Sandwich Artist Philosophers

Overheard in line at Subway:

Vegetable Specialist: You should read this new Danielle Steele book.

Cashier: I don't like Danielle Steele

VS: You'll like this one, I can't put it down.

C: No thanks.

VS: No, really. You should read it.

C: Isn't Danielle Steele one of those romance books? I don't read romances.

VS: But it's soooooo good.

C: No, because life isn't like that. Those give you false hope.

VS: You should read it.

C: Cause it makes you think...Oh, maybe I'll meet someone just like that...or my life will maybe be like that. It give false hope.

VS: You should really read it, you'd like this one.

Thinking the Subway cashier was a wise and sensible young woman, I sat down to eat my lunch and pulled out my current reading, Thomas A Kempis' "The Imitation of Christ." I flipped the page and read:

Love often knows no limits; its impetuous fire leaps across every boundary. Love feels no burden, makes light of toil, strives for things beyond its strength. Love never tries to make out that anything is impossible; everything, in the eyes of love, is both possible and lawful. Love, then can do everything; many a task there is that love can fulfil and many a wish it can make effective, where the man who does not love is powerless and fails.

Love is ever on the watch; it rests, but does not slumber, is wearied but not spent, alarmed but not dismayed; like a living flame, a blazing torch, it shoots upward, fearlessly passing through aught that bars its path...'My God, my love, you are all mine and I all yours."

Hum. Devotional literature as Romance: false hope? Or spiritual insight?

Physical Therapy

Second of two posts previously posted on 7 villages website

Tuesday was tense. A reminder of how messy it is to be a part of people’s lives. Leaving church at 7:00pm I was stunned to see the sun had emerged from a week of clouds while I was ensconced in the office. And it was calm…barely a breeze…in Kansas…in March.

Slowly the realization dawned: there was still light left for a bike ride. Home. Quick. Grab the cycling clothes, helmet, shoes. On the bike…the wheels turn…and the day shifts.
Within minutes I know that what I need is speed.

I hammer the pedals.
Legs burn.
Heart thumps.
Breath is short.
Jars of Clay pounds on the radio in my mind:

Sometimes I cannot forgive
These days mercy cuts so deep
If the world was how it should be
Maybe I could get some sleep…

Sometimes when I lose my grip
I wonder what to make of heaven
All the times I thought to reach up
All the times I had to give…

All the cries of thirsty children
This is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers
This is our greatest offense

Oh my God
Oh my God
Oh my God


I slide home at dusk,
Knowing the day has been left on the path behind me.
And ministry calls me back, tomorrow.

Open Doors

The following post originally appeared on a site called 7villages, a mostly failed social networking expereince fostered by the United Methodist Church. I have shut down my 7V profile but wanted to save two pieces I had written there by posting them here.


She got stuck in the elevator yesterday.

Thankfully the custodian was still in the church building and knew where to find the door key. I waited outside the elevator until the doors were open, as helpless there as she was inside, watching for something to happen.

With a turn of the key the door opened to reveal her, 84 years old, standing in her cabled cardigan and knitted beret, as calm as could be. She looked as if the elevator had been stopped for 10 seconds, not ten minutes.

As she launched into a conversation with the custodian about how the key worked, I left and went back to my meeting. It wasn’t until hours later that I realized I had offered no pastoral care. Not a single word of encouragement or consolation, no, “I’m glad you’re out” or “thanks for your patience.” I guess it was the look on her face that showed me she didn’t need it.

She’s unflappable. Not completely, already in four months at this appointment I’ve seen pain and grief on her face. But really, she’s unflappable. And she’s not the only one. This place is full of bedrock members, with faith as deep as the ocean, with commitments to the church longer and stronger than I can imagine.

Today I am thankful for them. For their quiet, consistent, presence. For their witness to life as shaped by the rhythms of church. For the stories they hold in sacred memory, stories I want to hear.

Okay, that sounds like a lot from one moment outside the elevator. But sometimes you get a glimpse of who you want to be in 50 years. And that makes for a good day.

spring

I biked to work this afternoon. This means it is officially spring. I would have ridden this morning but I was afraid that the 47 degree start to the day would have left my fingers and toes too cold.

I live 3 miles from work and think I should be tough enough to bicycle commute in all kinds of weather. But I'm not. So I have to be satisfied with being eco-friendly for half the year, when the weather is warm. To my credit last year I did manage to ride a few times a week even when it was Kansas hot-hot summer last year. I anticipate doing so again.

Considering I have a desk job, bicycle commuting is a great thing. It gets me up and moving in the morning, gives a mid-day break and gets me home satisfied that my body accomplished something in the day, not just my mind and fingers. Assuming I go home for lunch, that's 12 miles just to and from work. That's good for body and soul.

I haven't yet made pastoral visits or trips to the hospital on my bike. But I should because most of my members live close enough to the church. Bicycle commuting is still enough of an oddity in Wichita that I worry a little what my parishioners might say if I rolled up to their house and unsnapped my helmet. Actually they would probably love it. Something else quirky for them to know about their pastor.

I've been thinking a lot about a sticker I saw two weeks ago at a lecture. It was made by "the simple way," an intentional community in inner-city Philadelphia. It said, "Dream Big....live small." I fail at that a lot. I use conveniences much more than I need to, especially convenience foods. But when my car stays in the garage and I get to my destination on two--no emission--wheels, I feel a little victory for small living.

morning dilemma

I like coffee. A great deal. I always drink it in the morning and often in the mid-afternoon and sometimes even in the evening as the day draws to a close because I like it that much. And even though it is now all, always decaf, because it turns out my digestive system cannot, in anyway, handle caffeine (a sure sign I am becoming an old woman) I still love coffee as much as I ever have. Maybe I love it even more now because I drink it without having to worry about staying up all night (see comment above re: old woman).

So you can imagine my disgust, really there is no other word for it, when I showed up at First United Methodist Church at 9:00 am on Saturday morning to discover that I would have to immediately abandon my coffee. I was there for an all day workshop on being “fired up” in my spiritual life and the fact that I was at some other church at 9:00 am on Saturday for an all day event was disgusting enough. But I was there, coffee in hand, ready to learn something, thinking God would help me set my 9:00 am attitude aside with a little time and help from the morning cup of joe.

Until I realized that, though we were going to be in the Sanctuary all day, and though they had church coffee set up in the foyer for those who were not snobby enough to bring their own vacuum insulated Starbucks cups with Starbucks coffee (which I am snobby enough to do), NO DRINKS ARE ALLOWED IN THE SANCTUARY. None. Nada.

Granted their sanctuary is decorated in almost white carpet and lightly colored pews and granted it is First Church so you have to expect some sort of prudish attitude. But this ban on drinks in our meeting space, this denial of the coffee in my hand as the workshop was about to start was almost more than I could take. I debated. Should I break the rule and sip discretely while sitting in a pew toward the back? That would be arrogant, satisfactory but arrogant. And considering this was a workshop on spiritual vitality, an act of brash rule-breaking didn’t seem a good way to start the day.

Should I stand at the doorway drinking my coffee in obvious protest of having to decide between the sweet black nectar and the workshop session? I did that for a few minutes but I am a sipper and it can take more than 45 minutes to finish off my tumbler. So standing at the door seemed a very awkward and impermanent solution. It would be obvious to all that I was a poor girl, an addict even, who could not relinquish her morning coffee. Which I was but I didn’t need the pity.

Should I toss the rest of my coffee and go into the workshop humbling myself to this ridiculous and false barrier constructed between coffee and the worship of God? Finally that is what I did. I went out the front door (into the 11 degree weather, which, mind you, was not the kind of atmosphere that encourages one to throw out perfectly good, hot, coffee) to toss my remaining liquid in the bushes. Only I didn’t want the door to close behind me lest I be locked out so I stretched and aimed my throw toward the bushes but fell a little short and managed to make a large coffee splat on First Church’s nice clean sidewalk. I only felt slightly sorry. The coffee colored reside felt like a silent memorial to my protest.

Note to all organizers of 9:00 am Saturday meetings. Hold them in rooms where coffee is allowed. It’s the Christian thing to do.