Don’t flay the sheep.

Advent 2009

In an effort to jump start the blog, I’m planning to write a post on the daily lectionary every day of advent.

In an effort to make sure this is about a spiritual practice that is about nurturing and not perfection; people-pleasing; work-righteousness; beating-myself-up-if-I-don’t-get-it-right, I’m starting on day 2 of Advent. So, it will be imperfect from the start. I’m sure God will get over it, being big enough to handle life with me in general anyway.

I hope a few of you who are missing the blog will follow along and wait with me for a few weeks…

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Storefront church

If you drive around certain of Chicago’s neighborhoods for awhile, you know about the great names the storefront churches have (I’m just making these up, but believe me, they are plausible examples!):

• Full Life in Jesus Church
• Holy Spirit Power Church
• Lighthouse Deliverance Church
• Only True Gospel Salvation Church

I’ve always loved the names. But this glimpse inside blows my mind! How stunningly beautiful, and sad, and joyful, and deep at the same time!

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And it also applies to the sermon…

This is exactly how I feel!!! Well, not exactly I guess since sermons are meant to be oral in the end, but so similar…

Reading one’s own poems (sermons) aloud is like letting the cat out of the bag. You may have always suspetced bits of a poem (Sermon) to beoverweighted, overviolent, or daft, and the, suddenly, with the poet’s (precher’s) tongue around them,  your suspicion is made certain.

–Dylan Thomas

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next on the parenting list

Our next task on the parenting to-do-list?

We have to comb through every Wilco album we have and decide which songs have lyrics that are totally inapporpriate for an almost-three-year-old who has the ability of a very skilled parrot to repeat short phrases.

She loves love loves Wilco. But we are wondering if it is a good thing for her to walk up to people and sing lines like: “Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.”

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Recent fabulous quotes from Zora

(At a restaurant, upon the delivery of her pb&j)

“Where’s my salmon?!?”

(In a conversation concerning the status of my globe-trotting sisters who, in the last year, have worked in England and Ethiopia)

Zora: Mama, when is Auntie Anna coming home from Africa?

Erica: Soon. In a few weeks. (Short response from me due the fact that it is 6:30am and I am barely awake.)

Zora: Do they have laundry in Africa?

Erica: Sort of…

(Just now over breakfast.)

Zora: Mama, lick my fingers.

Mama: No, honey. We lick our own fingers.

Zora: (sticks fingers in my mouth anyway)

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Snapshots from the Mission Trip

Verbal snapshots from my youth group’s mission trip. Verbal because (a) I didn’t take any pictures since we have an awesome photographer among our volunteers; and snapshots because (b) the whole thing was too big and amazing to write a coherent narrative.

(And, for those who don’t know, we went to Wesley Woods camp in Indianola, IA, and helped for a week at their Exceptional Persons camp as “buddies” for exceptional people (over the age of 18))

• The sweet earthy green smell of clover fields on a hot day in Iowa.
• One of my guys running, fists pumping in the air, hooting and cheering, like he was greeting a returning victorious sports team to meet his EP upon arrival.
• Bouncing down a hill in a wooden tractor wagon while one of our more preciously affectionate EPs hung onto me for dear life.
• The guy who shared his expertise in taking bluegills off the hook with campers and buddies alike.
• Kids who gave backrubs and baths and held hand until they got blisters.
• Serving communion to a circle of over 100, some of whom don’t really get to go to church even if they want to.
• Watching one of my girls kneel down on her hands and knees in front of her buddy to translate into sign what the communion servers had just said out loud, “Jesus loves you, Mary.”
• Staying up late with some of the girls to talk about dating and other things that were entirely irrelevant to what we were doing that week.
• Cursing under my breath when, after going to bed totally dismayed with the day on Wednesday, finally falling asleep, being waken at 12:00am to evacuate to the basement for a “slumber party” (code word for “tornado warning”), spending over an hour down there, and finally thinking it was time to go back to bed, the electricity went out. Then feeling like a super grumpy idiot for the cursing because the electricity went right back on.
• The pleasant surprise that there were few mosquitoes in the area.
• The unpleasant surprise that my boys…and my girls…and my adults…and me…were feeling really underfed by the second day and we were going to have to start doling out granola bars and apples to keep them from escaping from the camp in the middle of the night or calling in friends to drive from 5 hours away in order to bring them food.
• Learning that, when you go out a limb and do something creative in worship, you have to be prepared for anything: at our closing worship, we built an altar to mark our experience as holy. I thought, when I asked everyone to go out and find a symbol of the week to build the altar, we’d go with the “smaller than a bread box” variety of items. 5 minutes later, I was staring at a pile that included 2 lawn chairs, a mattress, a picnic table, a park bench and several boulders. Please note that this pile was in the chapel. The indoor chapel.
• Watching my youth group absolutely fall in love with the people they cared for all week, to the point that there were oly a handful of dry eyes when they said goodbye. And most of them were doing some version of sobbing.

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This is not the time

We have a funeral this morning, of the worst kind.

22, died in his sleep, absolutely no explanation, no one to blame, nothing.

I have to read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, including this:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die.

That line works for me when I read it at a funeral for a 90-year-old.

And it works for a 22-year-old at a wedding.

But not for a 22-year-old at a funeral.

Because this is not the time.

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Perfect Day

Last fall, when we worked out childcare stuff for Zora, the plan was that Thursday was going to be the day when I worked with Zora. I figured we’d go to church in the morning, do a few things, gather materials for afternoon work at home. While I was doing that, Zora would happily putter around in my office playing with toys and such, and then we would head off to kindermusik, go home, and I would work while she napped and played.Not so much. Not to say that I’ve not actually done work on Thursdays, but the morning mostly leaves me so frazzled from chasing Zora through the building, preventing her from crewing up the photocopier, typing on my computer, using the phones, etc. that by the time we get to kindermusik I basically lay down on the floor and try to take a nap.But, finally, yesterday, at the end of May, we had the perfect Thursday and I would like to document it so that I can go back to the moment when I’m not having a perfect Thursday.6:30am: Zora wakes up.8:30am: We’re at church.Zora proceeds to play and watch a few epidsodes of Calliou on spare computer I brought along (yes, this may be the thing that got us through the day, the magic bullet…I brought a computer from home and set her up with some TV.)I proceed to actually accomplish some major things (booking travel for a youth group trip, responding to e-mails, organizing things). 9:50: We leave church and go to “all church playdate in the park”. Upon arrival, I try to fool myself into thinking that the hoards of kids running around the park mean that lots of church people are there. Nope. It’s an elementary school’s picnic. But, there’s one mom and her kiddos who Zora loves to play with and the three of them range all over the park while I get to know one of the church moms. Weather is perfect. (I know bar ministry sounds alot more hip and cool, but I do playground ministry…just hanging out in the parks with my kid and a big jug of animal crackers, meeting and talking up the other parents. I think we’re going to start doing this more than the current twice a month.)11:45am: We head home. Zora pooped, and bit picky during lunch about the broccoli in her mac n cheese (this from the child who, according to her Tuesday, Wednesday daycare person is, “My best eater. She eats everything I put in front of her, even broccoli.”).1:00pm: Zora is napping. I am in my favorite chair. By the time she wakes up, I will have taken 10 things off of my to do list.2:00pm: Zora is still asleep. I decide that the whole day so far is a clear sign of God’s beneficence. I am still getting things done.2:30pm: Zora wakes up and allows for a painless diaper change, watches more Caillou. (Oh, God bless you CBC for the production of this show.)4:15pm: Oh my goodness. I’ve put in a full workday. With Zora. I decide we are going to the park and getting ice cream cones.4:45pm: Still perfect weather. We are at the park eating ice cream. Zora plays on her own and I sit and read a few chapters of a mystery novel.5:30pm: I start to wonder when this whole thing will fall apart.6:15pm: We leave the park and go home by way of the local grocer.Honestly, from there, the whole day doesn’t matter much. It stayed nice.This morning, we are back to questionable parenting, like me not getting out of bed fast enough for Zora’s liking, leading to her removing her own dirty diaper in her room, and coming to my room buck naked carrying a clean diaper and wipes and saying, “Mommy, change me.”Whatever…the weather’s still beautiful, and Erik gets out of work early so we’re going to head into the city and go to the zoo. 

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Keep reading…

This news story is truly the gift that keeps on giving. I’ll get you interested by saying: someone had to be restrained after drinking hand soap on a airline flight. But seriously, don’t stop reading until the end. Because just when you think the whole thing is about as bizarre as possible, something else gets added on top.

It’s kind of like the best ice cream sundae you’ve ever eaten.

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Liturgy for Easter 5

I know I want to preach on Acts 8:26-40 this week (the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch). I’m still not sure where that takes me as far as the sermon is concerned.I might be looking at a rabbit hole I shouldn’t go down: Ethiopia is very real to me right now because my little sister is living and working there until August. In fact, for Christmas, she gave me a processional cross, and I might just have to get it mounted on a pole this week so that we can use it on Sunday.But that reality of Anna living there keep reminding me that it is a real place and real Christians live there. So, I decided, regardless of where the sermon goes, we are using bits and pieces of liturgy from the Ethiopian church.And I thought you might want to do this, too. Especially after I just spent the afternoon combing through this 100+ page document (which is very super cool, but you might just not have the time…) of the Ge’ez liturgy translated into English. So, here’s the adaptation I came up with for our service! Hope you can use it!(Parts of ) a Liturgy for Easter 5 Adapted by Erica Schemper from The Liturgy of the Ethiopian Church, translated by Marcos Daoud, and revised by Marsie Hazen. 

Call to Worship

One: The Lord is mighty in the clouds, higher than heaven, glorious in all ways;

the perfect, victorious God of gods.

Many: Holy, holy; perfect Lord of hosts.

One: Before the mountains and the little hills arose, and before the height of the sky was seen,

before the heavens and earth were made;

Many: Holy, holy; perfect Lord of hosts.

One: Before the thunderbolt flashed, and before the quickness of lightning was seen,

before the clouds were spread;

Many: Holy, holy; perfect Lord of hosts.

One:  Heaven and earth together with all their worlds, sea and rivers and all things that are in them glorify God. 

Many: Holy, holy; perfect Lord of hosts.

One: All things were created through God’s grace, and live through God’s kindness. 

Many: Holy, holy holy, perfect Lord of hosts heaven and earth are full of your glory.

 

 

Prayer of Confession

O Lord our God, lover of humankind, do not turn us away, or let us lose hope. You have called us to serve you. Cleanse us from sin, and fill us with your grace. Help us to offer ourselves as a pure gift, with a simple heart, through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon

One: The Son of God has done something new in the world.

No one, except for him, has done anything like him since the creation of the world.

Many: In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Alleluia! Amen!

 

Benediction

Good things have been done to you, good things have been done to you, good things have been done to you. Sheep of Christ’s pasture, you were hungry, and are full. You were thirsty, and you are satisfied. Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord, in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

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