Spotting God… in Third Grade
I am a SEST (Spouse of an Elementary School Teacher). It’s an exclusive club of primarily men who spend their lives listening to endless stories of children’s antics, administration’s shortcomings and parental idiocy. (Of course, I was once a child, have been a parent and currently engage in the art of administration. I listen…but I secretly sympathize with the enemies.)
The best part of being a SEST is time spent in the classroom. For one reason or another – delivering pizza to the class party, hanging posters in hard to reach places, or burying the dead goldfish – I occasionally get to be a fly on the wall of third grade. The conversations are priceless…
Last month, during the Winter Holiday season (school talk for Christmas), a young Jewish boy (the legitimate reason for school talk during Christmas) was explaining to a Christian classmate the historical origin of Chanukah. Upon finishing his story, the gentile guy aggressively responded, “My dad told me there’s no way a little bit of oil could have burned eight nights! Christmas is the only real holiday!” On cue, the kosher kid calmly replied, “Well, my dad told me virgins can’t have babies!” My wife intervened, but not before some little girl asked what oil and virgins have to do with each other. I actually had two answers. One had to do with the condiment aisle and the other had to do with a word that is often confused with condiment. But, I restrained myself. It’s not my classroom. And if I had responded, I would have had to deal with the antics of children, the administration and some idiotic parents…with whom I truly sympathize…
I can tolerate almost anything…but intolerance. When it comes right down to it, the things we believe are precious simply because we believe them. They are down right silly to those who don’t believe. We need to be okay with that. My silliness doesn’t have to trump your silliness. My truth doesn’t have to trump your truth. God has the power and right to reveal divine presence any way God chooses. God understands the connection between oil and virgins. I like God.
Photo by Mountainbread, Creative Commons License.
New Book: Is God a Christian?
R. Kirby Godsey has penned a new book (published by Mercer University Press) that calls people of faith to a higher level of understanding and dialogue with one another. His book, “Is God a Christian?” poses interesting questions about the nature of God. It offers the hope that people of faith will work together to end violence and foster a broader awareness of God. Here’s a video that was inspired by ideas in Godsey’s book. What do you think of it?
For more information on “Is God a Christian?” visit the book’s website.
If you happen to be in the Macon, Georgia area on May 19, check out the book’s launch event, which features a dialogue between Kirby Godsey, Rabbi Larry Schlesinger and Imam Adam Fofana, discussing “Creating a Community of Conversation.”
The subversive nature of bread
Community. What does it mean? I’ve been thinking about the word – the concept – a lot recently. Today A and I received an email saying we have been accepted into a new loft community designed for those involved in the arts. While the arts are another discussion, I wonder what it is to design a community. I get these great ideas of having people over for dinner on a regular basis, of learning things from my neighbors, of being connected to others.
I read stories from the ancient world and from my New Testament professor, Dr. David May, that tell of the early Christ followers living differently – of slaves and rich landowners sharing the same meal. And while that might sound quaint and lovely, it is subversive in a culture where everyone has a particular place – and that particular place dictates the bread you eat. It was a sign that something new was occurring – that the narratives given by the empire and by the prevalent culture were false. The new age wasn’t fully realized, but it was starting. And so they ate, remembering the One who said that the wine and bread were his blood and body.
Community is subversive. And I’m not entirely sure what that means in present-day America. I’m not sure what it means for my home in St. Louis. I’ve asked my friend Joshua (for whatever reason, it doesn’t feel right to call you Josh…) to make me a communion set. Joshua and his wife, Alyssa, are started an intentional community in Liberty, MO. I’ve watched over the last several months as the idea has been revised again and again, as new people have been brought in. A and I have talked about using it as a centerpiece on our table, as a visible reminder that every time we gather folks together – whatever their background, purpose or religion – it is sacred. That by meeting together, forging community, admitting that we need others, we are doing something holy. And we pray that somehow, we can be signs of the New Age. Hopefully subversive.
Read more from Jennifer at her blog.
Judgment Day 5/21/11
Just outside of town is billboard that declares “Judgment Day, May 21 . . . Cry mightily unto God.” It even has a seal stuck in the upper right-hand corner that declares, “The Bible Guarantees It.” So says Howard Camping of Oakland, California. He’s real sure . . . but, more than a decade ago, he was real sure that 1994 was the date.
As I was working on Sunday’s sermon, my email server beeped, alerting me to the arrival of an email. Knowing that all emails are important, I flipped over and almost flipped out. The subject line read: “ENDS TOMORROW!” And I thought I had until May 21!
Tornadoes ripping through the south have left behind shattered homes and death. Floods along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and all their smaller tributaries are inundating farmland, towns, and cities. No one seems immune to the disasters. There are folks in my town who are sure that what we have before us are signs of the end. Maybe the maker of the billboard message has the inside track on apocalyptic news.
“The signs are everywhere,” a dear faithful saint said to me on Wednesday. Ah, so they are! So they are . . . and ever have been and ever shall be as long as time remains. Maybe it will be today . . . tomorrow . . . May 21, 2011 . . . or maybe a few eons into the future. In the meantime, I’m not going to liquidate my assets and take that splurge I’ve been dreaming about; nor am I going to liquidate and give it all to charity in one last-ditch effort to impress the Judge.
What I’m going to do is keep on living one day at a time with an eye toward tomorrow. I keep an eye toward tomorrow because, while I’m not to worry about tomorrow according to Jesus, I should be prepared for it.
Judgment Day! I’m so glad that I am not in charge of the when, what, and how. I’m also glad it’s one of those things about which Jesus stated we should not worry. I do confess to worrying about some things—I know I shouldn’t but, some days I just can’t help it. I don’t worry about Judgment Day.
I have an advocate, the Lawyer of lawyers, who pleads my case. What’s more, He is more than the Advocate before the bench. He is the Advocate who comes alongside me (and you) to guide my steps and to comfort me when the path is difficult . . . as when floods and winds overwhelm, including the floods and winds of life that have nothing to do with raging waters and shattered homes.
His name is Jesus and he is Lord and Christ. I’ve got more faith in him than in Howard Camping and the countless other false prophets among us.
By the way, that email subject line (ENDS TOMORROW) was in reference to a sale on Cole Haan handbags. Sorry, by the time you read this the sale will be over . . . you missed the boat . . . you will have to pay full price. Given the price of Cole Haan handbags, that’s scary!
Given the price of life, living without faith in the One who is both Lord and Christ is also scary.
Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens
Kate CampbellJust in time for Mother’s Day, Singer/songwriter Kate Campbell reads “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens (Ode to Poultry in Motion)” from Bert Montgomery’s book Elvis, Willie, Jesus and Me: The Musings and Mutterings of a Church Misfit.
Click “read more” to hear the audio segment.
Quicktime required. Get it here.
One Christian’s Response…
“Osama bin Laden has been killed.” What should my response be? I am torn.
I am relieved that a man that has orchestrated such violence and death, rooted in hate, has been intentionally removed from his earthly life. No longer may he orchestrate acts of terror. No longer may he train up people in his ways of hate. No longer may he be the face of terrorism. There is one less man to lead beginning with fear.
I am also saddened that it had to come to such ends; that Osama bin Laden had to be assassinated instead of restored through the power of love. What would have happened if bin Laden had been captured and for the next ten years he had been shown acts of love and forgiveness instead of acts of hate? What if for the past ten years there would have been as many people praying for Osama bin Laden to be transformed and renewed and understood where real power comes from as there have been people praying for his death?
What I am not is in a celebratory mood. That is one emotion that has not entered my heart. I can not celebrate death. Maybe it is too close to Easter morning, having celebrated victory over death. Maybe it is envisioning those that loved bin Laden no longer having him with them, even knowing how evil we may know him to be. Maybe I am too hopeful that there was good inside of him that would have won if he had not been assassinated. I know I would have celebrated then; a man who has committed such atrocities seeking forgiveness.
I am torn because I realize that Osama bin Laden too was a child of God and that I too am a child of God. I am torn because I want to hold myself higher in the eyes of God than I hold Osama bin Laden knowing full well that I am asking for the right hand when it is not mine to ask for. I am torn because I know that I would not feel comfortable breaking bread at the same table as one of my enemies.
I am torn because I do not know what emotion is the right emotion to feel.
I am not torn in knowing that the right action is to get on my knees and pray. To pray for my own short comings. To pray for President Obama having to sign the order for another man’s death. To pray for the family that Osama bin Laden leaves behind. To pray for reconciliation that breeds fear. To pray for peace. To pray that all may one day realize that true power comes from God instead of our selves. To pray a prayer of thanksgiving knowing that I do not have to know what is right and that it is ok to be torn.
An occasion to rejoice?
I am totally stupefied with emotions from the news that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. I am greatly satisfied that our military objective for the nine years has been achieved. There are feelings of (Reconciliation? Justice? Certainly NOT any peace!) realizing that the lives of young soldiers lost have not been in vain. This man of terror, who harbored hatred and disdain for all things American and all things Christian, who has led many others to kill under the guise of something ‘holy,” has met final “justice” we are told. It feels like a weight has lifted from the world. Yet…? I also feel confusion…?
While this man devalued life and inflicted great pain and terror on our country and others, the rejoicing in the killing of another human being, even one so despised, or the “joy” of taking another’s life, leaves me with feelings of sadness and disbelief.
These cropped up while watching large crowds of Americans waving both flags and crosses while cheering wildly that we have killed the enemy! Visually I am struck that “we” Americans look no different from the crowds we “love to hate” – those who rejoice in the bloody slaughter of the enemy. It strikes us as terribly wrong because they are killing the “enemy” of Americans, or Jews, or Christians-those who perhaps look like us or have something in common with us. We offer scorn on others from different nationalities, or religious beliefs, claiming they are as savages for such behavior, yet is this not what we, too, are doing? Will this not cause further hate among those who would do Americans harm?
This joint satisfaction (dare I even say relief?) and sadness in my gut seems incompatible. It reminds me of a midrash story heard from my Jewish friends concerning concerning the Exodus from Egypt as cited in Talmud Tractate Megillah 10b. The best lay explanation of it I can find this morning comes from Rabbi Melanie Aron, written in 2003. The entire article, with the back story, may be found here.
Rabbi Aron writes:
Imagine the angels watching anxiously as the Israelites leave Egypt and begin their march towards the desert. The rabbis describe the angels sort of like fans at a ball game, sitting up in the bleachers, watching what’s going on, and cheering on their favorites.
Hurry up, the angels urge the Israelites, who are only slowly leaving Egypt. It’s taken some time to get the Israelites moving. Packing up their belongings is a job after all they’ve been in Egypt for 400 years. There are children to prepare for the trip and old people. The Israelites are unaware of any danger, but the angels can see everything at once, notice Pharaoh regretting his decision to free the people, and calling up his horsemen and chariots to chase after them and recapture them.
Oh no, the angels cry, when they see the Israelites heading off in the direction of the Sea of Reeds, the Pharaoh’s chariots will catch up to them from behind. They’ll be trapped, the angels moan, they can’t move forward into the sea, and behind them is all the might of Egypt. Its hopeless, they exclaim, there is no way out. The angels join in the cries of the Israelites, who by now have turned around and realize the desperateness of their situation.
Of course you know what happens next. In ancient times, since they didn’t have night vision goggles, armies hunkered down in the dark and didn’t attack. All night the two groups remain still, the Israelites at the shore of the sea, and the Egyptian army just behind them. Then a Ruach Kaddim, a wind from the east, creates a path through the sea. Following Nachshon ben Aminadab, the first Israelite courageous enough to step into the sea, the Israelites are able to cross safely, but when the Egyptians follow with their soldiers and heavy chariots, they become stuck in the mud and as the waters come rolling back over them, they drown in the sea.
At that point the angels break out into song, they are so happy, so relieved that the Israelites are finally safe. All that God had done for the Israelites has finally paid off, the Israelites are free at last.
God sees the angel’s rejoicing, but God isn’t pleased. “My creatures are drowning in the sea”, God says, “and you sing songs?”.
Rabbi Aron continues by explaining:
… the angels were supposed to have a somewhat broader perspective. They should have kept their awareness of the spark of God that is in every person, even the Pharaoh himself. They should have remembered God’s teaching, “it is not the death of the wicked that I seek, but only that he should turn from his evil ways and live.”
The midrash seems to offer that perhaps God, too, has conflicting emotions sometimes.
My eight year old also expressed mixed emotions today. Upon hearing the news this morning at breakfast he said, “That’s good, isn’t it?! Our enemy is dead!!!” Then following a long pause, he added, “but aren’t we supposed to pray for our enemies?”
As is the case so often in my parenting, I just didn’t have the answer because I, too, am so full of questions. How can I fully live believing the words “thou shalt not kill” and the commands of Jesus to “pray for those who persecute you” and “love your enemies” and still be honestly so relived that an enemy is defeated?
Ironically, the words of Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, senior director at the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, which were offered less than two weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, still ring true for me on this morning: “There are times when real action must be taken, but that real action must not be celebrated,” he said.
So…I ponder these thoughts and emotions this morning, trying to keep this in mind: We live in a time when things are not yet made right, we do not live “in the age to come” but in the now, a now of brokenness and darkness in creation. We cannot claim to live in, as the Greek word “parousia” is used, a time filled with “the knowledge of the Lord” as the prophet Isaiah writes (11:9).
Truthfully, most of us, me included, cannot even imagine a time when, “God will settle disputes for many peoples…and nation shall not lift up sword against nation (Isaiah 2:4)” So, because things just aren’t right and balanced, fully and whole, why am I struggling to find the ‘right” emotion to embrace? Perhaps these unbalanced emotions are the emotions of such a time as this.
My emotions are just that today: unbalanced, broken, confused, crazy, human emotions. I don’t think any of us have to find “the right” emotion today. Is there really such a thing on an occasion such as this? Re-reading, yet once again, from Corrie Ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place this morning, these words are speaking to me again: “And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the worlds’ healing hinges, but on His…”
I am reminded that it is not my “rightness” (nor my “forgiveness any more than on [my] goodness”) on which healing begins in this world. In holding these conflicted human emotions before God, begging for understanding, aching for some healing to begin, praying for some change to our bitter world and struggling with rejoicing over the death of en enemy, perhaps healing actually begins. That in itself feels like a glimmer of hope at least for me. Fom past experience, I know that God surprises me like that—with hope– in the darkness. Thanks be to God.
When spring cleaning invades the soul
I’ve been on a quest. It is one that has caused my living room to be a small disaster zone. The floor is lined with books and old cell phones and cords that belong to forgotten electronics. The quest is is to have fewer belongings. Allyn is being exceptionally supportive by helping me sort through all the boxes that are rotting in the basement. Okay, so they aren’t actually rotting – but they might as well be the way we are using them… which is to say that we are not using them. And so our living room is made up of piles. Sell, giveaway, things we are not quite ready to part with even though we perhaps should be.
I’m blogging about it here because it feels like a spiritual practice. Perhaps the main reason for that is the 30 Day Giveaway Challenge I’m participating in. Rules are simple – give away 30 things in 30 days. I decided I wanted to double that, so I’ve been giving away 2 things away for the past 5. Handing things that have just been taking up space. Giving them to people who will use them. Some items may go to those who lost everything in the recent tornado. Random knickknacks may find a home at a thrift store.
There is something freeing about handing things off. I’ve put too much of my identity in the books and films on my shelf. Not that I’m free of that. There are still books I’m keeping that I may never read. And I hve not taken a single movie off the shelf (I must admit, I hadn’t even considered sorting through THOSE till just now. Oops). But I’m letting go just a little. And maybe someday I’ll find the courage to continue that – to keep those things that help me love God, myself and others more and to let go of those things that just hitch a ride from house to house, but have no real value.
Read more from Jennifer at her blog.
Ark Boarding
I’ve been thinking a lot about rain, flood waters, and the need for an ark. If you lived here, you would understand that it doesn’t take too creative a mind to be thinking as I am. We’ve had rain—lots and lots of rain. One local man commented this morning that we’ve had over ten inches in the past couple of weeks. The Kentucky River, which borders our county, and the Ohio just a few miles north of us are both above flood stage and rising.
Our town is one of the higher points in Henry County and our house sits on a rise in our town. Yet, this past weekend we had water standing around the house, not just in the low spots in the lawn. It’s wet!
Part of my thinking has carried me back to my childhood. I grew up in the southeastern portion of Missouri—an area known as the Bootheel. Prior to the late 1800’s, the area was a swamp. My dad had photographs from the period when the Corps of Engineers came into the area to build a series of canals—floodway ditches, we called them—to drain the area and make fit for human habitation. In spite of those canals, flooding remained a common experience in my childhood.
Our home and farm was not far from the Mississippi River to our east and the St. Francis River to our north and west. In the mid-fifties, we awoke one morning to our house totally surrounded by water—water as far as the eye could see. It was an adventure for me. My Uncle Rayvon Knapp rowed up to our house and Dad let me go with him and Uncle Rayvon in the rowboat. We traveled around the area, never seeing land or a road. We were in a world of water. The rowboat was one that Dad and Uncle Rayvon had built for duck hunting. It was made in part from old church pews—Cypress wood, maybe. I’m older now and flooding may still be adventuresome but it is no longer fun.
While our town is safe from major flooding, parts of our county is not. I posted on Facebook this morning the following message: “If you are not already on the ark, it may be too late!” A friend replied wondering which one of us would not make it aboard.
Like you, I’ve read the story of Noah, his ark, and the flood; but until my friend responded this morning, I hadn’t thought about what it must have been like to see the water rising and to finally decide that the crazy neighbor who was building a boat had it right, only to arrive and find the ark sealed and all boarding passes canceled. Some made it; most did not. Wow! To be saved only to see neighbors left behind. It’s a scene I’d rather forget.
My friend’s query gave rise to a new thought. There is a new ark and the rules for boarding have been changed. On the new ark all who come are welcome. Boarding passes have been issued for all. None need be left behind.
The rule change must have something to do with an empty tomb. Halleluiah!
Holy Saturday Meditation
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