So I'm still thinking about Full of Grace -- maybe I do recommend it? If I"m still thinking about it? -- but the idea of St. Peter struggling to be the rock on which Jesus built His church is...compelling. Because I feel a similar call on an infinitely less grand scale.
I'm the foundation of the theatre program at the school where I teach. I'm the only faculty member involved with any consistency at all, I make the bulk of the decisions and particularly the day-to-day ones (grand vision being something approved by my bosses in the school proper), and I try to be the steadying presence in a room full of teenagers.
It's a hell of a thing to try to be. The steady rock that others can build from. The foundation beneath the feet of dreamers.
And I think a lot of the time it's being Ezekiel or John the Baptist -- the steady voice crying out for repentance to a world that doesn't want to hear it.
Oh don't get me wrong, it's also wonderful. I'm thanked WAY more often than we think about the foundation of our buildings. And I see the joy of others building on the steady rock I try to be.
But when there are 10,000 things to do and decisions to be made and standards to be set and YOU are the one who ultimately needs to ensure they all happen...that's a lot. And you're not always facing the happy, appreciative folk of closing night.
Hard of face and obstinate of heart. Or, put in a spirit that better first my almost always lovely but ambitious and rambunctious and challenging students, a "rebellious house." That's what a theatre program is. A rebellious house, hopefully built a strong foundation. I suppose that's what Israel is in the story of Ezekiel. Rebellious spirits, wonderful, challenging, stubborn, annoying, bad listeners with a rock solid relationship with God beneath it all.
I'm not sure there's a lesson here today. I just pray that God gives me the strength to do my part well.
Wednesday, 28 March 2018
Tuesday, 27 March 2018
Messenger or Message
There's a movie called Full of Grace and I probably don't recommend it, because it's all shot in VERY dark shadows and moves very slowly...but more importantly, I do NOT know what's going on with it. I watched the first half today while subbing for the Camp Minister so she could go on the Senior Retreat.
But there is a moment, when Saint Peter goes to the Blessed Mary for help, unsure how to lead the early church (10 years in) and frustrated that the sects are quibbling about doctrine and that conspiracy theories and charlatans are sweeping through the ranks and sometimes helping recruitment. Because sometimes I worry human nature doesn't change.
Peter says that Jesus wanted His church built on a rock but wonders how he could possibly be a rock for this movement. The fictional version of Mary tells him, not actually addressing anything he's talking about (and not in the perpetual way TV and movie characters do where they speak needlessly in parables and metaphors), that she believes God turned our biggest weakness as humans into our biggest strength. We are never satisfied...He filled us with a longing that only He can satisfy.
It sounds so much better when she says it.
It's funny how I think this movie is kind of dumb -- or really dumb -- and SO depressingly and SLOWLY shot. But there's wisdom buried in it.
I wonder if that's true of everything. It's a fun game, actually, thinking of the least likely place to find the wisdom of God. You can get a lot further off the grid than a lousy movie made to appeal to the religious crowd, of course. But every time we are skeptical at the source of a piece of wisdom, at a sliver of God's light, we are just the people of Nazareth -- shocked the Messiah could be the kid who scraped his knees on their streets.
They call it the ad hominem attack in rhetorical nerd circles. The argument, the piece of wisdom, the message of God, rejected because of who says it. And every single time, it feels justified to the person doing it. They're just trying not to be a fool.
I think we worry about foolishness too much. We should worry about going deaf to the people who we think should be dumb -- because we don't get to decide where the light of God shines out or in whom. We ignore a lot of light trying to do so.
In closing, I'd just like to point out for the upteenth time on this blog (I'm pretty sure) that the second verse of Battle Hymn of the Republic is about seeing your enemy on the battlefield worshipping the same God as you and seeing God in those same worried watchfires.
It doesn't mean you don't go to battle if you believe it's right. But the Light of God is not yours, and you miss a lot not to see the light on their side.
But there is a moment, when Saint Peter goes to the Blessed Mary for help, unsure how to lead the early church (10 years in) and frustrated that the sects are quibbling about doctrine and that conspiracy theories and charlatans are sweeping through the ranks and sometimes helping recruitment. Because sometimes I worry human nature doesn't change.
Peter says that Jesus wanted His church built on a rock but wonders how he could possibly be a rock for this movement. The fictional version of Mary tells him, not actually addressing anything he's talking about (and not in the perpetual way TV and movie characters do where they speak needlessly in parables and metaphors), that she believes God turned our biggest weakness as humans into our biggest strength. We are never satisfied...He filled us with a longing that only He can satisfy.
It sounds so much better when she says it.
It's funny how I think this movie is kind of dumb -- or really dumb -- and SO depressingly and SLOWLY shot. But there's wisdom buried in it.
I wonder if that's true of everything. It's a fun game, actually, thinking of the least likely place to find the wisdom of God. You can get a lot further off the grid than a lousy movie made to appeal to the religious crowd, of course. But every time we are skeptical at the source of a piece of wisdom, at a sliver of God's light, we are just the people of Nazareth -- shocked the Messiah could be the kid who scraped his knees on their streets.
They call it the ad hominem attack in rhetorical nerd circles. The argument, the piece of wisdom, the message of God, rejected because of who says it. And every single time, it feels justified to the person doing it. They're just trying not to be a fool.
I think we worry about foolishness too much. We should worry about going deaf to the people who we think should be dumb -- because we don't get to decide where the light of God shines out or in whom. We ignore a lot of light trying to do so.
In closing, I'd just like to point out for the upteenth time on this blog (I'm pretty sure) that the second verse of Battle Hymn of the Republic is about seeing your enemy on the battlefield worshipping the same God as you and seeing God in those same worried watchfires.
It doesn't mean you don't go to battle if you believe it's right. But the Light of God is not yours, and you miss a lot not to see the light on their side.
I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence in the dim and flaring lamps
Our God is marching on.
Monday, 26 March 2018
Hard of Face, Not Obstinate of Heart
EZ 2
Perhaps it's inevitable, working in a high school, to think a lot about the fronts people put up. The people I spend most of my time with are so new to the idea. Their fronts are so clumsy and some of them still remember it's dishonest and should be unnecessary. Some of them object to doing so and are upset that the rest of the world finds this silly.
But I wonder how much of this warning to Ezekiel or the disgruntled chatter around Jesus in Nazareth was a matter of "hard of face" more than "obstinate of heart." Because we've made it so embarrassing to be sincere.
I even teach about that transition in Hollywood. From the super-sincere, emotional style of American Melodrama to the detached, cerebral, this-is-reality-not-sentiment Method Acting. Which pretends to be more authentic while being afraid of almost any positive emotion. Until we cloak love in irony, dramatic or comedic, and severely misunderstand just about every relationship in our pop culture.
Wouldn't it be humiliating to follow that kid from high school? In a political revolution? To a new spiritual experience?
How many cool points, how much status at work, would you lose instantly for standing there and being moved by what the prophet on the street corner was saying?
Are our hearts obstinate? Or are we just embarrassed to find them pliable? Are they growing more obstinate the more we harden our faces to keep people from being able to tell?
Perhaps it's inevitable, working in a high school, to think a lot about the fronts people put up. The people I spend most of my time with are so new to the idea. Their fronts are so clumsy and some of them still remember it's dishonest and should be unnecessary. Some of them object to doing so and are upset that the rest of the world finds this silly.
But I wonder how much of this warning to Ezekiel or the disgruntled chatter around Jesus in Nazareth was a matter of "hard of face" more than "obstinate of heart." Because we've made it so embarrassing to be sincere.
I even teach about that transition in Hollywood. From the super-sincere, emotional style of American Melodrama to the detached, cerebral, this-is-reality-not-sentiment Method Acting. Which pretends to be more authentic while being afraid of almost any positive emotion. Until we cloak love in irony, dramatic or comedic, and severely misunderstand just about every relationship in our pop culture.
Wouldn't it be humiliating to follow that kid from high school? In a political revolution? To a new spiritual experience?
How many cool points, how much status at work, would you lose instantly for standing there and being moved by what the prophet on the street corner was saying?
Are our hearts obstinate? Or are we just embarrassed to find them pliable? Are they growing more obstinate the more we harden our faces to keep people from being able to tell?
Sunday, 25 March 2018
"Nothing Good Comes From Nazareth"
Mk 6: 1-6
Jn 1: 23-26
I can't stop thinking about that little line, in the apostles recruting exchange in John 1 (and yes, I had to search up where it occurs). "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" as a reason not to bother going to see the new hotshot potential Messiah your brother is enthralled by.
This reflection also owes a great deal to the new Queer Eye update put on by Netflix. I'm usually decidedly blase about make-over shows and I confess to being worried about stereotyping when I started watching on a friend's recommendation. But what I wasn't expecting was a string of thoroughly loving affirmations being thrown from a crew of lifestyle specialists who seem to genuinely and sincerely want to figure out why the men featured in each episode don't love themselves and how to make little changes to their lives to make them feel like they deserve good things. While not shying away from conversations that arise out of devout religious clients or cops who wear "Make America Great Again" caps and think a funny opening to the relationship is pulling over the black driver of the car on trumped up offense before the reveal.
But aside from gimmicks and outward transformations and a few really healing, if mostly surface-level, conversations across cultural lines, what struck me again and again was that the consultants were each determined to say over and over again to people, "No, you do deserve good things. You are love-able. In fact, we love you and want these good things for you."
And how ingrained it was in some of the clients that they didn't and weren't. That what they did wasn't all that important even when they were doing objectively awesome things with their lives.
How easy it is to get stuck into this little story of "You can't fix ugly" or "I'll lose everything if I act too gay" or "My life will never get better and that's fine."
And when I remembered that Nazareth has the reputation that even an apostle could barely get over, I wondered how much that played into their befuddled confusion that a hometown boy could possibly be the Son of God or even a more run of the mill prophet.
How many people in Nazareth consciously and deep in their subconscious where they couldn't touch it had accepted the idea that their town and therefore they and all their fellows were trash from which no good would ever come. And how impossible it can feel to break out of that. Especially when it's presented as someone remarkable coming out of their "shit town" after all. Because that's a challenge, not just to your way of seeing yourself, but now suddenly it's your fault again that everything is terrible.
How much easier it is to accept that you are not terrible after all -- and even then, it doesn't come easy. To see that someone else came out of the same situation wonderful?
But Jesus came, amongst so many other things, to tell us that our stories are never done. Mary Magdalene's seven demons weren't the end or even the defining moment of her life's story, however easy it would be to get trapped in something like that. Peter himself tells Jesus to leave him, a sinner and ordinary fisherman, to tend his boat and his family and his unremarkable life. James and John and their father can't believe they're asked to step away from the family business.
It's the kindest and the hardest thing you can say to someone. "No, something good can come out of Nazareth. And it can be you, if you want." They won't always thank you for it either. That's the reality show deception.
But it's good anyway. It's needed anyway. Even if they drive you out of town, like Ezekiel and Jesus himself. Because not everyone is ready to listen, but even those who don't have ears to hear might well remember someday. Sometimes we plant the seeds others will harvest.
Jn 1: 23-26
I can't stop thinking about that little line, in the apostles recruting exchange in John 1 (and yes, I had to search up where it occurs). "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" as a reason not to bother going to see the new hotshot potential Messiah your brother is enthralled by.
This reflection also owes a great deal to the new Queer Eye update put on by Netflix. I'm usually decidedly blase about make-over shows and I confess to being worried about stereotyping when I started watching on a friend's recommendation. But what I wasn't expecting was a string of thoroughly loving affirmations being thrown from a crew of lifestyle specialists who seem to genuinely and sincerely want to figure out why the men featured in each episode don't love themselves and how to make little changes to their lives to make them feel like they deserve good things. While not shying away from conversations that arise out of devout religious clients or cops who wear "Make America Great Again" caps and think a funny opening to the relationship is pulling over the black driver of the car on trumped up offense before the reveal.
But aside from gimmicks and outward transformations and a few really healing, if mostly surface-level, conversations across cultural lines, what struck me again and again was that the consultants were each determined to say over and over again to people, "No, you do deserve good things. You are love-able. In fact, we love you and want these good things for you."
And how ingrained it was in some of the clients that they didn't and weren't. That what they did wasn't all that important even when they were doing objectively awesome things with their lives.
How easy it is to get stuck into this little story of "You can't fix ugly" or "I'll lose everything if I act too gay" or "My life will never get better and that's fine."
And when I remembered that Nazareth has the reputation that even an apostle could barely get over, I wondered how much that played into their befuddled confusion that a hometown boy could possibly be the Son of God or even a more run of the mill prophet.
How many people in Nazareth consciously and deep in their subconscious where they couldn't touch it had accepted the idea that their town and therefore they and all their fellows were trash from which no good would ever come. And how impossible it can feel to break out of that. Especially when it's presented as someone remarkable coming out of their "shit town" after all. Because that's a challenge, not just to your way of seeing yourself, but now suddenly it's your fault again that everything is terrible.
How much easier it is to accept that you are not terrible after all -- and even then, it doesn't come easy. To see that someone else came out of the same situation wonderful?
But Jesus came, amongst so many other things, to tell us that our stories are never done. Mary Magdalene's seven demons weren't the end or even the defining moment of her life's story, however easy it would be to get trapped in something like that. Peter himself tells Jesus to leave him, a sinner and ordinary fisherman, to tend his boat and his family and his unremarkable life. James and John and their father can't believe they're asked to step away from the family business.
It's the kindest and the hardest thing you can say to someone. "No, something good can come out of Nazareth. And it can be you, if you want." They won't always thank you for it either. That's the reality show deception.
But it's good anyway. It's needed anyway. Even if they drive you out of town, like Ezekiel and Jesus himself. Because not everyone is ready to listen, but even those who don't have ears to hear might well remember someday. Sometimes we plant the seeds others will harvest.
Saturday, 24 March 2018
Our Own Nazareth
Mark 6
Jesus's disappointment in Nazareth is surrounded by spectacular successes. In Mark 5 he heals the woman who stole a touch of his robe, and after Nazareth that becomes a runaway trend in every town he visits. Then he raises the young girl from the dead and asks no one to tell the story yet -- which doesn't prevent him from being mobbed by the crowd of 5,000 even in the desert place a chapter later. He even sends his disciples out on their own and they go. Mark 6 ends with the walking on water to his disciples scene -- two of his most famous miracles.
How much did He think of Nazareth, in those successful, stressful days afterward? How much should we?
This semester, all but one of my classes is going extraordinarily well. I'm torn between being puffed up with myself that I've finally figured this curriculum out...and realizing that I should really just enjoy the ride with these amazing students I've lucked into for the semester. Not that I'm not a good teacher all the time, but that it's so enjoyable when the whole class is interested in the subject and ready to participate and just...smart this semester.
Like I said, all but one. The one that, going in, I probably should have been best able to cater to. The one that I've had since last semester. The one that knows me best and what I have to offer and my shtick...has pretty much decided that it doesn't care and we'll endure each other until the end of the year.
I'm being dramatic, but my point is: how often do I think of my Nazareth?
The answer is obvious if I want to improve as a teacher. I have more to learn from trying to fix the class that's not working than from enjoying and personalizing the classes that are going swimmingly, right?
St. Paul would recognize the class as the thorn in my side keeping me from being too elated (2 Cor 12: 7-10), and tell me to be grateful too it. Lest I get cocky.
I think my mother would tell me not to dwell on the one failure in a string of successes unduly. Probably a good number of my friends too.
But how much are we meant to think of Nazareth? Amid the 5,000 throng? Walking across the water? Healing the sick?
Sending beloved disciples off on their own? Surely then we must think of Nazareth. Surely then we must worry over our failures.
When is it poisoning the well and when is it the needed deflation? When is it healthy to think of our own Nazareth? And when should we focus on the path ahead?
Jesus's disappointment in Nazareth is surrounded by spectacular successes. In Mark 5 he heals the woman who stole a touch of his robe, and after Nazareth that becomes a runaway trend in every town he visits. Then he raises the young girl from the dead and asks no one to tell the story yet -- which doesn't prevent him from being mobbed by the crowd of 5,000 even in the desert place a chapter later. He even sends his disciples out on their own and they go. Mark 6 ends with the walking on water to his disciples scene -- two of his most famous miracles.
How much did He think of Nazareth, in those successful, stressful days afterward? How much should we?
This semester, all but one of my classes is going extraordinarily well. I'm torn between being puffed up with myself that I've finally figured this curriculum out...and realizing that I should really just enjoy the ride with these amazing students I've lucked into for the semester. Not that I'm not a good teacher all the time, but that it's so enjoyable when the whole class is interested in the subject and ready to participate and just...smart this semester.
Like I said, all but one. The one that, going in, I probably should have been best able to cater to. The one that I've had since last semester. The one that knows me best and what I have to offer and my shtick...has pretty much decided that it doesn't care and we'll endure each other until the end of the year.
I'm being dramatic, but my point is: how often do I think of my Nazareth?
The answer is obvious if I want to improve as a teacher. I have more to learn from trying to fix the class that's not working than from enjoying and personalizing the classes that are going swimmingly, right?
St. Paul would recognize the class as the thorn in my side keeping me from being too elated (2 Cor 12: 7-10), and tell me to be grateful too it. Lest I get cocky.
I think my mother would tell me not to dwell on the one failure in a string of successes unduly. Probably a good number of my friends too.
But how much are we meant to think of Nazareth? Amid the 5,000 throng? Walking across the water? Healing the sick?
Sending beloved disciples off on their own? Surely then we must think of Nazareth. Surely then we must worry over our failures.
When is it poisoning the well and when is it the needed deflation? When is it healthy to think of our own Nazareth? And when should we focus on the path ahead?
Friday, 23 March 2018
Everybody But Nazareth
Mark 6
I wonder what they thought of their hometown boy in Nazareth later on.
I realize there wasn't Twitter or even a pony express, but Jesus sent his disciples in every direction without a second cloak on their back right after his disappointing reception in his hometown, and after that, everywhere he went they swarmed out to touch the hem of his cloak (like the lady in chapter 5).
Even when he wonders to as deserted a place as he can find, the most famous crowd flocks to him -- 5,000 waiting to be fed.
My point is that it's not a secret that Jesus is a big deal. Not for very long. Would that have made it easier in Nazareth? We don't hear about him visiting again, but perhaps for that long list of relatives Jesus has there?
And I wonder, if not, if it still hurts that Nazareth can't catch on. That they have a stumbling block in their way. Because that's what a hometown should mean, right? Similar to what a family means. The rest of the world can love you to pieces, everyone else can see what's right about you, but deep down what matters most is that the people who raised you understand.
Half of the stories we tell these days are the protagonists who can't find proper success because they didn't have that foundation of love and belief -- of trust. Perhaps it's part of our culture (there seem to have been a LOT of absentee or terrible fathers in the previous couple of generations, just based on the prevalence of those stories) or perhaps it's part of human nature.
And Jesus can understand. When it DOES matter that this one person isn't a fan, that this one place won't welcome you...because that was the person and place that were supposed to be home. Feeding the 5,000 sometimes matters less than one a couple hundred think.
Not to the world, but to you.
I don't know if this is really how Jesus felt, but I like the idea that He could understand that about us. I see it in others more than I feel it in myself, but it's everywhere, and I'm glad that Jesus knows the pain so he can help them.
I wonder what they thought of their hometown boy in Nazareth later on.
I realize there wasn't Twitter or even a pony express, but Jesus sent his disciples in every direction without a second cloak on their back right after his disappointing reception in his hometown, and after that, everywhere he went they swarmed out to touch the hem of his cloak (like the lady in chapter 5).
Even when he wonders to as deserted a place as he can find, the most famous crowd flocks to him -- 5,000 waiting to be fed.
My point is that it's not a secret that Jesus is a big deal. Not for very long. Would that have made it easier in Nazareth? We don't hear about him visiting again, but perhaps for that long list of relatives Jesus has there?
And I wonder, if not, if it still hurts that Nazareth can't catch on. That they have a stumbling block in their way. Because that's what a hometown should mean, right? Similar to what a family means. The rest of the world can love you to pieces, everyone else can see what's right about you, but deep down what matters most is that the people who raised you understand.
Half of the stories we tell these days are the protagonists who can't find proper success because they didn't have that foundation of love and belief -- of trust. Perhaps it's part of our culture (there seem to have been a LOT of absentee or terrible fathers in the previous couple of generations, just based on the prevalence of those stories) or perhaps it's part of human nature.
And Jesus can understand. When it DOES matter that this one person isn't a fan, that this one place won't welcome you...because that was the person and place that were supposed to be home. Feeding the 5,000 sometimes matters less than one a couple hundred think.
Not to the world, but to you.
I don't know if this is really how Jesus felt, but I like the idea that He could understand that about us. I see it in others more than I feel it in myself, but it's everywhere, and I'm glad that Jesus knows the pain so he can help them.
Thursday, 22 March 2018
Today the chapters of Ezekiel that follow the reading (EZ 2: 2-5) remind me more of the kind of fear I had back when my students hated me. When I was working beyond my capacity for classroom management.
My students' rebellion was ever present in my mind. My fear of the next day, my failure at the last round of classes, my sense of being out of control of the situation was in everything. Every meal, every grudging decision to wake up. Every moment. Sitting and standing I was a teacher who couldn't handle her class.
Is that what it really feels like, to be called? This thing in the world is in everything. This things that's wrong -- whether it was me or the school or the students and everything else around them -- it ate at everything, all the time.
I think I always assumed the call was empowering. I can fix this. I have been chosen This is where you must go and do great things in every bite of food, every grudging decision to get out of bed, every moment of every day.
What if it's not? What if the call is "The world is wrong, and these people won't appreciate being told that"? What if the call is just the problem?
I certainly felt and feared for a good long while that I was walking away from the class when I left the school where my students hated me for the school where my students have come to really love me. My life is easier. My days are filled with other things as well, at least when I'm not directing.
Did I walk away from the call of Ezekiel? Or did I just choose to focus on the less rebellious part of the house?
My students' rebellion was ever present in my mind. My fear of the next day, my failure at the last round of classes, my sense of being out of control of the situation was in everything. Every meal, every grudging decision to wake up. Every moment. Sitting and standing I was a teacher who couldn't handle her class.
Is that what it really feels like, to be called? This thing in the world is in everything. This things that's wrong -- whether it was me or the school or the students and everything else around them -- it ate at everything, all the time.
I think I always assumed the call was empowering. I can fix this. I have been chosen This is where you must go and do great things in every bite of food, every grudging decision to get out of bed, every moment of every day.
What if it's not? What if the call is "The world is wrong, and these people won't appreciate being told that"? What if the call is just the problem?
I certainly felt and feared for a good long while that I was walking away from the class when I left the school where my students hated me for the school where my students have come to really love me. My life is easier. My days are filled with other things as well, at least when I'm not directing.
Did I walk away from the call of Ezekiel? Or did I just choose to focus on the less rebellious part of the house?
Wednesday, 21 March 2018
The Battering Ram
Ezekiel 2-5
Much like reading around the gospel reading, I decided to take a look at what's going on with Ezekiel after the official reading for the day. Turns out it's...pretty much what happens in the actual reading, repeated with slight variations. Like much of the Old Testament, frankly.
And while my initial reaction was "Okay, we get it, Israel is a rebellious house..." I think there's more there. I mean yes, this was a book written for the Israelites, so the repeated taking them to task is a strong rhetorical device.
But Ezekiel gets this warning lecture as he stands up, as he gets dressed, as he has breakfast...as the Spirit of God literally and miraculously walks him through getting ready.
And I have to reevaluate my view of prophets again -- from people who get one clear cut message and then set off with varying success but singular purpose.
Much like all of us wake up or go about our lives, now I think about it. Full of good intention and righteous motivation. Only to get sidetracked by the mundane.
But maybe that's the gift of Lent. By giving things up, by fasting in prayer, but structuring parts of our ordinary lives to continually remind us of our mission, our faith, our devotion...well, we pull an Ezekiel. Eating, dressing, even standing remind us that Israel is a rebellious house, but they deserve our warning, our love, and our prophecy anyway.
I usually worry that modern people get stuck in their own branding, their own mythos, even more than past generations given social media. But -- from the Old Testament of all places -- I think I just got a moment of hope that our current generation may have stumbled on something profound. When literally everything is really about your conversation with God and what to do to help the world around you...well, maybe that feels like a cage. But it's really a battering ram.
Much like reading around the gospel reading, I decided to take a look at what's going on with Ezekiel after the official reading for the day. Turns out it's...pretty much what happens in the actual reading, repeated with slight variations. Like much of the Old Testament, frankly.
And while my initial reaction was "Okay, we get it, Israel is a rebellious house..." I think there's more there. I mean yes, this was a book written for the Israelites, so the repeated taking them to task is a strong rhetorical device.
But Ezekiel gets this warning lecture as he stands up, as he gets dressed, as he has breakfast...as the Spirit of God literally and miraculously walks him through getting ready.
And I have to reevaluate my view of prophets again -- from people who get one clear cut message and then set off with varying success but singular purpose.
Much like all of us wake up or go about our lives, now I think about it. Full of good intention and righteous motivation. Only to get sidetracked by the mundane.
But maybe that's the gift of Lent. By giving things up, by fasting in prayer, but structuring parts of our ordinary lives to continually remind us of our mission, our faith, our devotion...well, we pull an Ezekiel. Eating, dressing, even standing remind us that Israel is a rebellious house, but they deserve our warning, our love, and our prophecy anyway.
I usually worry that modern people get stuck in their own branding, their own mythos, even more than past generations given social media. But -- from the Old Testament of all places -- I think I just got a moment of hope that our current generation may have stumbled on something profound. When literally everything is really about your conversation with God and what to do to help the world around you...well, maybe that feels like a cage. But it's really a battering ram.
Tuesday, 20 March 2018
What to do when you hear the prophet hollering
When I was an idiot kid, I used to think that the visionary saints, the prophets, those with a direct line to God had it easy. At least in this way: that they knew what they were supposed to do. They knew, for certain, God's will. They had it spelled out for them.
Now I wonder if that makes it easier to do. To know that the Spirit entered into them (Ezekiel 2:2-5) and be told what they were to do no matter the cost in no uncertain terms. Exactly what to say that would make a difference.
This week I've been grappling with problems I want to solve -- clear, obvious evils that shouldn't exist in our world -- and then wondering, "What next? What do I do?" I can cry out in the center of town, and perhaps it doesn't matter if they heed or resist (at least in the sense that it's something I should worry about), but I feel more like the people listening.
Others have already sounded the alarm. Others with greater research knowledge and greater scope of influence have cried out in the center of town. Maybe I have connections that could help in one small corner of the world and then again, maybe I don't have the clout to do anything. I certainly fumbled on the project I wanted to take up this time last year. Or was it two years ago?
But I hope, at least, I'm incapable of letting this one go. I hope the Spirit of God has put me on my feet and will do so each time I lose hope and lie down.
I hope that I figure out what the Lord wants me to say or do soon. I hope I heed the prophets words. I really really hope I figure out how to save my town from doing evil. In the name of greed fed by desperation. To children.
Read Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids by Maia Szalavitz to learn what I'm talking about. Seriously, please do.
Now I wonder if that makes it easier to do. To know that the Spirit entered into them (Ezekiel 2:2-5) and be told what they were to do no matter the cost in no uncertain terms. Exactly what to say that would make a difference.
This week I've been grappling with problems I want to solve -- clear, obvious evils that shouldn't exist in our world -- and then wondering, "What next? What do I do?" I can cry out in the center of town, and perhaps it doesn't matter if they heed or resist (at least in the sense that it's something I should worry about), but I feel more like the people listening.
Others have already sounded the alarm. Others with greater research knowledge and greater scope of influence have cried out in the center of town. Maybe I have connections that could help in one small corner of the world and then again, maybe I don't have the clout to do anything. I certainly fumbled on the project I wanted to take up this time last year. Or was it two years ago?
But I hope, at least, I'm incapable of letting this one go. I hope the Spirit of God has put me on my feet and will do so each time I lose hope and lie down.
I hope that I figure out what the Lord wants me to say or do soon. I hope I heed the prophets words. I really really hope I figure out how to save my town from doing evil. In the name of greed fed by desperation. To children.
Read Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids by Maia Szalavitz to learn what I'm talking about. Seriously, please do.
Monday, 19 March 2018
Old Selves
I begin to worry that I have found all the resonances these readings have with my current life.
And then a friend poses the theory that I'm in conversation/conflict/relationship with my former self. That I am struggling not so much with an outer culture or inner insatisfaction but a discomfort with the distinction between who I've been and who I am now.
Like Jesus's hometown fails to reconcile Jesus the Son of God with Jesus the Son of Mary and presumably Joseph. The brother, the carpenter, the boy lost in the temple with the prophet, the healer, the man clearing the temple of money changers.
I wonder if Jesus ever felt the same. To some degree, we all understand our own journey from who we were at 20 or 25 to who we are at 31 or whatever age. But I wonder if the dissonance between to two rankled the way it sometimes does with me.
But perhaps the very answer is in this story as well. The fact that we dissent at the idea of the carpenter, the brother/cousin, the son, the little boy we all knew and the Prophet, the Son of God, the Messiah being the same person...perhaps that's human and predictable.
But perhaps we CAN realize that it's false and limiting and not our problem. That the Son of God being the Son of Man doesn't actually have to be a problem. That the prophet can be the hometown boy. That the Messiah can be the boy from Nazareth.
And then a friend poses the theory that I'm in conversation/conflict/relationship with my former self. That I am struggling not so much with an outer culture or inner insatisfaction but a discomfort with the distinction between who I've been and who I am now.
Like Jesus's hometown fails to reconcile Jesus the Son of God with Jesus the Son of Mary and presumably Joseph. The brother, the carpenter, the boy lost in the temple with the prophet, the healer, the man clearing the temple of money changers.
I wonder if Jesus ever felt the same. To some degree, we all understand our own journey from who we were at 20 or 25 to who we are at 31 or whatever age. But I wonder if the dissonance between to two rankled the way it sometimes does with me.
But perhaps the very answer is in this story as well. The fact that we dissent at the idea of the carpenter, the brother/cousin, the son, the little boy we all knew and the Prophet, the Son of God, the Messiah being the same person...perhaps that's human and predictable.
But perhaps we CAN realize that it's false and limiting and not our problem. That the Son of God being the Son of Man doesn't actually have to be a problem. That the prophet can be the hometown boy. That the Messiah can be the boy from Nazareth.
Sunday, 18 March 2018
Obstinate of Heart
EZ 2: 2-5
It occurs to me that we worship "the hard of face and obstinate of heart" in our modern culture.
I spent an embarrassing percentage of my Spring Break consuming DC TV shows depicting the stoic badasses that our culture worships in hero and villain form. The kind of people who don't turn from their ideals no matter what.
It's a plotline that it can be easy to miss in one of those movies, Serenity. I think Whedon failed by being too subtle. He has a character he's previously positioned as the voice of wisdom tell the anti-hero, "It doesn't matter what you believe in -- just believe in something." Which is HORRIFIC advice. The very next scene shows us the True Believer character burning the world, murdering children because of his beliefs. So we are definitely supposed to rebel against it, right?
Not everybody catches that that was intentional, is what worries me.
How many of our hero stories now include a villain monologue pointing out the villain and the hero aren't all that different --- and the resolution is just that the hero's beliefs are RIGHT. So did they just get lucky?
We get a lot of stories about standing up to people who are hard of face and obstinate of heart by being just as hard of spine and obstinate of (loving) heart.
But is that what Ezekiel is called to do here? Being obstinate back?
Surely the way of the Lord is better. Because the obstinate, who might not listen even to a prophet of God, are just lucky when they wind up the heroes of the story rather than the villains. And the monologues are right -- out of context it could be impossible to tell.
Prophets are called to go with God's love, to be stood on our feet by the spirit, not our own stubbornness.
It occurs to me that we worship "the hard of face and obstinate of heart" in our modern culture.
I spent an embarrassing percentage of my Spring Break consuming DC TV shows depicting the stoic badasses that our culture worships in hero and villain form. The kind of people who don't turn from their ideals no matter what.
It's a plotline that it can be easy to miss in one of those movies, Serenity. I think Whedon failed by being too subtle. He has a character he's previously positioned as the voice of wisdom tell the anti-hero, "It doesn't matter what you believe in -- just believe in something." Which is HORRIFIC advice. The very next scene shows us the True Believer character burning the world, murdering children because of his beliefs. So we are definitely supposed to rebel against it, right?
Not everybody catches that that was intentional, is what worries me.
How many of our hero stories now include a villain monologue pointing out the villain and the hero aren't all that different --- and the resolution is just that the hero's beliefs are RIGHT. So did they just get lucky?
We get a lot of stories about standing up to people who are hard of face and obstinate of heart by being just as hard of spine and obstinate of (loving) heart.
But is that what Ezekiel is called to do here? Being obstinate back?
Surely the way of the Lord is better. Because the obstinate, who might not listen even to a prophet of God, are just lucky when they wind up the heroes of the story rather than the villains. And the monologues are right -- out of context it could be impossible to tell.
Prophets are called to go with God's love, to be stood on our feet by the spirit, not our own stubbornness.
Saturday, 17 March 2018
No Gold Stars
Today what strikes me most about the readings is that all of them contain a prophet, disconcerted that the world is (or might) make fun of them for their prophecy.
Ezekiel 2:2-5 -- God explaining that they might not come to heel but you are to go to them anyway.
Psalm 123 -- Looking up to God for deliverance from the world's cruelty to the righteous. No answer in the psalm itself either.
2 Cor 12: 7-10 -- What St. Paul describes sounds primary internal, but he talks about hardships and persecutions to much at the end that I wonder.
Mark 6: 1-6 -- Even Jesus looks in dismay (if not actual surprise) at His hometown's petulant reaction to His teachings.
There's this very stubborn idea that I occasionally try to fight in my students. The idea that there shouldn't be any cost imposed on them for doing the right thing.
What this looks like in a school setting, most of the time, is the student who "feels bad about" keeping the extra points a teacher accidentally gave them on a test. And then being shocked -- shocked! -- if a teacher adjusts the grader lower rather than saying, "You can keep the points for your honesty!"
More extreme versions of this are students announcing that they were sick as a reason they shouldn't have a major project be late despite it being a 2 week assignment or that they have other commitments so it shouldn't be counted against them that they didn't show up to a rehearsal or a meeting. Not recognizing "other commitments" as a choice they made.
It looks like a mythologies class project I ran that posed the students with a moral choice. And in an attempt to make it real, I gave the students who volunteered to be sacrificed for the rest of the group (It was a Theseus and the Minotaur story) a 0. They and their parents were apoplectic at the thought of me "punishing" them for "making the right decision." Which it wasn't, by the way. Decidedly not the most moral choice on offer to the group.
Even the half a day of classes I let the students think they were getting a 0 for a minor grade was treated as an epic issue of unfairness. That they had made a "moral choice" and weren't receiving a gold star from the world.
I don't run that class anymore, for a lot of reasons, but I think about that moment all the time. Every time a moment like it happens.
When young people throw a fit (in one form or another) because they have a negative outcome from doing the right thing. Because consequences aren't negated by morality. Because the world laughs at them for being prophets. Because people sneer at them for doing what's right. Because sometimes there's no gold star for doing God's will.
And I think how many people never grow out of that. Never stop expecting there to be no consequences if they're doing what's right. As if the martyrs didn't have consequences. As if every apostle but John wasn't executed, most VERY brutally. As if half the saints of the Catholic Church didn't suffer horribly in this life for the path they chose.
On my other blog, I've written extensively about how very very tacky this attitude looks on adults who manage to convince themselves that not getting their way amounts to oppression or losing a battle / people disagreeing with you / people making fun of you constitutes a systemic bias or unbelievably unfair situation. Even a coordinated attack.
When the truth is, the Bible warned us that people tend to sneer at prophets. Or think they're loony. Or just have "better" things to do.
And that even when they believe, sometimes that just makes everyone more hostile to their message. Because the saints and the prophets didn't appear when we deserved gold stars. And they didn't get any either.
Ezekiel 2:2-5 -- God explaining that they might not come to heel but you are to go to them anyway.
Psalm 123 -- Looking up to God for deliverance from the world's cruelty to the righteous. No answer in the psalm itself either.
2 Cor 12: 7-10 -- What St. Paul describes sounds primary internal, but he talks about hardships and persecutions to much at the end that I wonder.
Mark 6: 1-6 -- Even Jesus looks in dismay (if not actual surprise) at His hometown's petulant reaction to His teachings.
There's this very stubborn idea that I occasionally try to fight in my students. The idea that there shouldn't be any cost imposed on them for doing the right thing.
What this looks like in a school setting, most of the time, is the student who "feels bad about" keeping the extra points a teacher accidentally gave them on a test. And then being shocked -- shocked! -- if a teacher adjusts the grader lower rather than saying, "You can keep the points for your honesty!"
More extreme versions of this are students announcing that they were sick as a reason they shouldn't have a major project be late despite it being a 2 week assignment or that they have other commitments so it shouldn't be counted against them that they didn't show up to a rehearsal or a meeting. Not recognizing "other commitments" as a choice they made.
It looks like a mythologies class project I ran that posed the students with a moral choice. And in an attempt to make it real, I gave the students who volunteered to be sacrificed for the rest of the group (It was a Theseus and the Minotaur story) a 0. They and their parents were apoplectic at the thought of me "punishing" them for "making the right decision." Which it wasn't, by the way. Decidedly not the most moral choice on offer to the group.
Even the half a day of classes I let the students think they were getting a 0 for a minor grade was treated as an epic issue of unfairness. That they had made a "moral choice" and weren't receiving a gold star from the world.
I don't run that class anymore, for a lot of reasons, but I think about that moment all the time. Every time a moment like it happens.
When young people throw a fit (in one form or another) because they have a negative outcome from doing the right thing. Because consequences aren't negated by morality. Because the world laughs at them for being prophets. Because people sneer at them for doing what's right. Because sometimes there's no gold star for doing God's will.
And I think how many people never grow out of that. Never stop expecting there to be no consequences if they're doing what's right. As if the martyrs didn't have consequences. As if every apostle but John wasn't executed, most VERY brutally. As if half the saints of the Catholic Church didn't suffer horribly in this life for the path they chose.
On my other blog, I've written extensively about how very very tacky this attitude looks on adults who manage to convince themselves that not getting their way amounts to oppression or losing a battle / people disagreeing with you / people making fun of you constitutes a systemic bias or unbelievably unfair situation. Even a coordinated attack.
When the truth is, the Bible warned us that people tend to sneer at prophets. Or think they're loony. Or just have "better" things to do.
And that even when they believe, sometimes that just makes everyone more hostile to their message. Because the saints and the prophets didn't appear when we deserved gold stars. And they didn't get any either.
Friday, 16 March 2018
Singing Voice
When I was an idiot kid, I used to think in Mass sometimes that I wish I had a terrible voice, because I always felt really strongly that everybody should sing even if they were bad at it -- and there's no real way for someone with a good singing voice to make that argument.
Or because there's something self-indulgent about singing when you have a good voice. Someone who raises a horse or strained voice to the heavens in praise...that's purer worship.
Sometimes I just thought it'd be more fun to holler along in the crowd rather than trying to sing.
I was a real idiot kid.
Because I tried to sing for some time today with effectively no lower register. And it was terrible. Terrifying, really, to suddenly tell my voice to sing a note and hear a different one come out. To hear myself falling out of key or even falling silent on the lower notes of my range...which has apparently shrunk.
My fellow music team was nice about it, and I didn't sound like an old frog stuck in a drainpipe or anything, but I couldn't really lead the music for the retreat with this voice. I couldn't help in a way I've been blessed to do before and am hoping to do again once this endless cold finally gets sorted out.
I need my strength back to do this service to my faith community. I don't know what I'm meant to learn or grow from this moment.
I feel more sympathy for those who don't want to sing along. But I didn't find some new musical ability or even a real humility since I fully believe my voice will be back soon. In fact, I and my friends have been praising my usual singing voice to make myself feel better.
I suppose this is what comes of trying to fit a single lesson to every day of Lent.
I reread yesterday's post because I saw a comment on it (Hi, mom!), and I realized not only are there little prayers answered no, not only are their failures to sing that don't mean the end of the world or some fabulous growth opportunity, but frankly: we were never promised people would love our singing voices.
We were just told to sing.
After all, incense smells terrible. And burning that is still an offering to God.
Or because there's something self-indulgent about singing when you have a good voice. Someone who raises a horse or strained voice to the heavens in praise...that's purer worship.
Sometimes I just thought it'd be more fun to holler along in the crowd rather than trying to sing.
I was a real idiot kid.
Because I tried to sing for some time today with effectively no lower register. And it was terrible. Terrifying, really, to suddenly tell my voice to sing a note and hear a different one come out. To hear myself falling out of key or even falling silent on the lower notes of my range...which has apparently shrunk.
My fellow music team was nice about it, and I didn't sound like an old frog stuck in a drainpipe or anything, but I couldn't really lead the music for the retreat with this voice. I couldn't help in a way I've been blessed to do before and am hoping to do again once this endless cold finally gets sorted out.
I need my strength back to do this service to my faith community. I don't know what I'm meant to learn or grow from this moment.
I feel more sympathy for those who don't want to sing along. But I didn't find some new musical ability or even a real humility since I fully believe my voice will be back soon. In fact, I and my friends have been praising my usual singing voice to make myself feel better.
I suppose this is what comes of trying to fit a single lesson to every day of Lent.
I reread yesterday's post because I saw a comment on it (Hi, mom!), and I realized not only are there little prayers answered no, not only are their failures to sing that don't mean the end of the world or some fabulous growth opportunity, but frankly: we were never promised people would love our singing voices.
We were just told to sing.
After all, incense smells terrible. And burning that is still an offering to God.
Thursday, 15 March 2018
Prayers Unanswered
2 Cor 12:7-10
There's something haunting about the idea of St. Paul praying for relief and receiving none.
I know there's a reason he found. I know that's not all there is to the story.
But the prophet Ezekiel is told to go to the Israelites without being told how they'll react -- in fact, told not to worry about rejection or acceptance.
Jesus goes to his hometown and doesn't receive the welcome he would expect.
Even prophets have their prayers denied.
God goes silent even to the saints.
I think it's easy to take it personally when God goes silent in your life. I think it's one of the hardest challenges to faith.
But the point of following His ways is not to have the earthly reward of a hometown welcome or being thanked by those we convince to repent. The point of our relationship with God is not making our hardships easier.
It's having our hardships with God by our side. Not removing obstacles from our path but with us, silent and letting us find our way and thus our strength. So that they will know a prophet has been among them. Even if we don't get to see the pretty results.
It's doing God's will even when we don't get to see the pretty, shiny results. When things end badly from a worldly perspective and you have to hope that someday you understand why this was necessary. It's having faith even in those moments that it WAS necessary.
There's something haunting about the idea of St. Paul praying for relief and receiving none.
I know there's a reason he found. I know that's not all there is to the story.
But the prophet Ezekiel is told to go to the Israelites without being told how they'll react -- in fact, told not to worry about rejection or acceptance.
Jesus goes to his hometown and doesn't receive the welcome he would expect.
Even prophets have their prayers denied.
God goes silent even to the saints.
I think it's easy to take it personally when God goes silent in your life. I think it's one of the hardest challenges to faith.
But the point of following His ways is not to have the earthly reward of a hometown welcome or being thanked by those we convince to repent. The point of our relationship with God is not making our hardships easier.
It's having our hardships with God by our side. Not removing obstacles from our path but with us, silent and letting us find our way and thus our strength. So that they will know a prophet has been among them. Even if we don't get to see the pretty results.
It's doing God's will even when we don't get to see the pretty, shiny results. When things end badly from a worldly perspective and you have to hope that someday you understand why this was necessary. It's having faith even in those moments that it WAS necessary.
Wednesday, 14 March 2018
For the Sake of Christ
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Three times, St. Paul prayed to God about whatever the "thorn in his side" the "angel of Satan" were. Prayed for it to leave him. And every time the answer: No.
He learned from it that power is made perfect in weakness, that we should be content with "weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints for the sake of Christ." And there are times when I wish I could believe that all the suffering had a purpose. That we were in training to be made stronger for an important trial to come.
But sometimes I feel like suffering is arbitrary. Part of the fallen world. Grace is sufficient in those cases as well, for Grace can carry us through the hard times, keep us from lashing out when we are angry or hurt, show us where we might find comfort.
But there are harships it's awkward to designate as "part of God's plan" or even the more general "for the sake of Christ."
For the sake of Christ...we suffer even pointlessly so that we might be better empathetic comforters of his people?
For the sake of Christ...we get endless coughs that...make us slow down and/or be grateful for when we're healthy?
For the sake of Christ...people are petty and small sometimes so we learn patience with them for when a similar test might come that's actually important?
For the sake of Christ...we deal with school shootings -- the fear they bring to us all and the tragedy they bring to ever more people?
For the sake of Christ...people suffer the hardships of racial oppression (not me, to be clear, I have lots of white privilege)?
I could go on, making this post more and more awkward.
But I sometimes wonder if we mistake a prayer for relief being unanswered as a hint from God that we're on the right track or it means something important. As if God would remove our source of pain if only He could.
I think that's not the world we chose when we ate the Apple. I think sometimes hardships and persecutions and weakness happens because it's built into the fallen world. It's built into the choice between good and evil. It's built into the desire to unravel good and evil in all their complexities and contradictions. It's built into the fact that we fail at that project because our brainpower, even collectively, isn't up to that challenge. Look how badly we've all messed up even the basics!
But can those sufferings still be for the sake of Christ? Can we still offer to the Lord suffering and weakness and all the rest? Can we, for the sake of Christ, agree to suffer in this fallen world He loved so much He died to save it? Can we, for the sake of Christ, do the same? Live and die for the sake of the fallen world that caused us so much pain?
Three times, St. Paul prayed to God about whatever the "thorn in his side" the "angel of Satan" were. Prayed for it to leave him. And every time the answer: No.
He learned from it that power is made perfect in weakness, that we should be content with "weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints for the sake of Christ." And there are times when I wish I could believe that all the suffering had a purpose. That we were in training to be made stronger for an important trial to come.
But sometimes I feel like suffering is arbitrary. Part of the fallen world. Grace is sufficient in those cases as well, for Grace can carry us through the hard times, keep us from lashing out when we are angry or hurt, show us where we might find comfort.
But there are harships it's awkward to designate as "part of God's plan" or even the more general "for the sake of Christ."
For the sake of Christ...we suffer even pointlessly so that we might be better empathetic comforters of his people?
For the sake of Christ...we get endless coughs that...make us slow down and/or be grateful for when we're healthy?
For the sake of Christ...people are petty and small sometimes so we learn patience with them for when a similar test might come that's actually important?
For the sake of Christ...we deal with school shootings -- the fear they bring to us all and the tragedy they bring to ever more people?
For the sake of Christ...people suffer the hardships of racial oppression (not me, to be clear, I have lots of white privilege)?
I could go on, making this post more and more awkward.
But I sometimes wonder if we mistake a prayer for relief being unanswered as a hint from God that we're on the right track or it means something important. As if God would remove our source of pain if only He could.
I think that's not the world we chose when we ate the Apple. I think sometimes hardships and persecutions and weakness happens because it's built into the fallen world. It's built into the choice between good and evil. It's built into the desire to unravel good and evil in all their complexities and contradictions. It's built into the fact that we fail at that project because our brainpower, even collectively, isn't up to that challenge. Look how badly we've all messed up even the basics!
But can those sufferings still be for the sake of Christ? Can we still offer to the Lord suffering and weakness and all the rest? Can we, for the sake of Christ, agree to suffer in this fallen world He loved so much He died to save it? Can we, for the sake of Christ, do the same? Live and die for the sake of the fallen world that caused us so much pain?
Tuesday, 13 March 2018
Reap What Did Not Sow
Ezekiel 2: 2-5
Today the first reading makes me think of another parable, or portion of a parable. I think I've always had a weird relationship with the "Reap what you do not sow" (starting with not understanding the metaphor at a young age to now).
It makes me think about how, as a teacher, I am probably more like one of the planters who did the sowing, right?
But there's an arrogance to that that I wonder at.
The truth is, as a teacher and especially as a theatre teacher, I reap what I did not sow all the time. Students rarely come to me anymore without having had a middle school speech teacher (of varying skill and sometimes with horror stories of phobias made worse, but that's the opposite of my point).
I got a lot of credit this year for bringing out great things from my students. And some of their talent I did help sow the seed, but for others I can just about take credit for casting them and not messing them up. Even when I did put in work -- reaping is a lot of work, after all -- there was a lot there when my students came to me. More than when I taught middle school, which is one of many things that makes my current school feel relaxing in comparison.
The prophet Ezekiel seems to be being sent to the town that may or may not stop rebelling, not knowing if he is there as the seed that will become repentance later or as the reaper harvesting the souls of the repentant and newly righteous.
But both jobs are hard work. They take the same kind of bravery for very different kinds of reward. We need to remember that we are likely doing good, even when we are the sowers who do not reap. We need to realize that our success is built on the work of others, when we are the reapers who did not sow.
The only promise Ezekiel is given is that they will know a prophet has been among them either way. We can only hope, as the song says, they will know we are Christians. By our love.
Today the first reading makes me think of another parable, or portion of a parable. I think I've always had a weird relationship with the "Reap what you do not sow" (starting with not understanding the metaphor at a young age to now).
It makes me think about how, as a teacher, I am probably more like one of the planters who did the sowing, right?
But there's an arrogance to that that I wonder at.
The truth is, as a teacher and especially as a theatre teacher, I reap what I did not sow all the time. Students rarely come to me anymore without having had a middle school speech teacher (of varying skill and sometimes with horror stories of phobias made worse, but that's the opposite of my point).
I got a lot of credit this year for bringing out great things from my students. And some of their talent I did help sow the seed, but for others I can just about take credit for casting them and not messing them up. Even when I did put in work -- reaping is a lot of work, after all -- there was a lot there when my students came to me. More than when I taught middle school, which is one of many things that makes my current school feel relaxing in comparison.
The prophet Ezekiel seems to be being sent to the town that may or may not stop rebelling, not knowing if he is there as the seed that will become repentance later or as the reaper harvesting the souls of the repentant and newly righteous.
But both jobs are hard work. They take the same kind of bravery for very different kinds of reward. We need to remember that we are likely doing good, even when we are the sowers who do not reap. We need to realize that our success is built on the work of others, when we are the reapers who did not sow.
The only promise Ezekiel is given is that they will know a prophet has been among them either way. We can only hope, as the song says, they will know we are Christians. By our love.
Monday, 12 March 2018
Beginning, Middle, and End
Ez 2: 2-5
2 Cor 12: 7-10
Mark 6: 1-6
Psalm 123
I noticed for the first time today that in the three stories from the Bible that comprise the July 8th readings, we have three stories of suffering for the gift of prophecy.
Ezekiel begins with the Spirit entering the prophet to "set me on my feet", implying that he's coming off a fall.
Paul is most explicit about the angel of Satan tormenting him.
Jesus, after preaching and doing wonders, finds rejection amongst those who mattered most to his early life.
The psalm is about turning to God to end our suffering or in fear of his rage.
And I think how pain, suffering, even falling down are inevitable in the human condition.
I think about it because I wonder how often we mistake misfortune for a sign that something just "wasn't meant to be". Pop culture is full of the romantic version, but I know my spiritual life is full of me looking upward and saying, "Okay, I get it, you want me to stay home!" when I'm feeling poorly or taking a clumsy moment as a rebuke to slow down or a series of unlucky breaks as a sign that I'm on the wrong path.
But suffering, setbacks, even ill omens litter the paths of the prophets. Beginning, middle, and end of the story. Ever present in their prayers.
I think it's the easy way out to say that things going wrong are a sign that things need to change. Not because we shouldn't fight the good fight, not because a lot about our lives and our world isn't broken, but because we shouldn't let the minutia decide which battles we fight.
We all have thorns in the flesh. It doesn't mean we're on the wrong path.
2 Cor 12: 7-10
Mark 6: 1-6
Psalm 123
I noticed for the first time today that in the three stories from the Bible that comprise the July 8th readings, we have three stories of suffering for the gift of prophecy.
Ezekiel begins with the Spirit entering the prophet to "set me on my feet", implying that he's coming off a fall.
Paul is most explicit about the angel of Satan tormenting him.
Jesus, after preaching and doing wonders, finds rejection amongst those who mattered most to his early life.
The psalm is about turning to God to end our suffering or in fear of his rage.
And I think how pain, suffering, even falling down are inevitable in the human condition.
I think about it because I wonder how often we mistake misfortune for a sign that something just "wasn't meant to be". Pop culture is full of the romantic version, but I know my spiritual life is full of me looking upward and saying, "Okay, I get it, you want me to stay home!" when I'm feeling poorly or taking a clumsy moment as a rebuke to slow down or a series of unlucky breaks as a sign that I'm on the wrong path.
But suffering, setbacks, even ill omens litter the paths of the prophets. Beginning, middle, and end of the story. Ever present in their prayers.
I think it's the easy way out to say that things going wrong are a sign that things need to change. Not because we shouldn't fight the good fight, not because a lot about our lives and our world isn't broken, but because we shouldn't let the minutia decide which battles we fight.
We all have thorns in the flesh. It doesn't mean we're on the wrong path.
Sunday, 11 March 2018
Two Paths Diverged on a Retreat
In his homily today, the priest and St. Anne's in Houston talked about making the decision to continue with the seminary rather than quit to be with the woman he had fallen in love with. He talked about the struggle leading up to it.
How one day he would be with the priests he was living with or his fellow recruits and think "This, this could be my life" and wonder if that was the call; then he would be with Jane (name he gave but presumably an alias) holding her hand and feel like this was right and must be God's plan.
Or he would think about living with a bunch of old men (his phrase) or imagine having some kind of fight with Jane or feel dissatisfied with whatever new life's work he found. And he would be afraid of the decision more and more.
The resolution of the story was his realization that God loved him no matter his choice and, in fact, he felt the answer to his prayer was that God trusted him to make the choice. "The Lord of the Universe trusted me to choose for myself. He would love me either way. At first I felt great joy. And then I felt frustration."
That's actually when he talked about the different ways his life choices could go wrong.
I wonder if that's part of the hostility of Nazareth and whatever down Ezekiel is headed to. Even the kindest answers from God tend to put the onus back on us for action at the end of them.
And while we call out constantly for signs, for clear directions, for explicit instructions, do we really want them? Do we want to make our own decisions or not? Is that empowering or terrifying? Is the other worse? Would God telling us what we should do feel like relief and joy or like a trap? We'd know we had made the right choice, but we wouldn't be the ones who made it really.
I think even visionary saints were given choices to make with only a bit more advice, at least for a couple big things each.
Are we scared when the prophet rolls into town because of his answers? Or because he might tell us to choose?
And maybe it is harder to give a kid you watched grow up the power to change your life by telling you what God's plan for you is.
Maybe it's easier not to know. Maybe we're luckier, to believe that God is leaving the choice to us.
Jane is happy, apparently, he knows through intermediaries. Though they haven't talked since their breakup. Maybe that's what's so hard about hometowns and Peter's mother-in-law (and wife?) and James and John's annoyed parents and all the ordinary people. You chose the divine over them, even though they would have made you happy. It'd be cruel to visit all the time, for them and you.
Saturday, 10 March 2018
Still Possible
Most of the times that this has been the gospel on Sunday, the homily has focused or at least taken a significant detour into explaining that by "brothers and sisters" of Jesus, the townspeople emphatically did NOT mean actual fellow children born of Mary (and Joseph). And I've always found it weird that we care that much about Mary and Joseph not having any kids. Of Jesus not having a family line.
Don't get me wrong, I think our world would respond to blood relatives of Jesus Christ...poorly. Making worldly kings of them or giving them cult-like status are among the least terrifying things I can think of us doing with descendants of the same line as Christ. If Mary did have any children, perhaps it is a kindness of the early church that we know nothing of them.
But I notice Jesus does tell parables about siblings. The Prodigal Son is the best known, but there are all kinds of brother pairs and flocks of sister that are or aren't sympathetic to their fellows. And I wonder if, even they weren't his brothers, Jesus was co-raised in a flock of people. And not just his cousin John the Baptist.
I think it's easy to feel for those cousins who grew up alongside Jesus Son of God and John the Baptist (just so they can't take the excuse of not being divine as well as human).
But if we feel for them, why don't we feel for the people of the town? The childhood friends of Jesus? The girls who had their first crush on him? The adults who were annoyed at the too-clever-for-his-own-good whippersnapper? The jocks who remember beating him at whatever version of street baseball they played? The budding rabbis who trained more to understand less than Jesus?
There's something terrible about someone from your precise background turning out so wise and holy. There's something that feels like an accusation, even if it isn't intended as one.
But maybe it is an accusation. And maybe we should take it as one. Maybe when we see a prophet, when we know a prophet, we shouldn't let our insecurities and defensiveness make up the "rebellious people" of the first reading.
Maybe seeing someone we used to think was ordinary become extraordinary SHOULD feel like a punch to the gut. Because that means not only that it was possible for us and we blew it...but that it's STILL possible for us.
Don't get me wrong, I think our world would respond to blood relatives of Jesus Christ...poorly. Making worldly kings of them or giving them cult-like status are among the least terrifying things I can think of us doing with descendants of the same line as Christ. If Mary did have any children, perhaps it is a kindness of the early church that we know nothing of them.
But I notice Jesus does tell parables about siblings. The Prodigal Son is the best known, but there are all kinds of brother pairs and flocks of sister that are or aren't sympathetic to their fellows. And I wonder if, even they weren't his brothers, Jesus was co-raised in a flock of people. And not just his cousin John the Baptist.
I think it's easy to feel for those cousins who grew up alongside Jesus Son of God and John the Baptist (just so they can't take the excuse of not being divine as well as human).
But if we feel for them, why don't we feel for the people of the town? The childhood friends of Jesus? The girls who had their first crush on him? The adults who were annoyed at the too-clever-for-his-own-good whippersnapper? The jocks who remember beating him at whatever version of street baseball they played? The budding rabbis who trained more to understand less than Jesus?
There's something terrible about someone from your precise background turning out so wise and holy. There's something that feels like an accusation, even if it isn't intended as one.
But maybe it is an accusation. And maybe we should take it as one. Maybe when we see a prophet, when we know a prophet, we shouldn't let our insecurities and defensiveness make up the "rebellious people" of the first reading.
Maybe seeing someone we used to think was ordinary become extraordinary SHOULD feel like a punch to the gut. Because that means not only that it was possible for us and we blew it...but that it's STILL possible for us.
Friday, 9 March 2018
On Theme
Out of curiosity this morning, I read Mark Chapter 5 to see what comes just before our hometown gospel.
Chapter 5 is a fascinating juxtaposition of stories. There's the time the demons are terrified that Jesus will order them out of a poor soul living in a cave with literally Legion of devils inside him and ask to be sent into pigs (2,000 pigs -- has that always been the number? I was never picturing a full 2,000 pigs, that's a whole industry in first century Judea, right?) who run off a cliff -- making everyone but the poor soul who's been freed politely ask Jesus to get OUT please.
Despite knowing him for a power, just as surely as the demons did, they just want this person messing with their bottom line to leave, even if He clearly has a direct line to God.
Then there are the two outsiders in town who believe entirely that Jesus can heal her or his daughter's ailment. Yes, the companion in Mark's 5th chapter to the people who value the pigs over a tormented soul are the hemorraghing woman who grabs for his cloak and Japheth's daughter being brought back to life.
(Do we really not get a name for her? Shouldn't see be even bigger than Lazarus, having been resurrected first?)
And then we jerk back to Nazareth, which is offended just by Jesus's teachings, much less his swine-destroying miracles. And so the only people Jesus can help are the equivalent of the woman and Jephath, healing a few sick.
We talk about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. But the people at the low end of the social or economic totem pole...maybe the reason they are the children of God is that they're better able to see that a small industry's worth of pigs IS a small price to pay for the salvation of a tortured soul. That an ordinary man with a childhood and a past is where prophets ALWAYS come from.
They're so much less afraid of breaking the status quo with the Truth.
I keep being shocked at how people see and believe yet don't change their lives. I think I really shouldn't be shocked.
Chapter 5 is a fascinating juxtaposition of stories. There's the time the demons are terrified that Jesus will order them out of a poor soul living in a cave with literally Legion of devils inside him and ask to be sent into pigs (2,000 pigs -- has that always been the number? I was never picturing a full 2,000 pigs, that's a whole industry in first century Judea, right?) who run off a cliff -- making everyone but the poor soul who's been freed politely ask Jesus to get OUT please.
Despite knowing him for a power, just as surely as the demons did, they just want this person messing with their bottom line to leave, even if He clearly has a direct line to God.
Then there are the two outsiders in town who believe entirely that Jesus can heal her or his daughter's ailment. Yes, the companion in Mark's 5th chapter to the people who value the pigs over a tormented soul are the hemorraghing woman who grabs for his cloak and Japheth's daughter being brought back to life.
(Do we really not get a name for her? Shouldn't see be even bigger than Lazarus, having been resurrected first?)
And then we jerk back to Nazareth, which is offended just by Jesus's teachings, much less his swine-destroying miracles. And so the only people Jesus can help are the equivalent of the woman and Jephath, healing a few sick.
We talk about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. But the people at the low end of the social or economic totem pole...maybe the reason they are the children of God is that they're better able to see that a small industry's worth of pigs IS a small price to pay for the salvation of a tortured soul. That an ordinary man with a childhood and a past is where prophets ALWAYS come from.
They're so much less afraid of breaking the status quo with the Truth.
I keep being shocked at how people see and believe yet don't change their lives. I think I really shouldn't be shocked.
Thursday, 8 March 2018
That's Weird, Right?
Despite spending all of Lent so far meditating on the call, grace carrying through difficulty, and scoffing at holy figures...I raised one very skeptical eyebrow at the prayer in today's morning staff meeting.
It was a meditation that started with stuff that I could get behind.
But then it moved to something I found suspicious.
There's a version of religion that feeds into some people's beliefs that it was/is a method of controlling the population. And "don't seek earthly reward" is a message that your boss just shouldn't be the one to deliver.
But it feels like a step in the wrong direction to be suspicious all the time. To have such high standards that a sincere theology department director who clearly didn't hear the poem the way I did makes me a bit hostile instead of taking the inspiration as it was clearly intended.
For carrying less about the message than the packaging of the messenger. Like the people of Nazareth -- uninterested in the truth from the boy who they'd see run around skinning his knees with the other boys.
God grant me a less cynical heart.
It was a meditation that started with stuff that I could get behind.
Lord grant me your grace even when it's the last class or the 5th meeting of the day.Even when it's almost Spring Break and literally everyone in the room can taste it.
But then it moved to something I found suspicious.
[Grant me to want to be better] not for a raise or to win that teaching award or even for a thank you.I see what that meditation is trying to say. I really do. But am I the only one who thinks that's a really, really weird thing to say to employees at a staff meeting (the same week contracts go out no less) even with the best of intentions?
There's a version of religion that feeds into some people's beliefs that it was/is a method of controlling the population. And "don't seek earthly reward" is a message that your boss just shouldn't be the one to deliver.
But it feels like a step in the wrong direction to be suspicious all the time. To have such high standards that a sincere theology department director who clearly didn't hear the poem the way I did makes me a bit hostile instead of taking the inspiration as it was clearly intended.
For carrying less about the message than the packaging of the messenger. Like the people of Nazareth -- uninterested in the truth from the boy who they'd see run around skinning his knees with the other boys.
God grant me a less cynical heart.
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
No Athiests in a Foxhole
Perhaps just because my coughs are still trumpet blasts that make it difficult to sleep, but I'm really focusing in on how Jesus wasn't able to do any "mighty deeds" besides healing of a few sick, right there at the end of the story.
There's a song I love that sums it up really well.
The chorus of the song reminds us when we DO laugh at the idea of religion. When the hometown boy's pretensions to prophecy seem just too ridiculous to be true.
Religion has produced a lot of sick cookies and ridiculous people.
Knowing someone their whole life should make it easier to tell the difference. Tell who is following an unworldly call and who is just not in the same world as the rest of us. Maybe it makes it harder. To see them change, to see them become something new. It's easier to imagine they've gone weird on us than that they've gone holy.
There's something terribly sad about the fact that "nuts" is more believable than "holy."
There's a song I love that sums it up really well.
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
...No one's laughing at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one's laughing at God when it's gotten real late and their kids not back from that party yet.
- Regina Spektor, "Laughing With"The idea of sick people believing, having more reason to look past the weirdness of the prophet being a hometown boy, makes perfect sense to me. And not only for the self-interest of it.
The chorus of the song reminds us when we DO laugh at the idea of religion. When the hometown boy's pretensions to prophecy seem just too ridiculous to be true.
But God can be funny at a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke
Or when the crazies say He hates us and they get so red in the face you think they're 'bout to choke
God can be funny when told He'll give you money if you just pray the right way
Or when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa ClausReligion has yielded a lot of weirdos. Not in the "not of this world" variety, although those as well. Not St. Bernadette in the mud looking like a pig to the girls she went to grammar school with as she digs for the fountain beneath the Virgin Mary's feet. Not the people who act, bravely, boldly, in the ways no one expects but with righteousness.
Religion has produced a lot of sick cookies and ridiculous people.
Knowing someone their whole life should make it easier to tell the difference. Tell who is following an unworldly call and who is just not in the same world as the rest of us. Maybe it makes it harder. To see them change, to see them become something new. It's easier to imagine they've gone weird on us than that they've gone holy.
There's something terribly sad about the fact that "nuts" is more believable than "holy."
Tuesday, 6 March 2018
Content With Weakness
I actually started reading a book about a false prophecy movement (a sociological case study of an old doomsday mini-cult called When Prophecy Fails) before I knew that I would spend my Lent thinking on prophecy and grace in all their forms.
I noticed a pattern that seemed a little alarming before the pattern fully cleared. It took a lot of training not to dismiss those worrying theories, but trust that the true pattern would emerge.
When Prophecy Fails is full of people who, whether they're seeing their lives clearly or not, feel like the Weak. The Lost. The Oppressed. The ones with no power but an "angel of Satan" sabotaging their goals. To become a respected professor, a true prophet, a mother, spend time with their children, or even just hold down a job.
It's weakness that leads to false prophets. It's the act of a desperate soul. Not just desperate for money, although I'm sure those exist too. But those who manage to convince themselves, as I believe many of the people in the book did, that their thoughts aren't their own. That they are Messengers of great importance and requiring great personal sacrifice.
But it's the act of a soul desperate not to feel weak anymore.
Look at the saints, the visionaries most of all. They feel all the weaker for their role. I'm haunted by St. Bernadette's deathbed conviction that she was bound for hell, an unworthy attempt at a good life.
A false prophet is a soul desperate not to feel so weak anymore. A true prophet is a soul willing to be weak. And not just "for the mission"; not as a noble sacrifice everyone knows about. Willing to feel truly weak, not "weakened and attacked" but weak in themselves.
Few things take more courage. But the true prophets are the last ones to realize that.
I noticed a pattern that seemed a little alarming before the pattern fully cleared. It took a lot of training not to dismiss those worrying theories, but trust that the true pattern would emerge.
When Prophecy Fails is full of people who, whether they're seeing their lives clearly or not, feel like the Weak. The Lost. The Oppressed. The ones with no power but an "angel of Satan" sabotaging their goals. To become a respected professor, a true prophet, a mother, spend time with their children, or even just hold down a job.
It's weakness that leads to false prophets. It's the act of a desperate soul. Not just desperate for money, although I'm sure those exist too. But those who manage to convince themselves, as I believe many of the people in the book did, that their thoughts aren't their own. That they are Messengers of great importance and requiring great personal sacrifice.
But it's the act of a soul desperate not to feel weak anymore.
Look at the saints, the visionaries most of all. They feel all the weaker for their role. I'm haunted by St. Bernadette's deathbed conviction that she was bound for hell, an unworthy attempt at a good life.
A false prophet is a soul desperate not to feel so weak anymore. A true prophet is a soul willing to be weak. And not just "for the mission"; not as a noble sacrifice everyone knows about. Willing to feel truly weak, not "weakened and attacked" but weak in themselves.
Few things take more courage. But the true prophets are the last ones to realize that.
Monday, 5 March 2018
POWER Is Made Perfect in Weakness
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Apologies if the title overly emphasizes the word power, but I think more and more about how important that is to realize.
There's a lot of talk about power these days as something that comes from being awesome and, well, that certainly has a certain cache to it.
But I think more about how you have to be willing to fail, a lot, to get any good at any thing. A friend wrote in his own blog years back about being willing to be beginner-bad at something as an adult keeps a lot of people from growing.
But power is made perfect in weakness. Where else do you learn what to do? What to do better? When else do you listen to anyone who will teach you so you can cobble together everyone's wisdom into your own? When else do you let people help you who do it better than you would have thought to and give you ideas for the future? When else do we grow?
But as I work at improving the empathetic skills of teaching, I realize all the more how that power HAS to be honed in weakness. Even if it doesn't match the vulnerabilities and struggles of those I try to counsel, there is little use in a "teflon strong" person trying to help a wounded person learn to heal. Only in weakness is the power to help those who are suffering honed. Only in weakness do we find that all important strength.
Apologies if the title overly emphasizes the word power, but I think more and more about how important that is to realize.
There's a lot of talk about power these days as something that comes from being awesome and, well, that certainly has a certain cache to it.
But I think more about how you have to be willing to fail, a lot, to get any good at any thing. A friend wrote in his own blog years back about being willing to be beginner-bad at something as an adult keeps a lot of people from growing.
But power is made perfect in weakness. Where else do you learn what to do? What to do better? When else do you listen to anyone who will teach you so you can cobble together everyone's wisdom into your own? When else do you let people help you who do it better than you would have thought to and give you ideas for the future? When else do we grow?
But as I work at improving the empathetic skills of teaching, I realize all the more how that power HAS to be honed in weakness. Even if it doesn't match the vulnerabilities and struggles of those I try to counsel, there is little use in a "teflon strong" person trying to help a wounded person learn to heal. Only in weakness is the power to help those who are suffering honed. Only in weakness do we find that all important strength.
Sunday, 4 March 2018
5 gods on the mountain
So I've sometimes worried I'm getting to be like the local experts Jesus so worried in his hometown -- at least when it comes to the gospel of the Samaritan Woman at the Well. I literally wrote a book on it. Not a particularly researched book, but one prayed and worked on for years. One born of spiritual searching and full of whatever wisdom I've earned in my time.
But I didn't know that there were 5 false gods on the mountain of Samaria, echoed poetically in the 5 husbands of the Samaritan Woman. The last of whom she apparently didn't even really believe in.
I also missed the now-obvious translation attempt that "living water" obviously is. I took it for basic metaphor, pretty language, etc. This one I a) should have done enough research to learn about and b) should really have recognized from my dabbling in translation-issues.
There was stagnant water and spring water, moving water or "living water". Healthier, cleaner (seeming), less likely to breed mosquitoes or be poisoned naturally or otherwise. A fresh, above ground source, not a well robbing water from the earth. A free gift, not a man-made work around.
God's lessons are so cool. It's a shame Nazareth stopped being able to see new things, or got lost in the person delivering the message.
I'm sure I've been guilty of that in my time. But at least today I was able to listen.
But I didn't know that there were 5 false gods on the mountain of Samaria, echoed poetically in the 5 husbands of the Samaritan Woman. The last of whom she apparently didn't even really believe in.
I also missed the now-obvious translation attempt that "living water" obviously is. I took it for basic metaphor, pretty language, etc. This one I a) should have done enough research to learn about and b) should really have recognized from my dabbling in translation-issues.
There was stagnant water and spring water, moving water or "living water". Healthier, cleaner (seeming), less likely to breed mosquitoes or be poisoned naturally or otherwise. A fresh, above ground source, not a well robbing water from the earth. A free gift, not a man-made work around.
God's lessons are so cool. It's a shame Nazareth stopped being able to see new things, or got lost in the person delivering the message.
I'm sure I've been guilty of that in my time. But at least today I was able to listen.
Saturday, 3 March 2018
"Cynicism is also a kind of faith"
EZ 2:2-5
Today two quotes are warring in my head for primacy. One is brand new, I just read it today, and the other has been on the wall of my classroom for most of my career as a teacher.
The new one is from an article much smarter than it's title:
And with that quote, I finally understand what I pondered about the first reading from Ezekiel on this Sunday in July I'm anticipating so far in advance. Why someone would see clearly that a prophet is in their midst but still do nothing.
Because our faith in God CAN be trumped by our unacknowledged faith in our own powerlessness. In the inevitability of the world's institutions. Even by their rightness. Of our own smallness. Ordinary citizens of Nineveh, believing their city would be destroyed but knowing that their own repentance would do almost nothing to stop it. The terror of being one of the 10 good people in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Or even being Lot, arguing God down from 50 to 10 out of fear that there weren't enough good men out there to turn the tide. Even his cynicism was stronger than his faith in God.
It certainly is the false idol of our modern world and seemingly the ancient world as well. How long have we worshipped this false idol? Since the cavemen days when it was audacious to believe that tribes didn't have to slaughter one another for the best hunting pastures? When individual hunters and gatherers looked around and knew, just KNEW, that there might be a better way but there was no way they could do anything about it?
But God, in Ezekiel, calls this kind of thinking "rebellious people". Rebelling against God, rebelling against His faith in us. Rebelling against his commands to change the world and make it better and stop doing all of this stupid nonsense. Rebelling against hope and love and basic human decency in the name of cynicism.
Just think of that.
The people terrified of change -- those are the rebels in God's eyes.
Whereas, the people who listen to Mosca Mye are the faithful followers:
The rewards of that worship are an easing of guilt, a comfortable sloth, but the tithe of that false god is steep indeed.
Today two quotes are warring in my head for primacy. One is brand new, I just read it today, and the other has been on the wall of my classroom for most of my career as a teacher.
The new one is from an article much smarter than it's title:
And cynicism is also a kind of faith: the faith that nothing can change, that those institutions are corrupt beyond all accountability, immune to intimidation or appeal. - Tim Kreider
And with that quote, I finally understand what I pondered about the first reading from Ezekiel on this Sunday in July I'm anticipating so far in advance. Why someone would see clearly that a prophet is in their midst but still do nothing.
Because our faith in God CAN be trumped by our unacknowledged faith in our own powerlessness. In the inevitability of the world's institutions. Even by their rightness. Of our own smallness. Ordinary citizens of Nineveh, believing their city would be destroyed but knowing that their own repentance would do almost nothing to stop it. The terror of being one of the 10 good people in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Or even being Lot, arguing God down from 50 to 10 out of fear that there weren't enough good men out there to turn the tide. Even his cynicism was stronger than his faith in God.
It certainly is the false idol of our modern world and seemingly the ancient world as well. How long have we worshipped this false idol? Since the cavemen days when it was audacious to believe that tribes didn't have to slaughter one another for the best hunting pastures? When individual hunters and gatherers looked around and knew, just KNEW, that there might be a better way but there was no way they could do anything about it?
But God, in Ezekiel, calls this kind of thinking "rebellious people". Rebelling against God, rebelling against His faith in us. Rebelling against his commands to change the world and make it better and stop doing all of this stupid nonsense. Rebelling against hope and love and basic human decency in the name of cynicism.
Just think of that.
The people terrified of change -- those are the rebels in God's eyes.
Whereas, the people who listen to Mosca Mye are the faithful followers:
"The heart of being a radical isn't knowing all the right books. It's not about kings over the sea or the Parliament in the capital. It's...looking at the world around you and seeing all the things that make you sick to your stomach with anger. The things there's no use getting upset about because it's just the way the world always has been and always will be. Then it means getting good and angry about it anyway and kickin' up a hurricane. Because nothing is writ across the sky to say the world must be this way. A tree can grow two hundred years and look like it'll last a thousand more, but when lighting comes at last, it burns, Mr. Appleton." -- Frances HardingeWe think of people like THAT as "rebellious people." But that's how God thinks of the cynics worshipping their false god of inevitability and helplessness.
The rewards of that worship are an easing of guilt, a comfortable sloth, but the tithe of that false god is steep indeed.
Friday, 2 March 2018
Healing of Sick
Mark 6:1-6
This is an appropriate enough line to catch my eye today. Not just because I am STILL sick and STILL trying to get over this ridiculous illness that has officially laid me up for over a week (even if I was in denial the first several days).
But because there are many people in my life just now whom I wish God or some prophet would lay their hands on to heal. That I pray desperately will be all right.
But I don't really believe in that kind of miraculous intervention. I haven't been able to handle believing in it since I prayed for my father not to die.
But here it is: the exception to the rule of Jesus not performing mighty deeds. No grand lessons or parables, no feeding of the five thousand...but He was still able to heal. Despite their lack of faith.
Oh how I pray that He will still heal those who need it despite my lack of faith.
"So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith."
This is an appropriate enough line to catch my eye today. Not just because I am STILL sick and STILL trying to get over this ridiculous illness that has officially laid me up for over a week (even if I was in denial the first several days).
But because there are many people in my life just now whom I wish God or some prophet would lay their hands on to heal. That I pray desperately will be all right.
But I don't really believe in that kind of miraculous intervention. I haven't been able to handle believing in it since I prayed for my father not to die.
But here it is: the exception to the rule of Jesus not performing mighty deeds. No grand lessons or parables, no feeding of the five thousand...but He was still able to heal. Despite their lack of faith.
Oh how I pray that He will still heal those who need it despite my lack of faith.
Thursday, 1 March 2018
A Prophet's Friends and Family
There's a trope in sci fi fantasy stories about the Chosen One and their friends/family who are incapable of seeing that they have a special calling. Or accepting that they're the only ones who can do something.
I think it comes from the family and friends of prophets. Like the ones Jesus, the Messiah Himself, faces in the gospel story I've been obsessing over during Lent.
But what about the opposite? All week, I've been being kept from bad decisions by a patchwork of "Are you insane?" texts from family and friends. Who've convinced me to call in sick with a 102 degree fever because CALL IN SICK WHEN YOU HAVE A 102 DEGREE FEVER DID YOU NOT HEAR THE FIRST PART OF THIS SENTENCE? And to go to the doctor's because YOU HAVE BEEN SICK FOR DAYS, YOU HAVE NO VOICE, AND DID YOU NOT READ THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE? Even my principal sent me home after half a day when I was determined to go in on Tuesday because literally everybody is a better judge of what's good for my health than me when I'm sick. Because apparently the first thing illness does to me is make me stubborn.
Our family and friend networks are supposed to act as the checks and balances on us, right? That's one of the many purposes they serve. So it doesn't take utter misery to make the doctor's appointment? So I don't try to go to a SCHOOL when I'm so contagious the doctor places a face mask on me before completing her exam?
Which is an issue I took with Saint Faustina. Who hated that her Mothers Superior were always trying to shuffle her to another convent because she deferred to LITERALLY EVERYONE even people who told her to confess to crimes she didn't commit...which she would then confess about and cause more drama. And even her loyal confessor was occasionally like, 'You put SHACKLES on your ankles -- who even gave you shackles? Stop that now!"
I can see how that would get tiring, Mothers Superior.
And I thought how lucky she was that she cared so much about deferring to her confessor and her superiors because she was determined to cause self-harm in the name of doing penance for the whole world.
And I have all kinds of feelings about doing penance, especially physical penance, for any other purpose than reminding yourself not to repeat mistakes. As distinct, of course, from actual amends to those you've harmed.
Because Jesus did all of that for us already, right? And I can see trying to take some of that burden away from our Lord on the cross, but I feel like it's also playing at trying to be God. And God asked us to be child-like, not God-like, right?
And I'm sure it's all much more complicated that any of that.
But perhaps there is a time in spiritual development when your social safety net of family and friends tries to call you back from the brink of what looks like insanity.
"Go to the doctor! Don't go into work, are you nuts? Stay home and rest, you're sick!"
How do we non-divine folk figure out when they're keeping us from the brink of serious illness and when they're keeping us from the brink of ecstasy? When our friends and family want desperately to pull us back from what looks like -- and from any sane measurement would probably BE -- a mistake, when what we need to do is follow the will of God?
When are they the necessary check on our stubborn weirdness...and when are they the people who can't see the prophet because they grew up with Him?
I think it comes from the family and friends of prophets. Like the ones Jesus, the Messiah Himself, faces in the gospel story I've been obsessing over during Lent.
But what about the opposite? All week, I've been being kept from bad decisions by a patchwork of "Are you insane?" texts from family and friends. Who've convinced me to call in sick with a 102 degree fever because CALL IN SICK WHEN YOU HAVE A 102 DEGREE FEVER DID YOU NOT HEAR THE FIRST PART OF THIS SENTENCE? And to go to the doctor's because YOU HAVE BEEN SICK FOR DAYS, YOU HAVE NO VOICE, AND DID YOU NOT READ THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE? Even my principal sent me home after half a day when I was determined to go in on Tuesday because literally everybody is a better judge of what's good for my health than me when I'm sick. Because apparently the first thing illness does to me is make me stubborn.
Our family and friend networks are supposed to act as the checks and balances on us, right? That's one of the many purposes they serve. So it doesn't take utter misery to make the doctor's appointment? So I don't try to go to a SCHOOL when I'm so contagious the doctor places a face mask on me before completing her exam?
Which is an issue I took with Saint Faustina. Who hated that her Mothers Superior were always trying to shuffle her to another convent because she deferred to LITERALLY EVERYONE even people who told her to confess to crimes she didn't commit...which she would then confess about and cause more drama. And even her loyal confessor was occasionally like, 'You put SHACKLES on your ankles -- who even gave you shackles? Stop that now!"
I can see how that would get tiring, Mothers Superior.
And I thought how lucky she was that she cared so much about deferring to her confessor and her superiors because she was determined to cause self-harm in the name of doing penance for the whole world.
And I have all kinds of feelings about doing penance, especially physical penance, for any other purpose than reminding yourself not to repeat mistakes. As distinct, of course, from actual amends to those you've harmed.
Because Jesus did all of that for us already, right? And I can see trying to take some of that burden away from our Lord on the cross, but I feel like it's also playing at trying to be God. And God asked us to be child-like, not God-like, right?
And I'm sure it's all much more complicated that any of that.
But perhaps there is a time in spiritual development when your social safety net of family and friends tries to call you back from the brink of what looks like insanity.
"Go to the doctor! Don't go into work, are you nuts? Stay home and rest, you're sick!"
How do we non-divine folk figure out when they're keeping us from the brink of serious illness and when they're keeping us from the brink of ecstasy? When our friends and family want desperately to pull us back from what looks like -- and from any sane measurement would probably BE -- a mistake, when what we need to do is follow the will of God?
When are they the necessary check on our stubborn weirdness...and when are they the people who can't see the prophet because they grew up with Him?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
