Don’t flay the sheep.

Much Afraid

We don’t need horror movies anymore, because we are so afraid of things that happen in “real life.”

I just went to the movies and the previews were depressing. Three in a row had me ready to leave the theater to find a comedy. No matter how stupid. Because I wasn’t sure I could handle the action flick that was the feature.

First preview: a woman’s boyfriend is violently murdered. She says that she becomes a different person as part of her coping and recovery. What this change means is that she kills someone who almost attacks her on the subway. And maybe also someone who takes her dog.

Second preview: A group of FBI agents go to Saudi Arabia to investigate a bombing. The Saudis are not cooperative. Then, the agents get taken hostage. Really? We need a film like this when our relationships with the Middle East are so screwed up?

Third preview: A man’s son (who just won his hockey championship) is murdered. The man becomes a vigilante because no one will help him.

What does all this say? We are not safe. The authorities around us are not reliable. There is nothing in the world that can protect us. We should respond to violence with violence. It’s transformative and cathartic to kill people. Oh, and the Saudis are really scary, too.

God, save us from ourselves.

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Random Friday Things

1. Zora’s first word seems to be “Hi.” She will put a cell phone up to the (back) of her head and say “Hi.” I think this means she’s friendly.
2. This morning, I decided Meredith Viera is an idiot. And cruel. She was interviewing first responders from the 35-W collapse and she kept pushing on this dear sweet EMT guy. Being a good Northern-Midwesterner, he was a little careful about revealing too much of his emotions. But you could tell he was all cut up about being part of the rescue effort. A fire-woman MV was interviewing at the same time finally cut her off and said that he couldn’t say much for professional reasons. Good for her. (Then MV proceeded to hit a little tennis prodigy in the chest with lobbed balls.)
3. I go to DC on  Monday. Yay!
4. I’m knitting this in a denim-y blue color.
5. On Sunday, I do a children’s sermon on communion (we’re doing parts of worship for children’s sermons this summer). It will he hard to top the last one: last week, Pastor Carl illustrated the idea of giving ourselves by having a kid sit in the communion plate.
6. Speaking of children’s sermons, one of the things I love about my church is that all four of the pastors rotate through delivering them.  Not just me because I’m the children’s pastor. How great is that?
7. My sister might live in Oxford. I lived there once for a year. It was great. I’d love to take Erik and Zora there.

And now, the cookies are baked and it’s time to spend some quality time on the couch watching TV with Erik.

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Amen, Sister!

Are you a parent? Does the phrase “spiritual life” sometimes sound like something from a past life, life before your little bundle of joy (and craziness), back when you slept and had free time? You should read this!

)Actually, you could also read this if you don’t have kids, but you know people who do.)

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Clean enough to eat off the floor

Today I completely and totally cleaned my car. Washed it. Vacuumed in every conceivable corner, dusted, polished the vinyl and plastic parts, freshened the upholstery.

Four hours later, reaching into the backseat to grab a jar of peanuts, the lid came loose and an entire Costco-sized jar of peanuts spilled all over the car.

Instead of completely losing my mind, I thought: “Well, at least the car floor is clean.” The, I scooped up the peanuts (including those caught in places like the parking brake), put them back into the jar, and went on with things.

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Into the Woods

Zora has survived and thrived in her first ever camping excursion.

Some pictures:

Zora hones her orienteering skills.

Zora, queen of the tent. (Note the stylish baby-camo, courtesy of Aunts Anna and Emily!)

Zora and the beach.
A few observations on camping with a baby:

1. How much stuff do you need? Well, we were camping out of a car, so we took more than we might have taken hiking. But I think we did pretty well. And, note, we were camping out of a CAR not an SUV so we couldn’t take everything. Notable things we lived without (and I only mention them because I noticed some fellow campers with these items or saw these items for sale at a children’s outdoor sports outfitter in Petoskey…): high chair, separate cooler for the baby’s stuff, baby sleeping bag, baby sunglasses , SPF 40 clothing, giant tent, screen house, some container big enough to bathe baby in…
2. Our tent is perfect (thanks, Uncle Hank and Aunt Pam). It was a wedding gift ever so long ago, and we thought it was great for two people. But, guess what? By turning our air matress sideways, we can just fit the pack-n-play.
3. Pack-n-play, you ask? I thought you were against taking too much equipment? Well, I was conflicted about this, but it turned out to be the one big piece of quipment we really needed. First, it kept the baby contained out side the tent when we needed to do things like set up camp. But, more importantly, it kept Zora contained when she needed to sleep. The first night, we tried no pack-n-play. Zora scooted around the tent like it was her own private baby amusement park until 11:00pm. She climbed the matress, climbed us, played Erik’s head like a set of bongo-drums, pulled things out of bags. Zora is not a co-sleeper. It’s too exciting for her. She needs a little nest to sleep–the pack-n-play, draped with a sheet for privacy and light-blocking, was perfect. I also had a mosquito-net bed cover around, and used this to drape the pack-n-play when we pulled it outside and the bugs were thick.
4. Pack-n-play in the tent? Weren’t you worried about the floors? I was raised in a family where the most important rule of camping had to do with keeping the floor of the tent intact. I am thus vigilant about anything that might damage the tent floor: rocks, shoes, pointy things of all kinds. Maybe it wasn’t too much of a risk, but we took tennis balls and cut slits in them and placed one on each leg of the pack-n-play. I would recommend it.
5. Did Zora eat things she shouldn’t have eaten? Yes. The list includes: sticks, small rocks, sand, algae, a few bugs, and ice-cream. But, she was protected from eating the copious amounts of cat hair she ingests at home. I’m not worried.
6. Best food to teach your baby to eat: humus. We fed it to Zora on a whim last winter. She loves it. It’s perfect camping, vacationing, and road-tripping: doesn’t spoil too fast, healthy, and easy to find in a restaurant.
7. Thing I never thought of at home: You know the frozen peas? Turns out they are already cooked enough (once thawed) to go through the food mill. I did this to try to minimize my use of the burner this week. I wish I had thought of this months ago when I was cooking and milling huge amounts of frozen veggies for Zora.
8. Other food that is useful on the road: avocados. If you find small ones, they’re perfect for a baby traveling. They ahve their own wrapper, you simply cut it open and feed little pieces from a spoon. But, don’t let the baby smear it everywhere. You know how they turn brown when they hit the air? So will the baby.
9. And, finally, since we were camping in cherry country, I always wondered why they call them black cherries when they’re really just very very dark red. Guess what they look like coming out? (Also, as an aside, if you want to scare your spouse, let the baby grab a black cherry piece and start munching. If he turns around and sees the juice seeping out of the mouth, it will cause panic. Erik thought she’d just eaten a piece of glass!)

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Church Signs

Spotted in a small town in Michigan today:

If you give the devil an inch and he’ll be the ruler.

Which got me thinking: obviously, this sort of church sign proceeds from a theology where the devil is so very powerful and so very feared that any possible contact with anything that could be even a bit messed up by evil (i.e. “worldliness”) must be completely avoided. In order to be a good Christian, you have to avoid the world, and commit completely and totally to God.

Now, I have no problem with the idea of committing completely and totally to God. But, flawed as we humans are, we don’t always manage total commitment

But, if we believe that God is ultimately more powerful that evil, shouldn’t we turn that saying around:

Give God an inch and God will be the ruler.

Because, whatever we can possibly manage to give over to God, I have to believe that god will take complete control of that little piece and try to get ahold of as much of our lives as possible.

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God in the Details

Esther 1-2
Fox Valley Presbyterian Church

During July, those of us working our way through the Year of the Bible together will find ourselves reading Esther. It’s a great story. Many of us know bits and piece, or maybe the Sunday School version of the story. But, many of us also find that it’s one of the stories we’re forgetting as we have less and less time to dig deeply into the Bible.

There is a fine line between preaching and story-telling. And the beginnings of Judaism and Christianity aren’t really from doctrine and philosophy: both traditions are rooted in story.

So, for the next month, we’d like to ask you to straddle that line between preaching and story with us. 5 weeks, 4 preachers, 10 chapters, 2 chapters a week, 5 great sermons. A good story. Part of God’s story, and part of our story.

I’d encourage everyone to jump on board with this preaching project, and read Esther this month. And, to start that encouragement, I won’t be reading the text for today, Esther chapters 1-2. I hope you’ll go home an do that.

But I will tell you the story:

It’s been several generations since Jerusalem fell to foreign invaders, since the two Jewish kingdoms fell apart. Like other small nations, the Jews have been shuffled around under whichever conquering empire is currently in power, evicted from their land, transported to the cities of the emperors, and now they find themselves ruled over by the Persian emperor Ahasuerus or Xerxes.

We’ll go with Xerxes, since it’s easier to pronounce.

Xerxes is emperor over an impossibly large kingdom, and to show how impossibly powerful he is, he throws the party to end all parties. 6 months of feasting, laying out the best tableware, linens, wall hangings, food, entertainment. Everyone who’s anyone is there. Xerxes is so powerful, apparently, that he can afford to bring in the leaders of the empire for a six month feast, and not worry too much about who is minding the state. He has things under control.

On the last night of the season of partying, after as much drinking as anyone could want, after Xerxes has paraded every possible luxury in front of his guests, he thinks of one final thing that might impress them: his wife, Vashti. He was a man with everything, including the most beautiful wife imaginable. She was the crowning glory of his trophies. So he sent for her, off throwing her own party to impress the women.

But the party came grinding to a halt. Because Xerxes, who was so powerful that he could party for 6 months straight and still have an empire to go back to, Xerxes, who controlled 127 provinces, he could not control his own wife. She refused, flat-out to come.

Xerxes was so thrown by this that he could barely think what to do. Never did he face the prospect of someone who would not obey his wishes and whims. And, on consultation with his best advisors, he found that this was no small thing, that his wife wouldn’t obey. No, they said, it affects the whole kingdom. It needs immediate attention.

And so, Xerxes party came crashing to a halt as he scrambled to issue decrees across the whole kingdom reminding everyone, from the nobles and officials down to the potters and sheepherders that each man was in charge of his household.

And later, his servants gave him this idea: to make sure everyone was clear, why not hold a contest? Round up the most beautiful girls from the empire, bring them in, give them the best in beauty treatments, a full year’s worth, and then find one who pleased the king the most, and make her queen instead of Vashti. The ones who are left can be added to the King’s concubines.

So, into this strange, ancient version of “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire,” enters Esther, a Jewish girl. Esther, an orphan, was raised by her cousin Mordecai. He’s an official of the government in Susa, himself a clever man. And when beautiful Esther is rounded up and brought to palace, Mordecai reminds her to keeps her Jewish heritage a secret.

Now, Esther is not just another pretty face, though. She’s clever, crafty, even. She makes friends with the eunuchs who care for the girls, and chaperone them through the process. And she plies them for information: the best beauty treatments, the best diet, what the king likes and dislikes. And after a  year, Esther, beautiful as ever, and clever enough to know it, wins the king over and becomes the queen. And Xerxes, surprise surprise, throws another party to celebrate his new trophy.

Now, Mordecai and Esther both know that her new position could be useful, and one day, an opportunity arises. Mordecai overhears a plot to assassinate Xerxes. And, rather than going through the slow wheels of government red-tape, he’s able to let the king know almost directly, by telling Esther. And Esther, wisely gives Mordecai credit.

In a simpler plot line, this would be the point where Xerxes would thank Mordecai lavishly, reward him, and they’d all love happily ever after. But Xerxes simply catches the would-be-assassins, hangs them, and lets it go at that. No party, no great thanks to Mordecai.

And so that’s where we begin with Esther. The stage is set for everything that is to come.

It’s an odd story for a Bible book: full of kings and queens, royal excess, marital bickering, beauty pageants, eunuchs, drinking, feasting, gallows, and assassination plots. It sounds more like the impossibly packed plot-line of a summer blockbuster movie than a tale for a children’s Bible.

Not to mention, it’s the only book of the Bible that doesn’t mention God once. At all.

So, how is this book, but more specifically, these first two chapters, how is it that this is not just a good story, but something that will preach?

I was at a conference once when a speaker, a Biblical scholar, mentioned that one of the most incredible things about the Judeo-Christian God was not just the sheer power, the omnipresence, omnipotence but that combined with those things, that this God is a God who cares about the little things of our daily lives. He said, “Anyone who has ever prayed to God for a parking space understands this.” You could immediately tell who in the audience lived in a city apartment with no reserved spot and who had a driveway. Those blessed with a driveway grinned. Those who lived at the whims of street parking winced and laughed, and looked at each other with recognition. We knew what it was like to come home, exhausted, at 7:30pm and realize that there were no spaces in 10 block radius.

Now, I’ve always been one to scoff a little when I hear about people praying for God’s guidance as they stand in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. I simply don’t believe that God has your life planned out to the point that your choice between Cheerios and Chex is a matter of obeying divine will.

And yet, what we read in Esther is the story of a God who cares about details. Go back and read these chapters on your own, and you’ll see they are rich with details: about the banquet, about the names of the King’s advisors, about the names of the eunuchs, the specifics of beauty treatments, and the arrangements on the harem.

This is a God who cares so much about the details that through some divine mixture of humans decision, and spirit-led inspiration, this strange book with no mention of God whatsoever made it into the collection of stories about God and God’s people.

If we came to this story with no ideas about what come next, these details might seem insignificant. Some of them might even seem incompatible to our values as a faith community. For instance, how often would we find ourselves, in this community, praising female beauty as a virtue, as something that might eventually be used by God?

But this is how the story is set: God cares about the details, and like Esther, we are called to be attentive and open to the details, the circumstance, and the opportunities in our lives. We do not know where and how God’s hand will appear. And so we can only assume that God’s hand is ever present with us, and that we must be attentive to the nudge of that hand, to what God would have us do in the times and situations where we are placed.

Our life with God is not limited to what we do here: it is not limited to the grace of the waters of baptism, the nourishment of word and sacrament, the embrace of God’s gathered community. No, what is so remarkable is that God is not limited to what happens here. God is present, God is invested, as we look for parking, select the cereal, prepare for the King, and live in the time and place where we find ourselves.

May God give us the ability to look and to listen for his presence in the details.

Amen.

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Early Reader

What happens when your mom and dad both have jobs where they’re paid to read?

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RevGalBlogPals Friday Five: Hot Town, Summer in the City…

Summer in the exurbs, in my case…(we have our air conditioners installed, though!)

1. Favorite summer food(s) and beverage(s):

Hands down, the hot dog. And a gin and tonic if I like the porch.

2. Song that “says” summer to you. (Need not be about summer explicitly.)

Van Morrison, Brown Eyed Girl.

3. A childhood summer memory

Proof that I’m a church-nerd: my consistent childhood summer memory is the fabulous evening worship service at Dorchester Park, 20 miles up in the hills from my church. We gathered for a big church potluck every week around picnic tables, then went down to the lakeside to have a worship service together, complete with a flute-choir accompanying hymns.
4. An adult summer memory
Well, this is also childhood, since we did it in Chicago with the relatives before we moved here when I was a teenager. But, it continues into adulthood: going to free concerts in Grant Park. And, what I love, so many of my family, friends, and friends of the family go to these things that I always see someone I know.
5. Describe a wonderful summer day you’d like to have in the near future. (weather, location, activities)

Beach time on Lake Michigan. I think it’s coming up on the Fourth of July. I can’t wait for Zora to enjoy the wonders of the big lake and the amazing Michigan beaches.
Does my place of worship do anything different? Some things, yes. Mainly, no robes. I’ll be honest: since our space is air conditioned, I kind of hate no robes because I have to think about what I’m going to wear. And, right now, my summer suits don’t fit my current post-pregnancy shape and I don’t have the money to buy a few that do. So, I’ll be the casual youth pastor this summer.

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No, no, don’t let it end…

Once again, I must add my tiny voice to the pleading: why must Studio 60 be cancelled?

Any show that can include a scene on prayer, the climax of which is someone saying,

“If He’s real and He loves me, why can’t he just fix it?” 

that, my friends, is a show we can use.

While you still can, take some time to watch an episode or two.

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