Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:16-25 or
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42
Psalm 22
Just a quick post for Good Friday, because we've been on the road all day, and I'm going to fall asleep shortly.
I have never really liked Good Friday. It's a downer, and I spent too many nights listening to lay preachers go into the gruesome details of the crucifixion in order to impress upon me how much Jesus had to suffer for my sins. But today, I realized that I'm really very grateful for Good Friday, because so many of my own days are Good Fridays.
I don't mean that I've been crucified with Christ, or that I suffer much in any physical way. But if you look at the disciples on Good Friday, they have lost all hope. Their leader is dead and they can't make sense of the world. They are in despair.
I have frequently felt like God was completely absent from my life. In a way, it was as if He had died and I couldn't bring him back. In Good Friday, we have an affirmation that all of us lose hope sometimes. It is part of the Christian story--even Peter, who Jesus praised for his faith--couldn't even stand by his friend enough to admit knowing him. We all have moments when we despair, and Good Friday gives us a chance to see what is possible for people living in a hopeless world.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
People of the Peter Persuasion
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
Disney World is not the worst place to contemplate the washing of feet. After all, metaphorically, that's what every "cast member" at Disney World does every day--they serve the visitors, answering annoying questions, fastening safety belts, cleaning up the garbage and keeping the bathrooms spotless, while never once show annoyance, or sarcasm or any negative emotion. They call little girls princess and wish you a "magical day." It can be difficult to take, especially if, like me, you're a person who's had a lot of experience working in service industries. I find myself wanting to make sure every costumed employee knows that I understand what a challenging job it is, and how badly some of Those Other Tourists can treat them. I really want every employee of Walt Disney Wold to know that I'm not like all of the other people who just mindlessly walk by, never considering that they have lives. Of course, I can't do that, because the employees aren't really allowed to have visible personal lives. They give them up in service to creating a land of pure fantasy where crime, clutter, and hard work don't exist--or at the very least, are never seen. As far as fantasy worlds go, it's a pretty good one.
In a way, Jesus is doing something similar when he washes the feet of the disciples--through an act of service, he's helping them to begin to imagine a new world in which the most powerful have no power over others. The most powerful, in fact, are the ones who serve. Because we live in a post-Jesus world, we maybe don't contemplate as much as we should how much of a unreachable fantasy world that must have seemed like at the time. Love one another? That's it? What about the law, what about the whole Chosen People thing--people who are separated from the rest through our specialness?
I really identify with Peter in the footwashing story. I think he's a little baffled, and very uncomfortable with this new order of things. Often, we see his refusal to let Jesus wash his feet as evidence of his love and devotion to Jesus. It's worth pointing out, though, that the old system is kind of working for him. Sure, Jesus is the Messiah, and Peter needs to serve him and always be below him, but he's positioned pretty high up in the whole social group that they've got going. One of the three who was able to see Moses and Elijah, and the only other person, that we know of, who was able to walk on water (for a second or two), Peter must be pretty invested in the way things are. If Jesus is suddenly humbling himself and doing all this serving, what does that mean about Peter's future in the organization?
Today, two thousand years after Jesus took on the role of servant, there is a new set of rules about how to excel at being God's people, and many of us act like Peter all over again. We can all think of people in the church who keep it running. They organize the coffee hour AND run a Bible study AND serve on a couple of committees AND are always among the first people to greet newcomers. All of these things are wonderful, or would be, if you didn't get the sense that these people are keeping track in their heads, figuring out how very last they are making themselves, so they can be first later.
Part of washing people's feet--the part that can be the most challenging for those of us who excel at rule following--is giving up the privilege of being the ones who are the washers.
On Easter Sunday, those of us who are church people will arrive for services much earlier than usual, and we will still find people sitting in our chosen pews. We will mentally sigh, and grumble, and try to find a familiar face to sit near, because we want to celebrate Easter with other people who have put in the time during the rest of the year. It will be especially difficult for me, because I've grown up in church, but we aren't really well known in our current church, and I will want to spend most of the service explaining to our neighbors that we aren't among the Christmas and Easters, that we actually belong. But of course, we all belong.
If we look around at the dressed up families in their three-piece-suits and bonnets and ruffles, and wish that they wouldn't keep invading our spiritual home twice a year without putting in the time during Epiphany and Pentecost, we might do well to remember the gift that we receive on Maundy Thursday. Maybe instead of offering a prayer book and pointing out the right page, or putting extra emphasis on Lord, when we say, "The peace of the Lord," or any of the other dozens of subtle ways that church people have found to seem like they're helping when they're really marking territory, maybe we can just sit and worship together, enjoy each other's company, and allow anyone who offers to wash our feet.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, `Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Disney World is not the worst place to contemplate the washing of feet. After all, metaphorically, that's what every "cast member" at Disney World does every day--they serve the visitors, answering annoying questions, fastening safety belts, cleaning up the garbage and keeping the bathrooms spotless, while never once show annoyance, or sarcasm or any negative emotion. They call little girls princess and wish you a "magical day." It can be difficult to take, especially if, like me, you're a person who's had a lot of experience working in service industries. I find myself wanting to make sure every costumed employee knows that I understand what a challenging job it is, and how badly some of Those Other Tourists can treat them. I really want every employee of Walt Disney Wold to know that I'm not like all of the other people who just mindlessly walk by, never considering that they have lives. Of course, I can't do that, because the employees aren't really allowed to have visible personal lives. They give them up in service to creating a land of pure fantasy where crime, clutter, and hard work don't exist--or at the very least, are never seen. As far as fantasy worlds go, it's a pretty good one.
In a way, Jesus is doing something similar when he washes the feet of the disciples--through an act of service, he's helping them to begin to imagine a new world in which the most powerful have no power over others. The most powerful, in fact, are the ones who serve. Because we live in a post-Jesus world, we maybe don't contemplate as much as we should how much of a unreachable fantasy world that must have seemed like at the time. Love one another? That's it? What about the law, what about the whole Chosen People thing--people who are separated from the rest through our specialness?
I really identify with Peter in the footwashing story. I think he's a little baffled, and very uncomfortable with this new order of things. Often, we see his refusal to let Jesus wash his feet as evidence of his love and devotion to Jesus. It's worth pointing out, though, that the old system is kind of working for him. Sure, Jesus is the Messiah, and Peter needs to serve him and always be below him, but he's positioned pretty high up in the whole social group that they've got going. One of the three who was able to see Moses and Elijah, and the only other person, that we know of, who was able to walk on water (for a second or two), Peter must be pretty invested in the way things are. If Jesus is suddenly humbling himself and doing all this serving, what does that mean about Peter's future in the organization?
Today, two thousand years after Jesus took on the role of servant, there is a new set of rules about how to excel at being God's people, and many of us act like Peter all over again. We can all think of people in the church who keep it running. They organize the coffee hour AND run a Bible study AND serve on a couple of committees AND are always among the first people to greet newcomers. All of these things are wonderful, or would be, if you didn't get the sense that these people are keeping track in their heads, figuring out how very last they are making themselves, so they can be first later.
Part of washing people's feet--the part that can be the most challenging for those of us who excel at rule following--is giving up the privilege of being the ones who are the washers.
On Easter Sunday, those of us who are church people will arrive for services much earlier than usual, and we will still find people sitting in our chosen pews. We will mentally sigh, and grumble, and try to find a familiar face to sit near, because we want to celebrate Easter with other people who have put in the time during the rest of the year. It will be especially difficult for me, because I've grown up in church, but we aren't really well known in our current church, and I will want to spend most of the service explaining to our neighbors that we aren't among the Christmas and Easters, that we actually belong. But of course, we all belong.
If we look around at the dressed up families in their three-piece-suits and bonnets and ruffles, and wish that they wouldn't keep invading our spiritual home twice a year without putting in the time during Epiphany and Pentecost, we might do well to remember the gift that we receive on Maundy Thursday. Maybe instead of offering a prayer book and pointing out the right page, or putting extra emphasis on Lord, when we say, "The peace of the Lord," or any of the other dozens of subtle ways that church people have found to seem like they're helping when they're really marking territory, maybe we can just sit and worship together, enjoy each other's company, and allow anyone who offers to wash our feet.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Staying Awake
The Liturgy of the Palms
Matthew 21:1-11Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
The Liturgy of the Word
Isaiah 50:4-9aPhilippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14- 27:66 or
Matthew 27-11-54
Psalm 31:9-16
I was laying in bed this morning, wondering how I was going to get this written, what with a plane to catch, and a bit of an insight hangover from three days of listening to brilliance. I had tried to write something very different last night, the thing I'd been planning on all week, when brain fog took over and I gave up. So I was not in an opitmistic state of mind as I woke up in my hotel room bed, thinking about how weak they make coffee in Michigan--even at Starbucks--when I had a revelation.
If you read the Gospels as a writer, you notice a change in that happens on Palm Sunday. Suddenly everything appears under a microscope. Up to this point, we've been hearing the words of Jesus--his parable, the sermon on the mount--and isolated incidents: the woman at the well, the conversation with Nicodemus, the raising of Lazarus. Everything has been very distilled and told at a bit of a remove.
Take "Jesus wept." As I said last week, we have no idea what amount of time is encompassed by that verse. Could have been five minutes. Could have been five hours. We don't know. In writing, they call that compression. Yet suddenly, today, we hear every detail. Where the donkey came from. What everyone had for dinner, and why. Washing the feet. Sweating blood. The soldier's ear. The zeal. The terror. The despair. Why? Why are John (and Matthew) suddenly so obsessed with all of the little details?
Well, a writer might say, this is the most important part of the story. The details make it feel real and fresh, as though we're there. And that's true, but an editor would say that the gospel writers really ought to have been going for that all along. The saying "Show, Don't Tell" is to writers what "One Day at a Time" is to AA.
But I think there's more going on. I think what we have in today's readings are the conglomorated stories of people so crushed and broken that they need to get it all out. Every last bit. They need to say everything that struck them about that night in the days and weeks and months and years that followed. Because when we experience something so shattering that if feels as though the very sky has torn apart, we need people to hear us.
Jim has family in Joplin, Missouri, and we had the great pleasure of visiting them two summers ago, a little more than a year after a catastrophic tornado ravaged their community. As we were getting ready to visit, I said to Jim, "I want to hear about the tornado, but I'm not going to ask about it. I don't want to make them relive the trauma, and they're probably tired of talking to people who can't really know what it's like."
Boy, was I wrong.
We weren't there a half an hour before someone mentioned the tornado. The tornado's damage was still everywhere, of course. There were entire neighborhoods where all the trees were gone. Whole streets were stripped of livable buildings. But if you didn't know where to look, it seemed like things were back to normal. People laughed, danced, had babies, gave hugs, and went about their days. The people of Joplin are very proud--and rightly--of the way they came together and started putting things back together on their own, without waiting for FEMA or other government assistance.
But in fact, nothing was back to normal, because the people of Joplin knew that they could never get back to what used to be normal. They were too changed. The tornado is everywhere in Joplin, including the conversation. Life is divided into before and after, the way life in New York and Washington, DC pivots on September 11. People were constantly telling us about how things had been before the tornado, and what had happened during the tornado. They needed to show and tell us what had been lost.
I think this is true of all of us. I think it's what's going on with the gospel writers. When the world is torn in half, when we're so broken and damaged that restoration and repair are inconceivable, we need to be heard.
Jesus was in the garden at Gethsemane, and he did something he rarely did. He asked the disciples for help: "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me." We know that he walked off, but we know he was still within earshot, because the disciples tell us what he said. And we know that the disciples missed out on a lot of what he said, because he kept coming back to them and finding them asleep. Is it possible that even Jesus, in his full humanity, needed a witness to his devastation and grief?
When my father was in the last weeks of his life, I went to the hospital. When I arrived, we started talking about how to split up our schedules so that his wife could go home and get some sleep, and patch together the responsibilities she had that wouldn't wait for her world to stop turning upside down. They had known Dad didn't have a very long time, but a nurse had used the word "terminal" for the first time that week, and it had shaken us all. In the midst of this conversation of calendars and errands, my father, who was not a man for admitting any sort of weakness if he could avoid it, said, "Well, I would really appreciate it if someone would stay the night. I don't like waking up here alone." I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.
It can be so hard to stay awake for people--even when we are up and walking around. We are innundated with a cornucopia of distractions. People talk proudly of multitasking, and I know mothers who spend their days driving their children from one activity to another, patching together a life of activity in which nobody ever has a chance just to sit and be. It is quite possible to get through a day of errands without looking anyone in the eye. I know this must be true, because when I remember to look at the cashier in the McDonald's or Starbuck's drive through, they always seem so surprised. And when we do begin to pay attention, it is easy to get overwhelmed by how much pain and horror the world contains.
But most of the time, we don't have the excuse of the flesh that the disciples had. The disciples were pretty grieved themselves, after all. Their slumber in the garden reminds me of the knack babies have for putting themselves to sleep. It's as if they have a light switch on their consciousness. When things get to be too much, something inside them just flips it to off. It seems like something similar is going on with the disciples--they're just so overwhelmed, they are incapable of processing even one more of Jesus' anguished pleas to God. Maybe what Jesus should have said was, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is frustratingly protective of itself."
But mostly, what we're lacking is the willing spirit. It is hard to stay awake. It is scary, and sad, and inconvenient and uncomfortable. But it is so necessary.
A person can say a thousand times, "Our town was devastated by a tornado," or, "My father died two years ago," or, "Jesus was crucified," but telling does not rebuild her soul. Showing does. Showing is the way we get a witness to our grief. We need the world to know every last detail. We need to show our pain and our loss, and we need to tell, no, show, our stories. And we need to show them, maybe more than once, maybe a lot more than once, to people who are really listening.
Because it is not the showing that begins to heal us. It's the being heard by those who are fully awake. When enough people witness, really witness, our pain and our loss, that is when we, like the disciples, can begin to build a new and powerful and miraculous way to be alive again.
And so, my dear friends, let us make this week, and every week that follows, a truly holy week. Let us, like the disciples, help each other clear away the rubble of our sorrows and losses and disappointments. Let us, like the disciples, build new and powerful and miraculous lives on the foundations of our grief.
Let us remain awake for one another.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Notes from Day Two of the Festival of Faith and Writing
It occurs to me that what we're all really doing here is telling stories and listening to stories. I went to six different sessions today and listened to eight different writers talk about faith and writing and art and life, but really what we all were doing was telling and listening to stories. Then, in between sessions, I chatted with fellow conference-goers, and we told and listened to each others' stories.
Yesterday, one of the writers said that it's sometimes annoying that Jesus spoke in stories, because it would be nice if he would have just made his meaning a little more clear. In some way, that's a tantalizing thought, but I find myself becoming re-convinced and re-energized about the power and utility of stories.
For one thing, I love the way stories can have different meaning for different people, all of which can be true simultaneously.
Here's an example I heard today: Deborah Heiligman (The Boy Who Loved Math, Charles and Emma) read this story from a book by Martin Buber. She concluded by saying that we can do all sorts of things, travel everywhere, without ever realizing that all along, our treasure has been right below our feet. And yet, for me, the story was about being willing to follow wherever it seems like God is leading to find out the truth about where your treasure is. After all, it's not like the Rabbi in the story would ever have just randomly dug up the area under his stove, unless he'd taken the journey.
Stories have always been the way we all get at our truth--and I'm not just saying that because I've been hanging out with readers and writers all day. You hear a friend's story about a difficulty she's having, and you tell a story about a time you felt that way. Maybe you mention what you learned, or maybe you just sit together, knowing the feeling together. Then later, if a friend asks you what's new, or how you're doing, you might tell the story of that story-telling.
It's funny then, that as writers, we so completely resist actually telling the story. We want to tell about it, say what it means, when really we should just be getting out of the way, and letting the story do its thing. The best writing happens when we allow the story to just exist on its own, told as well as we can tell it. This involves a lot of faith--regardless of religious persuasion--because we can't control the story once it's out there. We must have faith in the story to convey truth, and we have to have faith in readers to pay close enough attention to discover that truth. Then we have to have faith that even if the truth that a reader discovers is not the truth that we intended them to find, the story is big enough to hold them both.
Yesterday, one of the writers said that it's sometimes annoying that Jesus spoke in stories, because it would be nice if he would have just made his meaning a little more clear. In some way, that's a tantalizing thought, but I find myself becoming re-convinced and re-energized about the power and utility of stories.
For one thing, I love the way stories can have different meaning for different people, all of which can be true simultaneously.
Here's an example I heard today: Deborah Heiligman (The Boy Who Loved Math, Charles and Emma) read this story from a book by Martin Buber. She concluded by saying that we can do all sorts of things, travel everywhere, without ever realizing that all along, our treasure has been right below our feet. And yet, for me, the story was about being willing to follow wherever it seems like God is leading to find out the truth about where your treasure is. After all, it's not like the Rabbi in the story would ever have just randomly dug up the area under his stove, unless he'd taken the journey.
Stories have always been the way we all get at our truth--and I'm not just saying that because I've been hanging out with readers and writers all day. You hear a friend's story about a difficulty she's having, and you tell a story about a time you felt that way. Maybe you mention what you learned, or maybe you just sit together, knowing the feeling together. Then later, if a friend asks you what's new, or how you're doing, you might tell the story of that story-telling.
It's funny then, that as writers, we so completely resist actually telling the story. We want to tell about it, say what it means, when really we should just be getting out of the way, and letting the story do its thing. The best writing happens when we allow the story to just exist on its own, told as well as we can tell it. This involves a lot of faith--regardless of religious persuasion--because we can't control the story once it's out there. We must have faith in the story to convey truth, and we have to have faith in readers to pay close enough attention to discover that truth. Then we have to have faith that even if the truth that a reader discovers is not the truth that we intended them to find, the story is big enough to hold them both.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Reflections on Day One of the Festival of Faith and Writing
So Gene Luen Yang sort of negated the last eight years of my life this morning during his plenary session, "Is Art Selfish." He talked about a friend who stopped painting when his kids were born, because he had mouths to feed and people depending on him for their survival. The friend said something to the effect of, "Making art just seems selfish now." After some discussion about how making art forces us to be selfish in a lot of ways--we need uninterrupted time to create, and time spent making art comes with an opportunity cost--he said this: "Having kids is not a reason to stop making art. It's a reason to start. Because they need stories to help them navigate the world." I'm sure that's not an exact quote, but it's close.
I heard that, and thought to myself, "Hmm... Maybe I've been making excuses for myself. Maybe I should have been working on my art all along." Of course, this probably amuses anyone who knows me, since I never stopped writing or making art. In some ways I did more. But I feel like I always let writing and art take a back seat to the needs of the kids. I found myself wondering whether a woman would have stated the same sentiment as unequivocably as Yang. Because the thing is, it doesn't matter how good and right it is to make art, somebody really does have to make sure the kids don't kill each other. Yang closes his office door, and even locks it. When his kids come and knock, he doesn't always answer. Then they reach their hands under his door.
You know that at some point, they go off and find the other adult capable of making them a peanut butter sandwich, or reading a story, or whatever other thing those needy needy small humans want at that moment.
At the same time, though, he alluded to a point that just blew me away. Yang teaches at a high school--I don't trust my memory, so I'm not going to name the topic, but it was sciencey--he had an opportunity to use one summer to chaperone his students in a tutoring program for children in need. The high-schoolers would spend the days teaching younger kids. It was a good program that would have benefited his students and the needy children they would teach. He chose not to do it because he wanted to use the summer to make his art. At the time, he wondered whether he was being selfish. Then he pointed out that the kids still got tutored.
And that was a flash of insight. Because I was listening to him, thinking, well, of course you should do that. It's more important to help needy children than to make art. I probably would have made that choice--here's a worthy cause, asking me for help. I can do it, and I can do a good job. A bunch of needy kids is more important than whatever art I could make, right? Well, maybe. But there's a subtle problem with the question.
So often, an opportunity or a need will come up, and we think (or I think, anyway) that I have to chose between making the world better or making art. But really the choice is between me being the one to make the world better in that way, or letting someone else make the world better in that way, while I focus on trying to make the world better with my art. When I think of it that way, art doesn't seem quite so selfish after all.
Of course, there are times, especially at home, when I'm the only one who can do the thing that needs to be done. Then it really is more like the first version of the choice, and of course, sometimes art has to get in line behind a scraped knee or a bad dream. But sometimes being "selfish" by doing what we feel we've been called to do involves a lot less ego than deciding to do something out in the world at the expense of our art, just because we forget that we aren't the only qualified do-gooders in the universe.
Other gleanings from Day One:
Because Gene Luen Yang writes graphic novels (he prefers comic books), he often attends cons. One day a group of cosplayers went by, and his friend said to him, "Don't you feel like there's something religious going on here?"
Ron Koertge spoke to a class at Calvin before speaking at the festival. Apparently a student gave him a hard time about his book Coaltown Jesus because he made Jesus a "sinner," in her opinion. His response--maybe he just looked like he was being a sinner, because the kid he was helping so badly needed to be reached, and this was the way to reach him. It amuses me to think about how even fictional Jesus gets accused of being a sinner while doing good. I also like that this happened right before Palm Sunday, when we traditionally remember how much people wanted Jesus to be someone he wasn't.
James McBride (The Color of Water, The Good Lord Bird): (again, this is a paraphrase) "Most of the things I did, I failed. The difference between me and the other guy is when I fail, I just forget about it and move on."
Over and over, I've heard authors today say that when deciding what goes into a book and what doesn't, they bring themselves back to "What is the mission of the book?" So, from almost the beginning, they are thinking, not exactly in terms of a tagline, but in terms of what, specifically, they want the central issue of the book to be.
That's it for Day One. Wish you were here.
I heard that, and thought to myself, "Hmm... Maybe I've been making excuses for myself. Maybe I should have been working on my art all along." Of course, this probably amuses anyone who knows me, since I never stopped writing or making art. In some ways I did more. But I feel like I always let writing and art take a back seat to the needs of the kids. I found myself wondering whether a woman would have stated the same sentiment as unequivocably as Yang. Because the thing is, it doesn't matter how good and right it is to make art, somebody really does have to make sure the kids don't kill each other. Yang closes his office door, and even locks it. When his kids come and knock, he doesn't always answer. Then they reach their hands under his door.
You know that at some point, they go off and find the other adult capable of making them a peanut butter sandwich, or reading a story, or whatever other thing those needy needy small humans want at that moment.
At the same time, though, he alluded to a point that just blew me away. Yang teaches at a high school--I don't trust my memory, so I'm not going to name the topic, but it was sciencey--he had an opportunity to use one summer to chaperone his students in a tutoring program for children in need. The high-schoolers would spend the days teaching younger kids. It was a good program that would have benefited his students and the needy children they would teach. He chose not to do it because he wanted to use the summer to make his art. At the time, he wondered whether he was being selfish. Then he pointed out that the kids still got tutored.
And that was a flash of insight. Because I was listening to him, thinking, well, of course you should do that. It's more important to help needy children than to make art. I probably would have made that choice--here's a worthy cause, asking me for help. I can do it, and I can do a good job. A bunch of needy kids is more important than whatever art I could make, right? Well, maybe. But there's a subtle problem with the question.
So often, an opportunity or a need will come up, and we think (or I think, anyway) that I have to chose between making the world better or making art. But really the choice is between me being the one to make the world better in that way, or letting someone else make the world better in that way, while I focus on trying to make the world better with my art. When I think of it that way, art doesn't seem quite so selfish after all.
Of course, there are times, especially at home, when I'm the only one who can do the thing that needs to be done. Then it really is more like the first version of the choice, and of course, sometimes art has to get in line behind a scraped knee or a bad dream. But sometimes being "selfish" by doing what we feel we've been called to do involves a lot less ego than deciding to do something out in the world at the expense of our art, just because we forget that we aren't the only qualified do-gooders in the universe.
Other gleanings from Day One:
Because Gene Luen Yang writes graphic novels (he prefers comic books), he often attends cons. One day a group of cosplayers went by, and his friend said to him, "Don't you feel like there's something religious going on here?"
Ron Koertge spoke to a class at Calvin before speaking at the festival. Apparently a student gave him a hard time about his book Coaltown Jesus because he made Jesus a "sinner," in her opinion. His response--maybe he just looked like he was being a sinner, because the kid he was helping so badly needed to be reached, and this was the way to reach him. It amuses me to think about how even fictional Jesus gets accused of being a sinner while doing good. I also like that this happened right before Palm Sunday, when we traditionally remember how much people wanted Jesus to be someone he wasn't.
James McBride (The Color of Water, The Good Lord Bird): (again, this is a paraphrase) "Most of the things I did, I failed. The difference between me and the other guy is when I fail, I just forget about it and move on."
Over and over, I've heard authors today say that when deciding what goes into a book and what doesn't, they bring themselves back to "What is the mission of the book?" So, from almost the beginning, they are thinking, not exactly in terms of a tagline, but in terms of what, specifically, they want the central issue of the book to be.
That's it for Day One. Wish you were here.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Yeah, right, Jesus loves me. The Bible's full of crap.
The Lessons for the Fifth Week in Lent
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
Psalm 130
When I was reading the passages this week, there were so many different things to notice. You could write a sermon about any one of them:
I'm sure I grew up hearing the story of the Valley of Dry Bones, but the first time I remember hearing it, I was in my early twenties, attending the wedding of the man that I knew God wanted me to marry.
I'd met Samuel (name changed) in college my junior year, and by the time I graduated, I'd fallen, slowly and completely, in love with him. Samuel was everything I hoped for in a husband--smart, funny, breathtakingly attractive, and most important, deeply engaged with God and living out his faith in the real world. I needed him. He was the only person I knew who could let me question anything at all--anything--without feeling like God would break if I kept pushing. I knew that we were supposed to be together. Samuel did not seem to agree.
I would often bring our relationship up with God--one day, when I was lying in my dorm room, alternating between crying and praying, I had one of those moments preachers talk about right before they ask you for money. I felt more than heard a message from God in my head. God said, "Wait. You will be together, but now is not the time."
So I waited. Istopped fantasizing about marrying Samuel, and faithfully left it in God's hands tried to remind myself, when I was questioning my future with this man, that now was not the time. I considered, but ultimately decided against, joining the organization that he worked for. The summer after I graduated, during the training session I was to have attended, he met the woman he ended up standing beside at the altar while someone read the story of the Valley of Dry Bones.
I remember thinking that the reading was appropriate for any child of divorce. My own parents' marriage was in the throes of a painful and protracted death. It made me question everything I thought I knew about love. Their impending divorce made me feel defective, incapable of love, and destined to a life of singleness. A happy marriage seemed as impossible as getting bones to knit together, enflesh themselves, and walk, just because God tells a prophet to give the command. Being at the wedding of the man God had promised to me didn't exactly mitigate those feelings.
But I was putting on a cheerful face. I didn't think anyone knew I was at a funeral. Sure, I was wearing a mostly black dress, but it had lots of floral patterns on the skirt, and anyway, I was from the East Coast where people wore black all the time. I was happy for him. For them. Yes, I was wandering in the wilderness, watching the promise that God had made to me fall from my hands and dry up my future, but I think I was doing a good job of faking it.
I was watching, smiling, while the couple had their first dance, when my best friend came up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder, and asked how I was doing. It was like the touch of his hand pressed a button that released all of my emotion at once. The tears just sprang to my eyes. I may have even allowed a sob to escape, before he guided me from the reception hall. I don't remember anything else, except shame, embarrassment, and a burning need to keep this from the couple. I didn't want my feelings to be part of the story of their wedding. I think we went outside. I think I eventually went back to the reception and visited with friends. But somewhere in between leaving and going back in, I wept.
It's tempting to fast-forward to the present. Here I am now, in a marriage that is, at its core, exactly what I was asking God for during those confused and desperate prayers in college. I see that God fulfilled the promise so much more fully than I, in my funereal dress and plastered on smile, was capable of imagining. So God's promise was eventually fulfilled. For me. In this case. In a very different way from what I had imagined.
But it wasn't true for some ten or fifteen years, while I struggled, trying to understand if that promise was real, trying to understand if God was real, and if so, what was I getting right and what was I getting wrong? I spent at least a couple of years worrying that I'd been the one to blow it on the promise--if I had been part of the organization, maybe I would have been the one he fell in love with during summer training, maybe it would have been me up there at the altar, dancing to Etta James. (Well, OK, there's no way the Etta James part would ever have happened. I had a different song in mind.) But the reasons didn't matter. As far as I was concerned, the promise was dead. Dry bones. Rotting and stinking in the tomb.
This contributed to and coincided with a major crisis of faith, in which I spent a great deal of time wondering whether God listened to our prayers, or cared about us, or even existed at all. (You could make a case that I'm still in that crisis, but that's a discussion for another day.)
When you are stuck in the Valley of Dry Bones, it's very difficult to see any way that anything could be alive again. We've all been there. Whether it's the death of a marriage, a career, a friendship, or a dream we've given our lives for, we've all walked through the Valley of Dry Bones, with nothing alive for as far as the eye can see. It's easy to get stuck there, and very difficult to pick up the pieces. Only the most valorous of us are able to say to the broken, dead, dross of our lives, "God is going to make this good. You will live again."
Most of the time, most of us can't find the breath to say the words. We just can't believe anything will be alive again. So we bury our hope for the future and our belief in a God that cares. We hide away our dead relationships and our murdered dreams back behind a stone, where we imagine them rotting and stinking things up so bad that we don't ever want to look at them again.
Sometimes, the most we can do is to get up from where we are mourning our losses, and say to Jesus, "Where were you? How could you let this happen?" And Jesus says, "show me." So we take him, never daring to believe that even Jesus can make things right. And when we show him, Jesus weeps.
He sits there at the tombs of our greatest failures, our murdered dreams and shattered hopes, and before he gets about the business of transformation, he sits there with us, deeply moved, and weeps. We don't know how long Jesus wept. John 11:35 has enjoyed notoriety as the shortest verse in the Bible, but as any writer will tell you, you can cover an eon with two words. I think we can assume the crying went on for as long as necessary.
It's not until he has mourned with us what we have lost, that finally, we are able to hear his voice above our own sobs: "Take away the stone," he says. Like that's going to make any difference. Some time much later, after we have exhausted our own protests against getting what we say we want, Jesus calls to what was dead in us, and we watch it, dressed for the grave, lurching out into the light. The whole scene is so completely unthinkable, we just sit there, frozen, until finally, Jesus comes up behind us, puts a hand on our shoulder, and says, "Unbind him, and let him go."
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
Psalm 130
Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
`Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.'
When I was reading the passages this week, there were so many different things to notice. You could write a sermon about any one of them:
- Why does Jesus weep outside of Lazarus's home? I wonder if this is a crucial experience to Jesus' life as a human. Aren't we all transformed by our first experience of the death of someone very close to us? Is this Jesus' first resurrection, as well? Does he come away from his experience of mourning a different man?
- What is life like for Lazarus when he comes back from the dead? There's a great article in Salon.com this week about Near Death Experiences. One of the things it mentions is that people who have them, re-enter their lives radically transformed in very similar ways.
- In both stories, God uses a human make the dead come alive. That has so much to say about how God can use us--maybe even, needs us?--to revive the dead.
I'm sure I grew up hearing the story of the Valley of Dry Bones, but the first time I remember hearing it, I was in my early twenties, attending the wedding of the man that I knew God wanted me to marry.
I'd met Samuel (name changed) in college my junior year, and by the time I graduated, I'd fallen, slowly and completely, in love with him. Samuel was everything I hoped for in a husband--smart, funny, breathtakingly attractive, and most important, deeply engaged with God and living out his faith in the real world. I needed him. He was the only person I knew who could let me question anything at all--anything--without feeling like God would break if I kept pushing. I knew that we were supposed to be together. Samuel did not seem to agree.
I would often bring our relationship up with God--one day, when I was lying in my dorm room, alternating between crying and praying, I had one of those moments preachers talk about right before they ask you for money. I felt more than heard a message from God in my head. God said, "Wait. You will be together, but now is not the time."
So I waited. I
I remember thinking that the reading was appropriate for any child of divorce. My own parents' marriage was in the throes of a painful and protracted death. It made me question everything I thought I knew about love. Their impending divorce made me feel defective, incapable of love, and destined to a life of singleness. A happy marriage seemed as impossible as getting bones to knit together, enflesh themselves, and walk, just because God tells a prophet to give the command. Being at the wedding of the man God had promised to me didn't exactly mitigate those feelings.
But I was putting on a cheerful face. I didn't think anyone knew I was at a funeral. Sure, I was wearing a mostly black dress, but it had lots of floral patterns on the skirt, and anyway, I was from the East Coast where people wore black all the time. I was happy for him. For them. Yes, I was wandering in the wilderness, watching the promise that God had made to me fall from my hands and dry up my future, but I think I was doing a good job of faking it.
I was watching, smiling, while the couple had their first dance, when my best friend came up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder, and asked how I was doing. It was like the touch of his hand pressed a button that released all of my emotion at once. The tears just sprang to my eyes. I may have even allowed a sob to escape, before he guided me from the reception hall. I don't remember anything else, except shame, embarrassment, and a burning need to keep this from the couple. I didn't want my feelings to be part of the story of their wedding. I think we went outside. I think I eventually went back to the reception and visited with friends. But somewhere in between leaving and going back in, I wept.
It's tempting to fast-forward to the present. Here I am now, in a marriage that is, at its core, exactly what I was asking God for during those confused and desperate prayers in college. I see that God fulfilled the promise so much more fully than I, in my funereal dress and plastered on smile, was capable of imagining. So God's promise was eventually fulfilled. For me. In this case. In a very different way from what I had imagined.
But it wasn't true for some ten or fifteen years, while I struggled, trying to understand if that promise was real, trying to understand if God was real, and if so, what was I getting right and what was I getting wrong? I spent at least a couple of years worrying that I'd been the one to blow it on the promise--if I had been part of the organization, maybe I would have been the one he fell in love with during summer training, maybe it would have been me up there at the altar, dancing to Etta James. (Well, OK, there's no way the Etta James part would ever have happened. I had a different song in mind.) But the reasons didn't matter. As far as I was concerned, the promise was dead. Dry bones. Rotting and stinking in the tomb.
This contributed to and coincided with a major crisis of faith, in which I spent a great deal of time wondering whether God listened to our prayers, or cared about us, or even existed at all. (You could make a case that I'm still in that crisis, but that's a discussion for another day.)
When you are stuck in the Valley of Dry Bones, it's very difficult to see any way that anything could be alive again. We've all been there. Whether it's the death of a marriage, a career, a friendship, or a dream we've given our lives for, we've all walked through the Valley of Dry Bones, with nothing alive for as far as the eye can see. It's easy to get stuck there, and very difficult to pick up the pieces. Only the most valorous of us are able to say to the broken, dead, dross of our lives, "God is going to make this good. You will live again."
Most of the time, most of us can't find the breath to say the words. We just can't believe anything will be alive again. So we bury our hope for the future and our belief in a God that cares. We hide away our dead relationships and our murdered dreams back behind a stone, where we imagine them rotting and stinking things up so bad that we don't ever want to look at them again.
Sometimes, the most we can do is to get up from where we are mourning our losses, and say to Jesus, "Where were you? How could you let this happen?" And Jesus says, "show me." So we take him, never daring to believe that even Jesus can make things right. And when we show him, Jesus weeps.
He sits there at the tombs of our greatest failures, our murdered dreams and shattered hopes, and before he gets about the business of transformation, he sits there with us, deeply moved, and weeps. We don't know how long Jesus wept. John 11:35 has enjoyed notoriety as the shortest verse in the Bible, but as any writer will tell you, you can cover an eon with two words. I think we can assume the crying went on for as long as necessary.
It's not until he has mourned with us what we have lost, that finally, we are able to hear his voice above our own sobs: "Take away the stone," he says. Like that's going to make any difference. Some time much later, after we have exhausted our own protests against getting what we say we want, Jesus calls to what was dead in us, and we watch it, dressed for the grave, lurching out into the light. The whole scene is so completely unthinkable, we just sit there, frozen, until finally, Jesus comes up behind us, puts a hand on our shoulder, and says, "Unbind him, and let him go."
Some program notes
Hello, friends. Here we are at the fifth Sunday in Lent, so it's time for a few program notes:
Next week, everything gets very intense. And not just in the lectionary, but also for me. This time next week, I will be blogging to you from the Festival for Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There are going to be all sorts of amazing luminaries from the world of writing about faith (Rachel Held Evans and Annie Lamott, among others). Several of you have told me that you'd really like to go, so I'm going to post completely non-Lenten updates throughout the week.
From there, we're taking the kids to Disney World. That's right, on Maundy Thursday, we might be watching a parade and fireworks, and on Good Friday, we could be eating with princesses and not even skipping dessert. I'm planning to blog the Holy Week readings, at night. Who knows what kind of parallels there are to be drawn between the Last Supper and Cinderella's Royal Table?
I've added a "Subscribe by email button" to the right of this page, for those of you who don't want to miss a single post. (I won't be linking to the posts via Facebook, except for Sundays, so be sure to check back if you're interested, but don't want email alerts.)
Also, I'm planning to continue this blog after Easter, so I hope if I've been part of your Lenten discipline this year that you'll consider checking in a few times throughout the year. I'm not sure how the blog will change. I guess we'll find out together.
Next week, everything gets very intense. And not just in the lectionary, but also for me. This time next week, I will be blogging to you from the Festival for Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There are going to be all sorts of amazing luminaries from the world of writing about faith (Rachel Held Evans and Annie Lamott, among others). Several of you have told me that you'd really like to go, so I'm going to post completely non-Lenten updates throughout the week.
From there, we're taking the kids to Disney World. That's right, on Maundy Thursday, we might be watching a parade and fireworks, and on Good Friday, we could be eating with princesses and not even skipping dessert. I'm planning to blog the Holy Week readings, at night. Who knows what kind of parallels there are to be drawn between the Last Supper and Cinderella's Royal Table?
I've added a "Subscribe by email button" to the right of this page, for those of you who don't want to miss a single post. (I won't be linking to the posts via Facebook, except for Sundays, so be sure to check back if you're interested, but don't want email alerts.)
Also, I'm planning to continue this blog after Easter, so I hope if I've been part of your Lenten discipline this year that you'll consider checking in a few times throughout the year. I'm not sure how the blog will change. I guess we'll find out together.
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