I am now 30 years and 1 day old.

I have been having a fantastic week on retreat for my birthday...I've been with friends, I've read several books and eaten some amazing food and had some good wine...I've been to a new-ish restaurant called Kamasouptra (teehee) and seen gorgeous leaves and even seen some unexpected friends. I've gifted amazing cookies and slept in and stayed up late and talked the night away. I've had an awesome homecooked dinner and worn a party hat made out of a Whole Foods bag (did you know it's also Whole Foods' 30th birthday?).

I've also been in that weird space--the grief space--with some great friends to help me through. I don't know if they know they've been doing that, but they have. Because every year these 10 days are a little like Lent or something--it has the internal feel of a liturgical observance, from the time I last spoke to my mother (5 years and 1 day ago) to the day she died (4 years and 356 days ago). I can feel it--how I go inside myself, don't hear other things as clearly, and am generally less outgoing and more tired. Each year has been different, of course, and my birthday has been amazing in its own way each year since that one, but this one feels different somehow. I'm not sure how, but I'm glad to be with friends. (except for the part where I have to go home in the morning...that part, not so much glad, more sad.)

to me!

2010-10-21T10:11:00.003-05:00

Happy birthday to me,

happy birthday to me,

happy birthday to MEEEEEEEE....

Happy birthday to me!

And also to Cassie and to WG, daughters of good friends.

Much love to the October 21 birthday girls! :-)

more than meets the eye--a sermon for Ordinary 29C

2010-10-16T22:29:00.002-05:00

DRAFT written at the corn maze...edits later. comments welcome!

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
more than meets the eye
Jeremiah 31.31-34
17 October 2010, Ordinary 29C

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Did you know that your spinal cord is only as big around as your index finger, but contains 10 billion nerves cells? Or that there is enough iron in your body to make one nail? Or that your nervous system transmits messages to your brain at the speed of 180mph? Our bodies are incredible things, with all kinds of hidden beauty and complexity. (all facts from here)

Some of you have probably seen the exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry—the ones with cross sections of the human body, or where you can see a humongous 3-D heart. Exhibits like these, along with pictures and doctors and TV shows, have taught us much about how the body works, and just what is inside this skin of ours. Our bodies are much more on the inside than they appear on the outside. And, of course, who we are is much more than just our physical body—we are more than meets the eye.

Who we are includes all kinds of things—from our bodies to our thoughts and beliefs to our education and experiences to our actions and words. While we are more than the sum of our parts, our lives do reflect all those parts. Often we can see someone’s heart in the way they relate to others, we can see their faith reflected in their choices and actions. And we can see the changes God makes in people in the ways they live their life every day.

Jeremiah tells us of a promise—a promise given during the darkest shadow of death, in the midst of deepest despair and loss. The Israelites have been pulled from their homes and taken to Babylon and the Temple has been destroyed. In a culture and religion that bases identity on living in the land God gave them and on worshipping in the Temple where God lives, being in exile meant that they were no longer a people—no longer a nation and also no longer the people of God. They were abandoned, alone, without hope...and they were living their lives as if that were true. Until…the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, saying “I’m still here—have courage.” God promises to stick around even in the dark days, even in the midst of horror, even when we can’t see God’s work or feel God’s presence or hear God’s breath. And to prove it: a new covenant, one not based on physical stone tablets or a small inner room in the Temple or even on Thou Shalt Nots.

At Sinai, God gave the gift of freedom and the gift of land and the gift of community, and made this covenant to remind us of those gifts. This new covenant is a little different. It’s a covenant for captivity, a covenant that can be kept anywhere, a covenant impossible to break. No matter where we are, what darkness surrounds us, or what dis-ease lurks below our surface, this covenant is for us. We shall be God’s people, because God has written the covenant inside us. When we were being knit together in our mothers’ wombs, already God was replacing our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. When we are lost and fear we might never be found, even then God’s word of life is within us. When hope has deserted us, or we have deserted it, still the Word dwells within us and God’s breath is nearer to us than our hands or feet. We may not see it, but God is there, working in and through us.

This is a covenant that changes us, changes who we are and how we live. God promises to be at work in our hearts, in our spirits, in our physical bodies and our spiritual lives…and that inner change will also bring outer change. God is in the business of transforming us, literally from the inside out, from the center of our being out into our actions and lives. God writes the word on our hearts, and sends the Living Word into our midst to be the heart of the Body. This is a community covenant, not really an individual one (though we often understand it that way). It’s a covenant with the house of Israel, with the whole body. And it’s a covenant that levels the playing field in the community, too—from the least to the greatest, everyone is a beloved and forgiven child of God, which means everyone has something to offer. Since transformation is something God does in communities, not something we do to ourselves or by ourselves, that also means that just showing up doesn’t guarantee the inside out change God promises…but at the same time that not being in the community is a hindrance to God’s work. So we need to be here and also engage our minds and hearts, not just tune out when the music or the prayer isn’t our favorite. We need to show up and also truly share our lives with one another, not just put on a happy façade. We need to come together and also pray for each other and for our community. We need to be here in this building and also out in the world working and playing together in God’s mission. We need to be a part of the community with our physical bodies and also with all that other stuff that makes up who we are—our intellects, our experiences, our resources. Then we too might experience this transformation, this change from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh, from lost to found, from being confined by the smallness of our vision to being freed for God’s vision. God is always at work in us as individuals and as the body of Christ and as a part of the world community God created and called good.

Some of you may recognize my sermon title as being part of the Transformers cartoon theme song. Just like The Transformers, we are definitely more than meets the eye. But even the Transformers show their true nature out in the world! So it’s also true that this change is one that carries over into both our private and public lives, into our public discourse and our relationships and our choices, into our homes and our workplaces and playgrounds. For no matter who we are or where we are on life’s journey, we are the people of God, children of the covenant, loved and made to love others.

May it be so.

Amen.

watch and pray...

2010-10-13T08:48:00.002-05:00

I should be packing up my stuff right now so we can get going on the last day of our Door County adventure (which has been so far pretty awesome!). But instead I'm watching the live coverage of the Chilean Miner Rescue on cnn.com. This is incredible to see and almost hard to believe. I can't imagine spending two and a half months trapped in one small section of mine half a mile underground. I can't imagine being raised or lowered through a tiny hole for 15 minutes. I can't imagine being a family member of one of those men. And, until late last night, I couldn't imagine watching something like this on TV or the internet. It's crazy.

And all I keep hearing in my head is the song from Taize... "stay with me, remain here with me, watch and pray, watch...and pray..."

I imagine that has been the prayer of the miners, too--to not be forgotten, to not be given up on, to have people remain and pray. (I know that's not how Jesus used the words, but the way Jesus used them is not the way many of us use them anyway, even when we are not in crisis...)

And now it's my prayer--that we will continue to watch and to pray until all are free, whether from mines or from abusive relationships or from literal slavery or from addiction or from bullying or from illness or from anything else that binds us.

Door County, day 2

2010-10-12T20:51:00.007-05:00

Eagle Bluff lighthouse, from a boat (according to the boat captain I talked to on the phone, "the way a lighthouse was meant to be seen."). I think I successfully got a slight sun/wind burn on this boat trip. It was gorgeous!

Eagle Bluff Lighthouse, from the land. Peninsula State Park was beautiful and the lighthouse tour was fun.

view from the top of the Eagle Tower...toward the village of Ephraim (which, we learned later, is the only remaining "dry" town in all of Wisconsin!).

horseshoe island

Pretty stones (also smooth and soft feeling like Schoolhouse Beach was) at Pebble Beach. It is also illegal to take stones from here...but not to take pictures!

Door County Day 1--Washington Island

2010-10-11T22:13:00.010-05:00

The Pottawatomie Light House on Rock Island--oldest light in Wisconsin. Thanks to state park volunteer Dave who stuck around to give us a tour through the house and all the way up to the 4th 0rder Fresnel lens (now a replica because the original was stolen. how one steals something so massive, I have no idea...). Getting here required two ferries, a fair amount of driving, a 2.5 mile round trip hike, and getting up really early. But it was totally worth it. (volunteer Dave may have been worth all that himself--he was amusing and insightful and knowledgeable...crucial in anyone giving a tour!)

Schoolhouse Beach--with smooth (and strangely velvety feeling) limestone gems rather than sand. So many of these have been taken from the beach that it's now illegal to remove them--and the fine if you're caught is $250 PER STONE. It was super pretty and the rocks were very tempting...but not $250/rock tempting.

we became "leafers" for just a few photos...because who wouldn't? We even climbed the 188 steps of the "mountain tower" for this one:

We also visited the Stavkirke, which is both strange and beautiful at the same time...

and we saw a gorgeous sunset. :-)

We ate dinner between a full suit of armor holding a sword and a backlit stained glass window. (why yes, we were at the English Inn, why do you ask?) I couldn't get photos because it was too dim, but trust me when I say it was very old-school-art-institutey.

Tomorrow: more lighthouses, more boats. I believe you might start to think there's a theme... :-)

milestone

2010-10-07T23:07:00.003-05:00

It won't feel like a big deal to the rest of you, but it is a big deal.

Yesterday, I came to the end of the stack of magazines that have been piling up in my office for almost a year.

That's right, I managed to at least skim (but mostly read, as in full-on READ) every single magazine that I have put into the pile on my desk for the past 11 months. Youth ministry magazines, the Christian Century, Presbyterians Today, magazines from various charity and mission organizations, the Alban Institute magazine, etc. Every. Last. One.

When I began this particular part of the clean-my-office project, the stack was probably about 18 inches tall, maybe taller.

And last night, I finished.

Some of the magazines went into the stack of collage supplies. Some went into the recycling bin. Some had pages torn out and distributed to various ministry teams, colleagues, files, etc. But all have been read and dealt with in some way.

This is a huge milestone. It meant that when the new Christian Century arrived in my box (also yesterday), I could read it right away without feeling like I needed to just add it to the stack. It meant that I could see a roughly 9x12 area on the top of my desk for the first time in nearly a year. It meant that the tallest of the piles that needed to be dealt with in the office cleaning project was gone--poof.

And now it means that I can move on to the much quicker aspects of cleaning and organizing, because that huge project is finished, and I feel like I can safely move ahead. I know the things I should have known when these issues were published. I've filed the stories or poems or images that might be useful. Now it's time to file or recycle or otherwise deal with everything else on my desk.

Trust me, it's a milestone. A big one.

the silent drive

2010-10-05T21:04:00.003-05:00

Lately I've been keeping the radio in my car turned off.

No NPR, no CDs, no iPod playing over 87.7.

It's a little eerie, how quiet a car can be.

I've been trying to think about using my "commute" (13 minutes if every light is red) as a time for prayer and reflection and some form of meditation. It is, of course, possible to do that with the radio or CD player or iPod on. I've prayed for the people in news stories and for the media of our country, even for the NPR people who pretend they love pledge drives three times a year. I've prayed through singing along with the Indigo Girls at the top of my lungs. I've used pray-as-you-go in the car, since they last almost exactly the length of my "commute." I've listened for the Holy Spirit in the iPod Shuffle or the Global Activism segment on Worldview (Thursdays).

But now I'm trying out silence.

It feels weird, to be in the car with no sound. My car is surprisingly sound proof when the windows are all rolled up. I can hear the engine tick sometimes (in a good way), I can hear the fan running, and I can sometimes hear the tires on the road. But mostly it's quiet. Maybe quieter than anywhere else I go--there's always some kind of sound pretty much wherever I am, whether it's cats purring or the refrigerator running or the office administrator typing or the heater or the washing machine or any number of other things. But in the car, it's just quiet--the kind of quiet I'm not really used to.

I haven't quite figured out how to use that time yet. Because I still have to pay attention to driving, it's not quite the same thing as the traditional "quiet time" lots of very spiritual people claim to have. It's not the kind of meditation where I can take my brain to a happy place and just relax every muscle and wait for the Spirit to move. It's more...meditative awareness? Almost hyper-awareness, even? I can send good vibes and light into neighborhoods, homes, schools, and businesses that I pass. I can look at people in cars around me (this is best done via the rear view mirror, since people totally get weirded out if you stare at them when they're in the car next to you). I can imagine all these people, even the ones who don't know where they're going or how to merge properly, as children of God. I can notice the little red fox coming out of the woods as I drive home at night, and think about the other creatures that coexist with us in our neighborhoods. But somehow it still feels like I'm missing something...

Granted, I've been without the radio consistently for about 2 days, so that's not long. There have always been times when I've turned it off and just driven in silence, but not every time. I'm trying it out for the rest of the week and we'll see how it goes...

Do you use driving as a time to pray or to "commute with God"? How?

grand plans

2010-10-04T10:24:00.002-05:00

I have grand plans for how my days are going to go. I have a plan for a new routine that involves getting up at roughly the same time every work day, writing on 750words.com, working out half an hour, taking a shower, writing a blog post or a book chapter, and then going to work. (I can do this because I don't work until 10 at the earliest except for Sundays...)

Of course, this plan only works if I wake up at the time I need to wake up. In other words, I have to get out of bed when the alarm goes off.

Even if I fell asleep on the couch for several hours and only "went to bed" (like in my actual bed) a few hours ago.

Even if it's still dark outside.

Even if it's really cold outside my bed but inside my bed is nice and warm and cozy.

Even if the kitties are all snuggly and warm and happy.

You can clearly see my problem, right?

My motivation dissipates in cold weather...which is bad news since cold weather and dark (or dark grey) is about to become the norm for, oh, the next 7 months.

So...tomorrow I try again. (yes, I'm going to go ahead and call today a failure on the new routine front, since I didn't get up until around the time I should have been finishing up the second spurt of writing this morning....) Wish me luck.

Play

2010-10-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

This is a week when work and play have overlapped and intertwined and found their way through my days. I've recently been playing Mario Galaxy 2 on my Wii...it's crazy hard and many nights you can find me on my couch shouting at Mario on my tv screen, wildly waving the Wii-mote. Some may think that's not really play, or at least not relaxing, but it really is surprisingly fun. (well, most of it--there are a few levels that stretch the definition of fun to the max, but it's technically still play...)

Then this week I also WENT to a play...I saw Candide (oh, Leonard Bernstein, how I love your music) at the Goodman Theater with my friend Jenny. It was a very good show, capturing the spirit of Voltaire's novel and inviting the audience into the creative process of putting on the production. I found it funny and touching, inviting and depressing, strange and wonderful and beautiful and horrifying all at once.

And then this week at youth group we are planning a game that combines aspects of pilgrimage/labyrinth-walking, Cranium, and theology/bible/mission...in a life size board game. The game takes up the entire fellowship hall and we move around the "board" and have to answer questions or perform tasks at every square we land on. It will be awesome.

It occurs to me that these three types of play--personal, communal, and theatrical--are crucial aspects of the way we approach life. We need a little drama, a little problem solving, a little journey, a little laughter and a little stress and a little Bernstein music. We need to play alone (and learn to make our own fun and to amuse ourselves), we need to play with others (and figure out how to play well with others too), and sometimes we need to watch others play. One of the things I enjoyed about Candide was that the cast was obviously having a good time. They understood their roles in a satire to be filled with irony and subtle hilarity, and they were clearly enjoying it as much as we were. And if we never see others play, how do we learn to play ourselves? I mean, children play--at least, most (healthy) children do. They have active imaginations and lots of ideas and they play basically all the time. But at some point in our education or maturing process, we lose some of that. We lose imagination and wonder and wild abandon. Instead we play by doing grown up things like eating out or going to the movies or even playing video games (which, for me anyway, don't involve a lot of imagination or wild abandon--they are about figuring things out and accomplishing tasks to get points...which is still a form of being productive, if you think about it...).

But when we see others play, when we see a play, our imaginations are engaged, there are tons of possibilities, and we have to suspend reality for a little while. So ultimately, while the actors may be the ones playing a role, I think we are the ones playing--letting go and just having fun exploring an imaginary world for a little while. I'm glad I got to do that this week, and I am excited about seeing 2 more productions in coming weeks. May there be more play in all our lives...

Investment 101--a sermon for Ordinary 26C

2010-09-25T20:32:00.001-05:00

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Investment 101
Jeremiah 32.1-3a, 6-15
26 September 2010, Ordinary 26C

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was imprisoned in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had imprisoned him.
Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’ Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.
And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard. In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

I have to confess that, in spite of my sermon title, I don’t know very much about investing. The things I know are, in no particular order: that it involves money, usually large amounts; that the purpose of investing is both to support a company and to make money for myself, preferably lots of money for myself; that we should work to invest responsibly with companies that we trust and that don’t engage in activity or policy we find horrible…and that for many people that last point is optional.
So I’m probably the last person who should be talking about the basics of investing—I need to take that class, not teach it! Except that I think our usual investment strategies and portfolios are missing something—something that Jeremiah might be able to help us out with.
Now I know, you’re all sitting out there thinking that Jeremiah, and especially this story, is even harder to understand than the finer points of finance. Between the hard-to-pronounce names and the fuzzy historical details, the significance of a story like this is easily lost on us. We can barely make out what just happened, let alone why it was an important enough story to be told 2600 years later.

Here’s what happened: Jeremiah was in prison for doing his job well—for speaking the word of God to the people in power. The Babylonian army was camped all around Jerusalem and was using all the surrounding villages and fields to feed the troops. Jeremiah’s cousin came and offered him the deal of a lifetime—to buy a piece of prime real estate smack in the middle of the siege, a piece of real estate conveniently located under the tents and weapons of the Babylonian army. And Jeremiah, never one to pass up a good opportunity for symbolic action and metaphor, paid his cousin actual money for this piece of worthless land.

This is not unlike a Palestinian farmer buying a piece of land from his neighbor—a piece of land that just happens to be located under an Israeli settlement.

Or, if we leave the land part of the story behind for a moment, it’s a little like a conservation worker trying to save the pandas, even though the numbers don’t look good and the bamboo forests are being cut down and the people are moving further and further into the panda habitat.

Or like the architects who designed, and the patrons who financed, and the laborers who built, those cathedrals in Europe—cathedrals that took an average of 150 years—three lifetimes, or 4-5 generations of workers—to build.

The thing all of these people have in common is a vision—a vision of a future that others can’t always see, a vision for life in all its fullness, a vision of the kingdom of God. And they have invested themselves—their time, their imagination, their money, their energy—in that vision.

Just a few chapters ago, God reminded Jeremiah that God has a vision for the people—a vision for a future of hope. But if we really believe this—if we really believe that God keeps promises, that the promise is for a future of hope, that Christ came that we might have life in all its fullness, that the Spirit moves among us bringing life and light and hope, that God is widening the circle of grace even more than we can imagine, or (to use the words of the song we just sang a few minutes ago), “In you, O Lord, I put my trust” / “My hope is in no other save in Thee”…why aren’t we investing too? We’ve even been given investment guidelines: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and all our strength—in other words, with everything we are, everything we have, everything we do. This is an all-or-nothing investment strategy, one in which we put God, not ourselves, at the top of our portfolio list. We invest in God’s future of hope, not in securing our own futures. And Jeremiah shows us what that looks like—we put our money where we say our faith is. If we believe that God has a future of hope in store, that houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought, that occupying armies will leave and peace and justice will one day rule, that abundant life is possible and even desirable for every part of God’s creation…if we believe that God’s covenant is for real and we are a part of it, then it’s time to invest. It’s time to spend our money, our time, our reputations, our energy, our creativity, our resources, all our capital, on showing that we believe these things to be true. Because without investment, businesses don’t grow—and in this sense the kingdom of God is a little like a business. When we pray “your kingdom come” that must mean that we want it, so it’s time to back the words up with actions and resources.

Now, unlike most of our investments, the purpose of this one isn’t to improve our own lot in life, to ensure our own security, or make ourselves wealthy. We may not even see the returns on this investment. Like the architect who never saw his cathedral realized in his lifetime, we are people who invest in something that may be a ways down the road. Jeremiah told the scribe to put the deeds in earthenware jars so they might last a long time—and Jeremiah never saw that field in his lifetime. The Palestinian farmer who holds onto the deeds for his land on the other side of the separation barrier may never see his fields or olive trees again, but he has hope. The conservationists may never see the day pandas are successfully reintroduced in the wild, but they work in hope. The patrons and architects and laborers may never see their sanctuary, their refuge, their symbol of God’s presence finished, but they know it will be important for others they’ll never meet. But, as Oscar Romero points out, we are workers, not master builders, so we may never see the end results. We are prophets, and investors, in a future not our own—God’s future of hope.
May we be faithful workers, for the building up of God’s kingdom.
Amen.

Friday Five--music!

2010-09-24T12:31:00.002-05:00

Over at RGBP, MaryBeth writes:

Music is a part of the human experience, and part of religious traditions the world over. It is evocative and stirring, and many forms of worship are incomplete without it.

Our title comes from a quote popularly attributed to St. Augustine: "He who sings prays twice." A little Googling, however, indicates that Augustine didn't say exactly that. In fact, what he said just doesn't fit well onto a t-shirt. So we'll stick with what we have.

"Singing reduces stress and increases healthy breathing and emotional expression. Singing taps into a deep, age-old power available to all of us. When we find our voice, we find ourselves. Today, sing like you mean it." And let's talk about the role music plays in your life and worship.

1) Do you like to sing/listen to others sing? In worship, or on your own (or not at all?)

YES and YES and YES! :-)

2) Did you grow up with music in worship, or come to it later in life? Tell us about it, and how that has changed in your experience.
Since I didn't grow up in the church, no...I didn't grow up with music in worship. However, I did grow up a Camp Fire Girl, and we had our own rituals that included plenty of music...and my mom was a Camp Fire Girl before me and sang all the time...and we had plenty of music in my house! And some of those Camp Fire Girl songs still make appearances every now and then...

3) Some people find worship incomplete without music; others would just as soon not have it. Where do you fall?
I believe music is required...for me. I also believe worship isn't about me. So while "Sing to the Lord a new song" is one of the most important commandments, in my opinion, I also work really hard on at least wondering what my neighbor in the pew might need to worship more fully...so a range of worship experience, style, etc is important.

4) Do you prefer traditional music in worship, or contemporary? That can mean many different things!
Okay, so I used to be THE BIGGEST FAN of traditional worship (old hymns, organ, brass, professional level choir, nothing else) and THE BIGGEST HATER of "contemporary" worship. BUT...I have come to believe that a) all worship is contemporary and traditional in its own ways, and b) we have painted "contemporary worship" with this praise-chorus-brush that is not always true. I think we often think of contemporary worship the same way that the unchurched world thinks of Christians...we've been painted with the Religious-Right-Conservative-Politics-Megachurch brush which is not at all the way most Christians are. The same is true of contemporary worship music--it is not all the way we have stereotyped it (some is, it's true, but some Christians are like the stereotype too).

So: I like both. It's possible (we do it, in fact) to have contemporary worship music that is not IMeIMeIMe, not 7-11, not Jesus-is-my-boyfriend. It's possible to have traditional worship that is those things (I come to the garden, anyone?). Again, worship isn't about me, but it is about full expressions of who we are before God, and about communities worshipping together...and sometimes that means putting aside our stereotypes of what "worship" is. We have songs at our 830 ("alternative" aka with-a-band) service that I absolutely adore. We are able to bring in Carrie Newcomer or The Indigo Girls or David LaMotte. We sing hymns written in the 16th century and hymns written last week. We have words of the psalms, Calvin's words, David Crowder's words, and words written by members of our congregation. We have bluegrass, organ, singer-songwriter, gospel, jazz, spirituals, and edgy rock (one of our slogans is actually "from Bach to Rock"). The style is irrelevant as long as the purpose is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.

5) What's your go-to music ... when you need solace or want to express joy? A video/recording will garner bonus points!

I generally turn to the female indie singer-songwriters...the Indigo Girls, Carrie Newcomer...or to Mozart's 23rd piano concerto...though sometimes you just have to have a little Styx, you know?