Don’t flay the sheep

Waiting and waiting and waiting

Half of my afternoon at work today: sitting in a coffee shop, knitting while reading some serious, hardcore theology to prepare for next week’s sermon.

I should be happy about this, right? It sounds like the idyllic life of a pastor.

But again (see my previous post), I’m questioning whether this “counted”.

One of the local high schools had a threat of violence today, and so, trying to be a good youth pastor, I let my kids know, via facebook, that I’d be in a local coffee shop for an hour and a half if they needed to stop by and chat about their day.

No one showed up. Either: they’re resilient; they didn’t want to come; they didn’t get the message; whatever.

I’m going to savor the 90 minutes I did have with the theology book.

But it got me thinking about how much of this youth ministry thing is about waiting. (This probably applies to all ministry.) You have to spend time waiting, being accessible, waiting, taking small steps, and waiting for the time when the relationships are deeply and truly there. I have never been one who can aggressively form relationships. I think they take time, happenstance, and the hand of God to form. I can’t force them in my personal life, and I can’t force them in my pastoral life.

In the meantime, I have to wait.

Did that time count? Yes, because part of what I am called to do is to wait.

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40 days update

At the beginning of Lent, I posted about the decision to give something up or not. In the end, in large part thanks to the helpful comments, I went with giving 40 minutes to God per day.

And how has that worked out? Well, if asked me this morning, I would have said it’s worked out miserably. Once again, I didn’t stick to it. In fact, I don’t think there’s a deliberate 40 minutes anywhere in there in the last weeks. Maybe 15 minutes. Once.

But, this afternoon, I’m actually feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I had an appointment with my spiritual director (best money spent out of my expense account!), and came with the following thoughts and questions:

• Does it count as giving time to God if it’s good for me? By which I mean, if it’s really about my being a better person spiritually, does it really count as time simply spent being close to the heart of God?
• Does it count if I’m on the treadmill, because I ran/walked a really tough 40 minutes yesterday while listening to sermons on my iPod (minister-nerd alert!). And that felt spiritual. But really?
• Does it count if I’m relaxing in the sauna after said long run, especially if the relaxing time goes from 20 minutes to nearly an hour, while Erik’s at home manning the baby and I should really maybe be doing dishes or, perhaps, getting something from my ever burgeoning-to-do list at work done?
• Maybe what I’m really asking is this: does it count if it’s self-care? (In fact, about the time Lent started, in a totally unrelated move, I took the drastic step of signing on for the country’s most popular weight loss “club”. This had less to do with God than with the fact that my pants don’t fit. So, I’m eating better, exercising, and then I’ve been on a novel reading mission, which I think is very good for my soul.)

Do you see the pattern here? Yep, someone is focussed on what “counts”.

Here’s the thing: notice, from the previous post about this, that the whole issue of what to do during lent was precipitated by a parishoner asking what I planned to give up.

When you’re a minister, your spiritual health is part of the job description. You just can’t be a good minister unless you are spiritually engaged. Maybe you can be good for a little while, but then you’ll burn out. Ministry is incarnational. You are a living, breathing human being, and what you do and say, how you are, and how you are with God, is your congregation’s business. Your 7th graders are allowed to ask you questions like: “What are you giving up for Lent?” Not just out of curiosity, but because they get to wrap their little hands around your spiritual life and check it out for themselves. I know that sounds invasive, but I’m OK with that.

My whole thing about what “counts” probably comes from a few places:

• an ongoing discussion when I was in seminary about whether or not time spent preparing a sermon was “personal time spent in the Word” and other similar discussions about how much we needed to do to be healthy ministers
• evangelical influences that push robust personal devotional lives, but sometimes make it so formulaic that it can’t possibly work for everyone (an hour a day with your Bible; 20 minutes of prayer every night; a certain amount that is enough)
• the tendency of so many spiritual discipline models to come from people (monks, middle-aged men with really competent house-keeping wives, young single people, older people who have more time on their hands) who are not mothers of 18 month olds (honestly, devoted time is pretty tough…I couldn’t even eat my lunch at the table today because Zora needed me to sit on the floor in her room and eat there while she sat in rocker and read a book…as if she’d allow me to take 40 minutes alone in a chair in the corner…I’d probably be asked to stand on my head while she ran circles around me). Then again, I’ll probably get comments about how everybody, in all sorts of walks of life, are really busy. I know. You’re right.
• Some strange protestant work ethic thing bleeding over into spirituality…if I do enough, if I do more, if I do it right…
• My questioning where the boundaries are between my “work” and my spiritual life…for example, if I would pray for 30 minutes, does that count as personal time, or work time? Probably depends on who you ask.

But notice something else…I may not be pulling off my “40 minutes for God” commitment. However, it has me doing some pretty serious thinking, and asking good questions. So, if Lent is a time for reflection and self-examination, looks like I’ve managed to do some of that.

And, I do seem to be having quite a few moments with God present, little sabbaths that are much shorter than 40 minutes, but sabbaths none the less. My spiritual director had this idea: I need to name these times, maybe even write them down, and think about how to acknowledge them in the moment. I’m thinking I need some sort of every-day prayer of invocation, so that when one starts to happen, I can say that little prayer to name it as a sabbath and to acknowledge the presence of God.

In the spirit of not “counting” everything then, here are a few little sabbaths from the past couple days, no times noted:

• Sitting up front in church and seeing some of my youth group kids hanging out in the narthex, and instead of worrying about when someone was going to ask me “why aren’t the kids on church?” I felt this very deep, transcendent warmth of love for these kids.
• Zora running to the door saying “mama mama mama” when I come home.
• That good time on the treadmill with a few good sermons.
• Feeling completely relaxed and sufficiently closed off from the business of life that my mind could think about important things while I was in the sauna.
• Not as pleasant, but the feeling of being someone who could comfort and do the things that needed to be done when Zora had a stomach bug, knowing she just took it for granted and trusted that we would take care of her, even if it was one of the more disgusting tasks of parenthood.

I need to accept these moments as the places of Sabbath, where I’m at, rather than trying to create something that won’t work for me. And if that’s the only grace I can take away from this Lent, then I think things are going pretty well.

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The most comforting smell in the world…

…is fresh chiles roasting under the broiler. This according to my husband after we made another chili from this book. A chili from every state, what could be better? We’ve been working our way through, mostly following the primary and caucus schedules.

So, a tip for anyone from my church planning to enter the Chili Cook-Off on Sunday. Erik’s a judge, and he likes roasted chiles. A lot. But you didn’t hear it from me.

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Church Supper

My church is hosting a series of Wednesday night Lenten thing-ies. I say “thing-y” because I honetly don’t know what to call them otherwise. Number 2 was last night. I missed number 1 while I was in California.

The other associate and I wanted to do something that involved a meal and was intergenerational.  So we’re cooking up somehting simple, supplementing it with some side dishes folks bring along, and doing something that is somehow related to Lent after the meal. Last week, sand-in-a-bottle art to help us think about the desert. This week, little gardens to remind us to set aside a little garden space in our souls where we can be with God.

But the thing I love most is the meal. It is good to sit together, while kids run all over the room, to help someone else’s 4 year old cut up her meat, to talk about what we did today, to be one big family group spread out over the tables, to debate whether or not to have a second cookie, to take time, and sit, and to need no other outcome than to say we broke bread.

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Giving up on giving up?

At an Ash Wednesday potluck, a 7th grader asked me: “So, what are you giving up for Lent?”

It took me by surprise: I haven’t thought much about making this a “holy lent” myself yet. I gave her a few excuses: it’s been busy, so close to Christmas this year, I haven’t had time to think about it.

And, I’ve never been much of a giver-upper for Lent. It wasn’t part of my family religious practice growing up. I’ve known folks who do an amazing job of making it a spiritual practice. (My junior-year roommate, Yvonne, was an incredible giver-upper, and did it with spirit-filled gusto. It was a gift to live with her through a Lent.) But the truth is I feel like I’ve so much more often seen examples of people using Lenten discipline as an excuse for something else–not eating something they shouldn’t eat anyway, a way to lose weight, a way to save money–and this raises up my cynical inner-Calvinist, already a bit suspicious of a practice. Ironically, I did decide to so some serious diet changing, but that was completely unrelated to Lent: it has more to do with my tight dress pants. The things I would like to give up this year aren’t particularly tangible: are things control; anxiety; worry. I know that the true nature of giving something up is about the symbolism, the great tangible reminder that God is there even when your chocolate bar is not. But I can’t quite make this work for me right now.

I prefer adding something for Lent, but I usually fail miserably at this. (Senior year of college–I was going to get up to join the Benedictine Oblates on campus for prayers every morning. At 6:00am. That didn’t work out so well.)

And the truth is, this year, I am in a place where what I need is a whole big dollop of grace. With a cherry on top. And maybe a few sprinkles, too. The idea of initiating something that I might fail at is really tough for me.

But I am still trying to sort this out: if Lent is a time of preparation, and examination, what should I be doing?

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Praying from far away

One of the things that is tough about being a pastor is leaving your tribe…by which I mean this:

As ministers, we are basically called to scatter ourselves far and wide. When we take calls, we often leave behind family, friends, and people who have nurtured us and helped us grow into the people God wants us to be. Plus, we’re kind of a weird bunch.

As strange as my seminary experience was, as exhausting as it was, as tough as it was, it was also a time when I found people who were like-minded, and there were some people who truly helped me grow into being a minister.

This week, one of my best and most wonderful profs was diagnosed with cancer. Mary writes about this so well that’s there’s not much more I can say.

But, I know that I’ve got many many classmates who are not in “GRusalem” (CRC-speak for Grand Rapids) anymore and when we hear this sort of news, we really miss the tribe.

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Less seriously…

We are back from the junior high retreat. (See the previous post for the more profound take on the experience.) I say “we” because I suckered Erik into going, and Zora came along, too.

Honestly, it was a really really good time. The kids were great. The speaker was great.  I slept better than on some retreats. In spite of terrible weather, we made it there safely.

But for all that, we didn’t come through unscathed. I think we are getting old:

1.  I fell down half a flight of stairs. No good reason. I just fell. I could feel my spine compacting on the way down. My arms and my ankles are seriously sore from the landing.
2. Erik took a ball to the eye (hard) during pool time. He wound up sitting on the side with an ice pack for the rest of the swim.
3. This morning, I did something wrong with my contacts and had a major allergic reaction in my eyes. Puffy, teary, icky until I got ahold of some anti-allergy eye drops. I am still a mess–puffy eyes and blotchy face.
4. Zora, well, she’s young and resilient. She just needs some extra sleep.
5. Um, and we need some extra sleep, too.

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Breathing

Only one song on my mix CD for the junior high retreat roadtrip (and what a roadtrip it was…snow, snow, snow) got any mention from kids. On the way there and on the way home, I had junior high girls singing and humming along with Breathe (2AM) by Anna Nalick.

They were crammed in the backseat with my baby girl, sweetness and light packed in tight, all of them, baby and pre-teens, laughing and enjoying life and each other. So it seemed odd that the lyrics that resonated with these girls were about realizing that, at a certain point in life, your options start to close down, and you have to live with some of your mistakes. I don’t mean that there’s no such thing as forgiveness, but some things you just can’t change. You have to live with them, and the only thing to do is keep breathing and keep moving forward.

I wonder if they know that yet? When you haven’t lived long enough to make that many mistakes, when you can still grow up and grow out of some of the things you tried that didn’t work, when you still can have high hopes and goals that are a little crazy, do you know about what’s it’s like to live with the decisions you’ve made?

I listen to this song when I’m running…as a reminder to keep going, one foot in front of another, breath by breath, day by day. I can only go forward.

During the retreat, we sang another song about breathing, Breathe. I hope that my girls could hear these words alongside Anna Nalick’s. I can hear some hope in her song only if I remember that in breathing, I take in God’s air, and I take on God’s support.

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Quick…before the baby wakes up!

She’s crying already, but I thought I’d check in.

I am knitting like a madwoman these days…a mitten thumb to finish, a scarf for the silent auction, and Zora is outgrowing one of the sweaters I made her so I picked some yarn for a new one today. (The color is called “Happy Forest.” How great is that?)

I desperately want Erik to make it easier for me to post photos…this is why I don’t blog much about knitting. Boring without pictures.

Yesterday I burst into tears in my office. I found a recording on-line of an anthem that I told the choir director was a must…versatile, beautiful, theologically profound. I’m trying to convince him the choir has to learn it. Turns out I don’t think I really listened to said anthem closely since I sang it at a friend’s husband’s funeral. I made everyone else who was in the church office come in and hear it, too. I think I have some converts, so look out choir director!!!

Erik, for those of you who have not heard, decided to leave his Ph.D program a few months ago. He’s in the middle of a job search. This is new territory for us. But, it’s good territory.

The presidential primaries are fascinating and infuriating. How much longer until we KNOW who it’s going to be? I will admit to having a distinct preference for a certain candidate, and I just can’t help but think that said candidate’s success won’t last and I’ll be disappointed. I think the country is such a mess, so this election feels important. In fact, I am even starting to understand the emotions of my high school social studies teacher who had us watch the first Clinton inauguration and stood in the back of the classroom weeping because she was so happy her candidate was back in office. Every time I get excited and then feel the possibility of disappointment looming, I’ve decided I need to say Psalm 146 in my head. I’m reciting verse 3 quite a bit lately: “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings who cannot save.”

And, we’re in the midst of a cold-snap. As someone said at the knitting store this morning “Finally, we have a reason to stay home and knit.” But mostly, this cold snap is convincing me that we absolutely have to find a new rental place this spring. Our bathroom is not heated (really, truly, I am not exaggerating). Erik and my room is heated only in the most perfunctory sense. Zora’s room is so heated that I’m worried about her being too hot at night.

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Keeping Watch

When I was teaching high school, we had no scheduled chapel time. So, anything of that nature had to happen in my classroom time as the religion teacher.

Among my favorite memories of teaching are the few times that I tried to help my kids just practice silence. Nothing more. No expectations for anything much. They were such hard workers, so stressed and stretched by everything going on at school, in their lives, in their families. For five minutes, we were just quiet together. (It didn’t always work well…it’s hard to go from noisy lives to quiet.)

I couldn’t completely let go of the duties of teacher…no head-on-the-desk, eyes-closed, near-sleep for me. It’s th difficulty of leading any kind of worship…you have to facilitate, even the least-facilitated aspects.

So, I decided it was my job to keep watch. Not in the guard-dog kind of way. More in the Jesus and the disciples way. I stood, and watched and prayed for my kids while they sunk down into the quiet. I prayed that the sounds of the city would soften enough so no one would get distracted. I prayed that the kid who was fidgety could find a way to release. I prayed for kids who were driving me nuts during class.  I prayed for God to enter.

Last night, I got to keep watch again. My youth groups, junior and senior high, did a labyrinth prayer walk. During the junior highs, I was still running from place to place in the church, making sure everything was coordinated, everyone was occupied, the adult volunteers were happy, the kids were content.

But by the time the high schoolers showed up, I asked to be the one in the room with the labyrinth, keeping watch. Praying for the kids who were walking, asking for God to enter.

I wish I could just keep watch more often. The details and planning and coordinating and working and doing of youth ministry are such time-sucks. Today I have to: clean my office; rent a van; tally registrations for a retreat; make some phone calls; go through e-mails…After doing all those little tasks I feel drained and depleted. I’d rather be quiet and keep watch.

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