Anglican Prayer Beads  Prayer Beads  Anglican Rosary Rosaries  Natural Soap  Handmade Soap

I ate a whole can of olives the other day. Is that bad? It doesn’t seem bad. They’re fruit, right? I’ve never heard anyone refer to olives as fruit, but they're plants and plants are generally good for you. They are very salty, which I think might not be good. Salt is one of those things they used to say was good for you and they even handed out salt tablets to athletes. But then I think they said it was bad for you and everyone was trying to cut down on salt. But now I don’t hear so much about salt anymore. I think its maybe bad but not as bad as, say, eating nothing but fast-food all the time. Compared to that, eating a can of olives might even be kind of good for you.

One would think so anyway.

I can’t keep up with this stuff, to tell you the truth. When I eat I have to look over at my wife and say, “Is this bad for me?” She seems to know about these things.

Take bread for example. Years ago bread was fattening and a thing you had to watch out for. But then everyone said it was red meat you had to avoid. Red meat would clog up your arteries. So bread wasn’t that bad. But then suddenly they said meat was okay as long as you avoided bread completely. And there were those diets where you ate no bread at all or anything even remotely resembling bread.

So bread has been sometimes good and sometimes bad for us. I don’t mean white bread, of course. I think white bread became bad for us sometime back in the 70s and has remained bad ever since. I think it has stayed bad the whole time. That’s okay because Jeanene got me used to wheat bread years ago, and now white bread gives me the creeps. The way you can roll it into little balls and it turns a kind of gray if your hands weren’t all that clean. I never liked that about white bread, even when I was a kid, even before it was bad for us.

Anyway, it seems to me that a guy ought to be able to eat a can of olives and it not be all that bad for him. Not with all the white bread and fast food and sweat shops overseas and the horrible stuff they’re putting all over the internet.

But none of this really matters because when I ate that can of olives, it wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was going to be, so I probably won’t do that again anyway.

When it comes to food, I should probably just move my fork slowly toward things and watch Jeanene for cues. She could give me a nod or or a wince or a strong, stern shaking of the head. Then I would know what things are currently bad for me because, like I said, somehow she just seems to know this stuff.

I’ll tell you another thing I can’t keep straight is the Church. And I went to seminary and even graduated from it. I don’t know how you non-seminary folks are keeping up with what’s good and bad in church.

I remember when I was a kid and taking care of your Bible was a good thing. You got a Bible for a present or something and you wrote your name in it. And you never put things on top of it because that didn’t show respect. And you kept that Bible for a long time because that was YOUR Bible. You kept it for years and it would get all worn and everything, which you were sort of proud of because it showed you were reading it.

But then there were new translations coming out every month or so, and Bibles got cheap to buy and you can even get them in grocery stores now. And also some people said that if you were too devoted to one copy of the Bible it was its own kind of weird idolatry. So now people can pretty much do whatever they want to their Bibles. Toss them around. Lose them and just buy a new Bible. Whatever.

And I remember when all we sang in church were hymns, except at church camp where you could sing all these other cool songs with guitars around the campfire. And then some people started singing some of the campfire songs right in church, which seemed okay. But then others said it wasn’t good because those camp songs supposedly aren't as theological deep and sound as the old hymns. But then the people who liked the camp songs said that they are mostly made of words right out of the Bible, so you can’t exactly say they shouldn’t be sung in church. And then the hymn people grumbled, and the campfire people grumbled, and this is the truth - I don’t know what we should or shouldn’t be singing in church if anything.

To be honest, I don’t think anyone knows quite what to do in church anymore. For years church people told us that homosexuality was evil and not just a sin but a very bad sin. They had us all scared of homosexuals, that we might even become one or something if we were around them. And you just assumed that the Bible was chock-full of commandments about homosexuals and them even going to hell for being that. I mean, you just assumed that because the church people were so sure of themselves and talked about it like it was a fact.

But then some people started reading the Bible very carefully, all the parts people said were about homosexuality. And some of them said, “Oh shit! The Bible hardly says anything about homosexuality at all. And what it does say is pretty hard to understand.” So those people said we should just leave homosexuals alone and let them come to church and let their relationships be between them and God, like all relationships are.

But now, see, the ones who thought homosexuality was a really bad thing were getting tired of the changes. It seemed like you hardly heard a hymn in church anymore, and people were dressing sloppy on Sundays, and women were preaching, and you could hardly find a King James Bible anywhere. So I think they just decided to dig their heels in on this whole homosexuality thing. And it became like a religious war, and it’s gotten so bad that even the Episcopalians are fighting over it. And that’s scary because you expect the Baptists will make fools of themselves over stuff like this, but we’ve always counted on the Episcopalians to keep their wits about them and be careful and never ever allow themselves to get so divided over something that they might actually split their church in two.

I mean, the Episcopalians can be kind of stuffy and all, and who knows what the hell they’re doing with all the chants and walking up and down the aisles before church and what with the banners and all the different colors all the time. But my goodness, they’re the smartest ones of all of us, and if they can’t figure this homosexual thing out, what hope is there for the rest of us?

And all the while people who aren’t in the Church are just standing there watching it all, and they have no idea what all the fuss is about and neither do a lot of us who’ve been in the Church all of our lives. We don’t know either.

Maybe in a few years the Church will be all busted up and the only thing left will be people gathering in small groups here and there, and it might not be anything like it is now.

That’s what Jesus was saying with that stuff he said about the wineskins. How the truth about God cannot be held in old wineskins because they will just burst. And sometimes that’s what happens with the Church. It bursts like a dried-out wineskin and you have to find a new wineskin.

And it’s always hard for the church people who live in a time when the wineskins are bursting. It’s hard on that generation, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing at all but just wait and try to be as true as you can and keep your eyes open for what comes next.

rlp

Mark 2.22 - And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins."

 

The first pastor of our church left rather suddenly in 1992, five years after the church was formed. I was 31 years old, and when the church asked if I would take his place I was happy to do so, though I did not anticipate the troubles that would come with that transition. It's always hard when a beloved pastor leaves a church. There is the grief that comes from the loss of that relationship. And everyone knows that things will likely change with a new minister. It’s a hard time for a church, a time of uncertainty.

When our first pastor left, a number of families left with him. I think we lost about a third of our church in a matter of weeks. That was not a good sign, and I knew it. It was a sign that we had been too dependent on his personality for our identity. I tried not to take the people leaving personally, but I was young and took everything personally. I wondered if their departure might be a sign that they were uncertain about me. I was worried and for good reason. New churches are fragile things. If a new church begins a downward spiral, things can fall apart rather quickly. Some new churches don’t survive because they couldn’t weather their first major crisis. I became anxious and found myself trying hard to keep the remaining families happy so they wouldn’t leave as well.

In truth we were in a difficult spot, but giving in to that kind of anxiety is always a bad move for a minister. However, I was young and doing the best that I could at the time.

All of this happened about the same time that I met rabbi Jonah and his friend Robert in a computer store. I overheard Jonah talking about some kind of Hebrew program. I was interested and asked some questions about it myself. Before I knew it the three of us were having coffee together.

Jonah and Robert were both bound to wheelchairs, Jonah because of polio and Robert because of muscular dystrophy. For the next year or so, I would go to visit them, load them into their van – which was equipped with a wheelchair lift – and drive them around town. We talked about theology, the scriptures, and the relationship between our respective faith traditions. I liked them. Jonah could be a bit overbearing at times, and he was certainly manipulative. I was aware of how he always managed to talk me into doing things for them even as I was letting him get away with it. I had never had friends in wheelchairs before, and I was rather over-anxious to please them and be nice. And, as I said before, I was young and fairly naïve about a number of things.

That Spring I thought it would be nice for our church to have a Passover Seder together. The Passover meal is strictly a Jewish observance, but many Christian churches - recognizing our obvious historical and theological dependency on Judaism - will sometimes have a Seder meal as a kind of religious education exercise.

And, I thought, who better to lead us in this sacred meal than my own rabbi friend, Jonah? When I asked him, Jonah was obviously pleased and readily agreed. At the time Jonah was not serving a congregation, so I thought this would be nice for him. And I thought our church would benefit from the cultural and spiritual exchange. I admit that I was also hoping something like this would help solidify our sense of community as we continued to adjust to the loss of our pastor and the families who left with him. It was all good in my mind. There were no downsides that I could see.

As the time for the Seder grew close, Jonah provided us with a list of supplies and detailed recipes for the various dishes involved in the ceremony. A number of women in our church took the recipes and prepared the food according to his instructions. We had about 30 people planning to attend, which was roughly half of our church at the time. The afternoon before the meal, we setup tables in a church member’s home and made ready for Jonah and Robert’s arrival.

When I got to their house, Jonah and Robert were dressed in their finest clothes and were both wearing ceremonial yarmulkes. We chatted excitedly on the way, and when we arrived everyone crowded around them both, making them feel welcome. The people of our church sort of felt like they knew Jonah because I had mentioned him and the things he had taught me about Judaism in several sermons.

The meal began and Jonah carefully explained the meaning behind all of the symbols and dishes. The Passover Seder is an allegorical meal that commemorates God leading the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Each dish has a specific meaning. The whole thing was fascinating for about 45 minutes. Then the food was gone and Jonah began speaking on a variety of topics, apparently whatever was coming to his mind. Things began to drag a bit. Jonah kept talking. He got lost in what he was saying and wasn’t paying attention to what was happening around him. I noticed people reaching the limits of their attention spans and disconnecting. Children were getting fussy and fidgety. People began to rest their heads in their hands and look around the room. Being ultimately responsible for what happens at church events like this, I began to be very uncomfortable about the deterioration of interest in the room.

Jonah, on the other hand, seemed to have no awareness whatsoever of the feedback their body language was giving him. He was lost in the beauty of his tradition and spoke on and on, his eyes partially closed and his voice a grinding monotone. Twenty minutes turned into thirty minutes and then to forty-five. I kept looking for an opening so that I could break in and draw this thing to a close, but there were no pauses and I couldn’t catch Jonah’s eye.

Finally, just when I thought the people in the room couldn’t stand it any longer, Jonah paused and took a deep breath. Apparently he had reached the end of his long discourse. When everyone sensed he was coming to a close, they reconnected with him. There was no ill will in the group. After all, he was rather elderly and our guest. But still, I could tell that everyone was happy this was finally coming to an end. And so was I.

Jonah looked around the room very deliberately, as if taking measure of the people. Then - and I will never forget this moment if I live to be a hundred - he carefully pressed the fingertips of his two hands together in front of him, and said, “Now, let me explain to you why it is simply not possible that Jesus could be the messiah.”

Having relaxed a bit as he seemed to be coming to a close, these words hit me like a sledgehammer. I felt a rush of panic. I looked around the room to see mouths dropping open. Children were looking curiously at their parents. “Mommy, what’s that man saying about Jesus?” One or two people looked a little angry. A man named Steve, one of our few new members, crossed his arms and looked like someone had suggested to him that our church take up communism and maybe devil worship while we were at it.

If this happened now, I would have stopped him. I would have simply stood up and said, “Jonah, thank you for coming. Time is late and we’d better bring this to a close. Blah blah blah.” No problem. But I was young and nice and anxious, and I had not imagined myself in this position. So Jonah spoke for five or six minutes and explained to us all the reasons why a central truth of Christianity simply could not be true.

I really don’t remember anything that he said. I was too busy looking at the faces of the people and wondering how many of them might not come back. It was one of the most awkward and uncomfortable things I’ve ever sat through. When Jonah finished his diatribe, the evening was over. I felt absolutely miserable. I was the new pastor of this small, still-grieving church, supposedly a gatekeeper of the content of our worship, and I had set this whole thing up. I wondered if there might be an emergency business meeting later that night which would result in me being asked to leave.

I loaded the two of them into their van in the darkness. I didn’t know what to say. I was hurt and angry that he would put me in such an awkward position. I stared straight ahead as I pulled the lever that lifted their chairs up into the van. As I pulled out of the driveway, Jonah said, “Well, I think that went pretty well, don’t you?” I said nothing. I just drove them home.

Apparently it never occurred to Jonah that it might be somewhat offensive to show up as a guest at a Christian church, be given a platform, then say such difficult and frightening things in a group of families with children. I really don't think he had any idea that what he had said was painful for the group. He was lost in the beauty of his tradition and blundered clumsily through ours without thinking much about it.

As it turned out, almost everyone thought it was rather funny. Some saw how bad I felt about the whole thing and felt badly for me. Nothing came of it. Well, Steve and his family left the church, but they were probably going to leave anyway. And honestly, I really didn't mind seeing them go. Steve was a pretty angry guy. Something or other would have eventually pissed him off anyway.

Nothing like that ever happened again with Jonah. He and Robert and I remained friends. I never said anything to him about the event. Maybe I should have, but I don't know what that conversation would have done for anyone.

And maybe it was a good thing for us to have experienced after all. Because Christianity is the dominant religious expression in our culture, Christians are usually on the other side of these situations. We are often the ones who pray at gatherings of Christians, Jews, and others and use the name of Jesus in ways that must make our friends uncomfortable. At every turn, the words and symbols of Christianity blare out of radios and shout from the street corners. Secular people and those of other faiths are often left to stand in silence while our words of faith swirl uncomfortably around them.

Having once been on the painful side of a collision between religious traditions, my suggestion is for all of us is to cultivate a healthy sense of humor and a deliberate tolerance in mixed companies. Our philosophies, theologies, and religious practices are bound to collide sometimes. It's going to happen. And sometimes when it happens, no one meant any harm. Most of us are guilty of mental lapses now and then. Our continued good will and the cultivating of cooperation between religions is far more important than any theological point you might want to make.

And if perchance someone from another tradition says something that rubs you the wrong way, remember that they have no power over you and your faith. Let the event be something that we learn from and not something that tears us apart.

rlp

Note: I first wrote about Jonah and Robert in this story. Later I wrote this. When Jonah died, I wrote about that too.

Passover Seder

 

In the late 90's, when we were planning our first building, we decided against pews, pulpits, and most of the things that mark usual places of worship. We were used to somewhat casual settings, having worshipped in a home, a daycare center, a fire station, a bar, and an elementary school. It's not that we didn't recognize the value of sacred spaces. We just had some different ideas about how sacred spaces might look.

Yes, a bar. It was the Duckblind Lounge, and I'll warrant we were the only Baptist church meeting in a bar at that time.

In the end we opted for a large room with moveable chairs and a fireplace at one end. We had in mind a kind of "retreat center" look and feel.

Click for a larger view

We did have a couple of actual fires in the fireplace during worship in the early days. The unwritten but understood rule was: "If you want a fire, bring wood and build one. But you have to clean up the fireplace afterwards."

That second part of the equation slowed down the fires quite a bit.

I don't remember when I put the candles in the fireplace, but it must have been sometime in 2001. I brought a candle rack and laid it on top of the heavy, iron bars that held the firewood. Since then we've had a fireplace full of candles. For years we bought matching sets of candles, and I must say that they looked very nice.

But recently I noticed that my candle cabinet was full of odds and ends. There were candle stubs from this season or that, unused candles, candles from weddings and parties, and some candles I'd never seen before. I don't even know how they got there. So I loaded up the fireplace with a variety of candles from our past. Different colors, different shapes, some kind of new and others almost used up.

I thought it looked rather nice, myself. It kind of reminded me of looking out into the congregation on a Sunday morning.

I few weeks ago I invited the children of our church to bring a candle from home and put it into the fireplace. "You could have your own candle," I said. So candles started appearing. The first was Madeline's candle. Madeline, who just turned four, has rather captured my heart these days. But then, I was a little vulnerable, having realized that there are no more little girls in my own home. Sloan brought the next candle, then Anna brought one.

Yes, this is the same Anna from my CC essay, "The Gospel According to Anna." You can view the actual manuscript of Anna's gospel here. Don't miss the footnotes.

Next appeared a candle that had been owned by Barbara, who died a couple of years ago. Then some candles from a wedding showed up. I added a pink candle stub from Advent 1997 that I had been saving in my office. With all of this new activity, I thought I'd better keep a photographic log.

Click for a larger view

Honestly, I had no theological reasons for putting candles in our fireplace. Like much that I do, I was just following a whim. BUT, as I am watching the fireplace change, it does occur to me that the candles in our fireplace make up a splendid symbol of our community. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some burn brightly, while others slowly flicker and die out. Each one appears in its own time and for its own reasons, and all of them contribute to the whole.

The body of Christ.

rlp

 

When I began Real Live Preacher, my great fear was that somehow my writing might harm our church. We were a small community. If a number of families left because of the perceived heresy or vulgarity of the pastor, that would hurt us. It hurts when friends leave the church. There is also a financial risk if you alienate people at a small church. If the budget is tight and three or four families leave, we would be in trouble. The leaders who deal with our budget would be stressed if we suddenly found it hard to pay the electric bill.

So that was scary.

I was also worried that fear would stifle my writing, convincing me to play it safe. Was I prepared to accept the consequences of looking deeply into my own heart and writing about what I found there? The anonymity of the early days gave me just enough courage to give it a try. When that anonymity fell apart, I cringed and waited, but somehow my world did not collapse and neither did the church. There were a few uncomfortable moments, but everyone was okay.

For a time, my blog and my church were in separate worlds. I never mentioned Real Live Preacher at church. It was common knowledge that I had a blog, but I didn’t talk about it on Sunday. If I felt like using the word fuck or expressing some honestly held but admittedly edgy theology at Real Live Preacher, I did. I knew people in my church read the blog, but I tried not to think about how they might react to my writing.

Someone once asked me what has causes the most controversy at Real Live Preacher. Without a doubt it is my occasional use of the word fuck. I don’t know why, but that word represents the crossing of some boundary of vulgarity that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable. I don’t like to use that word, and I don’t use it very often. I always try to find some other way to express myself, but sometimes – just sometimes – only the word fuck will do.

Whenever I use that word I think about my mother-in-law, who reads my blog now. I love her, and I know she loves me. That word bothers her; it probably even hurts her to read it because she wonders what kind of a man would use that sort of language. And I am married to her daughter and the father of her grandchildren, so she cares what kind of man I am. You don’t want to write things that hurt or trouble people who love you unless it is truly necessary. I hate having to choose between writing something with all the power and punch that I feel it deserves and troubling my mother-in-law. But that is the choice I often face.

It helped me to think of the two parts of my life as existing in separate worlds. It was like a grand game of denial. Swallow hard and write. Then don’t talk about it at church or with your mother-in-law. I was happy to keep those worlds apart. If you look at the banner of my blog, the little man in the robe is me, trying to keep two worlds from colliding.

Then something interesting began happening. Occasionally someone would show up at our church because of Real Live Preacher. I remember the first time it happened. A handful of “Real Live Preacher readers,” as they described themselves, drove down from Austin one Sunday morning. The writer in me was flattered, but it was also a little frightening. Still, it’s not as though we can put a sign on our door that says, “Everyone is welcome EXCEPT those who read Gordon’s blog.”

As the months went by, more people came to our church because they had read Real Live Preacher. It became a fairly common occurrence. Some of them wanted to see something that I had written about, like George's rock, or the big cedar tree behind the church. I was a little uncomfortable with this, but nothing bad happened. I got used to it and stopped worrying about it. So what if people come to our church and want to look at a tree or something. Why should I care?

Things began accelerating in December of last year. One Sunday we had nine visiting families. At least half of them found out about our church through my blog. A few of these families have now joined the church, and a couple of others will probably do so before long. For years I put out 70 chairs each Sunday, but now I have to put out 100, which is all we have. We have some folding chairs in case we need them, but yes, we’re out of chairs. I guess we’ll have to buy some more.

I’ve been watching these developments carefully, pondering them and asking myself what all of it means. I’ve decided it doesn’t mean much. People show up at church for all sorts of reasons. How they got there really isn’t that important.

I have noticed something though. I don’t know if it is good or bad, and it really doesn’t matter since I can’t control it anyway. Real Live Preacher may have become a kind of filter for our church. Some church people put a lot of stock in the beliefs, public presence, and life of their pastor. If someone is uncomfortable with either the theology or the occasionally stark honesty of Real Live Preacher, they might not come to our church at all. Or if they come, they might not stay. On the other hand, here are these people who are coming specifically because they like the theology and stark honesty of RLP.

If indeed Real Live Preacher has become a filter for our church, then my blog will change the nature of Covenant Baptist Church over time. I don't want that kind of power. The only thing that makes this situation even palatable is that I never asked for this, and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.

Worlds are colliding, and there is nothing I can do. The world of my writing and the world of my church have ground together slowly, like one galaxy passing through another. This may be good news, bad news, or just plain news, but stopping the collision is definitely out of my hands at this point.

Whaddya gonna do?

Recently I had lunch with a visiting family after church. Their son told them about Real Live Preacher, and they began reading it. Months went by, and they decided to show up on a Sunday morning. Lunch was enjoyable. They seem like the sort of people who need to find us. I noticed how relaxed I was with then, chatting about our church or Real Live Preacher, almost as if there was no longer any boundary between my writing and my life as a pastor.

Good thing? Bad thing? Just a thing?

I don’t know. What does it matter? It’s happening, and as usual, I feel that I am just on for the ride.

Who knows where this is going?

 

Rlp

 

Once I opened my eyes during a prayer in church and saw a man named Jim picking his nose. I mean REALLY picking it. Digging deep for whatever he was hoping to find there. As if she sensed something, his wife opened her eyes and turned to look at him. I watched her face to see if she would laugh or be disgusted. She did neither. She simply stared at him with no expression. Occasionally her eyes would move to some other part of his face, his chin or his hairline, as if she was trying to evaluate the whole man and not just this one embarrassing part of him.

Good for her. Isn’t that what we all need and hope for in a spouse?

Jim was blissful and unashamed, apparently confident that he was in his own private world now that his eyes were shut. His hand moved back and forth as he worked the angles.

Finally, satisfied that she had seen as much as she needed to see and knew as much as she needed to know, his wife calmly closed her eyes and went back to praying. Jim kept on picking until the prayer was over. He popped his finger out of his nose quickly after the amen and gravely evaluated the order of worship to see what sacred event was up next.

So okay, Jim’s wife knows some things about him now, doesn’t she? She knows the energy he will put into this earthy little human task, and she knows how easily he can forget the world and get lost in his own private place. Hey, there are worse things you can know about a man.

You might think I’m crazy here, but maybe Jim picking his nose was a kind of prayer in itself. God knows we pick our noses. Sometimes you have to. Jesus mentioned coming to the Kingdom of Heaven like a child. Well, Jim was about as child-like as anyone I’ve ever seen, at least during that prayer.

This is church. Sure the high and mighty stuff happens too. People’s lives are changed in an instant when a gospel truth somehow penetrates the tough armor that we have forged for ourselves. People are healed physically or emotionally and are forever changed. Others are not healed and are forever puzzling and seeking and sad about that. The human stuff happens here - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Church is a human place. It is a place where humans get together, right in the middle of our humanity, and look beyond ourselves in praise of whatever created this flesh we carry so awkwardly.

Ironically, it’s not the presence of rank humanity at church that causes problems. Jim picking his nose didn’t hurt anyone. No, people mostly get hurt at church when we start pretending that we can be more than human – that’s when the bad stuff starts happening.

Because we can’t.

 

rlp

 

Children are so soft. Their skin is fragrant and pure, like baby leaves. Their minds are eager and ready, their hearts are trusting and open, and their eyes will lead you softly to the very bottom of their souls.

Children know God because God can be found in the soft places of the world. In mother’s hands and in father’s soft shirts. In laughter and at dinner and in the goose bumps that rise when lips slide across skin.

It is a terrible thing when soft, childish flesh meets the hard steel of religion. We cut through children like butter. In our collective unconscious there is a swishing sound. It is the sound of the swords of Herod’s men rising and falling on the children of Bethlehem.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.

Take a deep breath now, and free your mind. Do you remember when your spiritual softness was taken from you?

Did it happen at church?

What sort of church was it? Was it a brick building in the suburbs? Was it a synagogue or a mosque or a cathedral? Was it the secret church of one man’s desire, or the feral church of neglected children? Was it the cold sanctuary of science that stole your myths and left you wounded and empty and suckling at the stars? Or did you construct your own lonely chapel, like Saint Frances, barefoot and one stone at a time?

I was wounded along the way. It happens to everyone. Life is hazing. It’s one big rite of passage from beginning to end. I grew tough as leather, deeply protected, calloused, and hard. But I worked my leather with the oil of my hands and with tears and time until I became soft again. And soft, worn leather is such a comfort to have and to hold.

Now I guard children’s hearts against all religions, sacred and secular. I will throw myself at you, church man. Stay away from that child’s mind. Let her be a pagan; let her be a skeptic, a scientist, or a saint. Let her be any or all of these, but for God’s sake, let her be.

Let her be because her soul was never yours for the taking. If you lay your hands on her, she will grow hard, and still she will not be yours. But if you love her and let her and listen to her and allow her, one day she may return from the far country, fully grown and newly wise.

And soft, still soft. And strong, so strong.

rlp

To the middle sister, my string of pearls,

That’s a big heart you’re dragging around these days, and you’ve only just discovered how hard life can be.

Play the hand you were dealt.

Be soft.
Be true.
Be strong.
Be you.

-Daddy

 

Covenant Baptist Church Advent Set
3-sided rectangle with diagonal aisles and 2-chair offset rows
Click for larger view

I've been setting up chairs at our church since 1991. When I began, we were meeting in temporary places—a school, a fire station, and even a bar for a time. Setting up chairs and taking them down after worship is routine business for migrant churches.

I have handled many chairs over the years. There were the fancy wooden chairs at the Duck Blind Lounge. I used to set them up in three rows around three sides of the dance floor, facing the bar. If you got bored during my sermon, you could check out the variety of beers available on tap or look at the sign that told you when happy hour began.

You don't see that in church very often...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

a Christian Magazine 
Christian Writing

rlp

 

Update 12-16!! - Okay, the bid stands at $200. Um, I have no response to that. The questions people are asking are funny, but not nearly as funny as Reggie's outrageous answers.

Well, yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, an event that poses administrative/organizational challenges to churches everywhere. And no church is more challenged in this way than Covenant Baptist Church, where we have no paid organizers and the administration is mostly left up to me. People who know me cannot stop laughing when I tell them that.

Well this year we've gone all out for Advent, in spite of the administrative challenges. We even had an Advent committee to help pull it off. And because of their efforts, our worship service yesterday was packed with all sorts of things we normally don't do. Various people were popping up here and there to read scriptures or pray. The music was from fancy, high church hymnals. There were booklets, banners, a world hunger display, and a food basket. And even little rice bowl banks to be handed out to the children, so they can save their pennies to buy food for the needy.

Was I stressed about things? Let me just say this: I had to create a spreadsheet to help me keep track of all the people who have various roles in worship during the Advent season.

A spreadsheet. Me. Yeah.

So of course, the three sisters and I got completely confused and what followed can only be called a comedy of errors.

Let's begin with me. Dressing in the dark yesterday morning, I mistakenly put on an orange t-shirt, which wouldn't be so awful except that I wasn't wearing a tie so you could see it peeking out of my open collar. I got a few comments. But it was chilly, so I didn't want to take off the t-shirt.

My next problem was with my spreadsheet. I did contact over 20 people to find out which Sundays they were available for assorted liturgies, readings, prayers, etc. And I did sort their names and put them in various slots on various Sundays in my spreadsheet thingy.

But I neglected to actually call people back and tell them they were up for this Sunday. So I spent the half hour before church running here and there, pressing printed readings into people's hands and telling them when their part of the service would occur. It was exactly the sort of out-of-control, running around, panicked sort of thing that I hate and try to avoid. Still, I got everything and everyone settled and worship began. Then the three sisters decided this was their Sunday to have various meltdowns of their own. The preacher's family, otherwise known as the keystone cops.

Before I go any further, keep in mind that ours is a small church. There were probably 75 people in the room, and the seats were arranged around a central table. Everyone is close to the action and can see everything.

Now Shelby, the middle sister, showed up to church, having spent the night at a friend's house, wearing the jeans she normally paints in. These jeans are covered in paint, and she's not supposed to wear them to church. She arrived early, and I made her call her mother to bring her another pair of jeans. She was pretty chapped about this, but I was in no mood for negotiation. Jeanene brought her a decent pair of jeans, but instead of changing into them, she put the new pair on over the old pair. Unfortunately she couldn't zip or even snap the jeans, which was apparently not a problem in her mind. She just walked around with her jeans gaping open. And it was not readily apparent that she had another pair of jeans on beneath them. I mean, why would anyone even imagine that she would?

As it turns out, Shelby and Chloe were going to lead the children's part of the service, where they were going to talk about world hunger and pass out the rice bowl banks. Shelby walks to the front of the church, turns around, and that's when we see that her pants are wide open. I mean, you've seen people forget to zip their pants, right? When was the last time you saw someone forget to zip and button their pants? Jeanene and I gestured wildly for her to pull her sweater down over her pants, whereupon she threw up her hands dramatically and mouthed, "What?"

Nice. Very classy. That fit so well with the rich, Christian symbols and traditions of the season.

Oh well, thankfully that was over soon, and the service moved forward.

Then there came a time in the service where people wrote prayer requests on little slips of paper, solemnly brought them to the table with the Advent wreath, and deposited them in a plate. My oldest daughter, Reiley, obviously not paying attention at all to what was going on, walked up to the plate and dropped a five dollar bill on top of the pile of folded papers, drawing snickers and puzzled looks from a number of people. Her fiver sat there atop the pile of prayer requests, looking as out of place as a turd on the kitchen table. Well, maybe not that out of place, but you get my meaning.

I had a thought that maybe she wrote her prayer request on the five dollar bill. Perhaps her request was for the poor, and she was backing up her prayers with cold, hard cash. But no, later she admitted that she was daydreaming and thought it was time for the offering.

Hey, that's no big deal. A little money mixed in with the prayers. The Church has been doing that kind of thing for centuries.

But wait, I have yet to tell you of the third sister's contribution to the day. She is the youngest, but she outdid them all.

Lillian was sitting on one of the three rows that surround the table with the Advent wreath. Suddenly, she fell out of her chair. I mean, all the way out of her chair onto the floor. Mind you, this is just a normal chair. And she wasn't standing on her head or doing anything strange. She just pitched forward and fell onto the floor right beside the table. No big deal, right? I mean, people fall down sometimes. It happens.

A few minutes later, she did it again. She flopped forward like someone had shoved her in the back and landed on the tile floor with her shoes and whatever she was holding clattering and scrapping across the floor. It was loud, and it brought the service to a stop.

"That's weird," I thought. "Falling out of your chair twice."

Then she did it again. This is the truth. This poor child fell out of her chair three times. Everyone was thinking, "What the hell is going on with that crazy girl?" Well, I was thinking that. I assume others were.

At this point, we still have not established exactly what happened to her and why she found it so difficult to sit in a chair. I asked her that afternoon, but I found it impossible to follow her lengthy and rambling answer. My mind doesn't work well on Sundays after the service.

So this is church. You work hard to make things run smoothly, but sometimes the more you work, the more things go wrong. I probably needed to laugh and relax a little anyway. I'm sure there is a spiritual lesson for me in here somewhere, but I have yet to figure it out.

rlp

A memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor

Barbara Brown Taylor is a beautiful writer. She has clarity, simplicity, and depth. She is also a beautiful thinker. And that shows in her writing as well. That's why I own every book she's ever written.

My reading has suffered since I began writing seriously. I have less energy for reading, so I am careful with my choices. I’ve been avoiding church books these days in favor of serious literature that feeds the writer in me. But when I saw that Taylor’s memoir was out, I had to have it.

Behold, here is a Barbara Brown Taylor that is new to me. She is very vulnerable in this book, confessing her motives and insecurities and allowing us to walk with her as she tries to deal with them. Her struggles are the classic struggles of every pastor. She worries about her power and how she uses it;  she worries about what people think of her; and she worries about her church and its identity. Most of all, she wonders how to maintain her own growing faith in the middle of working to support the faith of others.

Some may wonder why a seasoned minister like Taylor still struggles with these things. But I am an insecure minister myself. And I know what it is like to write with some sophistication, but still worry about what people think about you. I feel a kinship with her in this regard.

Ministers can feel dehumanized at times. This happens in part because we court our righteous image and in part because the people in the pews want to see nothing but our image. Taylor describes a church party where people were pushing each other into a pool. No one would push the minister in, of course, so there she stood watching everyone else in the water. But then someone gave her a shove and she found herself in the water with all the rest of us. I found myself struggling with tears as I thought about my own life and how many times I have wished I could be “a regular person.”

Barbara Brown Taylor left church to find her faith. Not THE Church, of course, but the little church, the shaky and wobbling shadow of The Church that is every local congregation. She left the center of religion and moved to the wilderness, and there she found the presence of God had not left her after all.

I would say this to you. This is a book about leaving church. And if you never find a way to leave church, you might have a hard time finding God.

rlp

Note: Viva Books is offering this book at 30% off retail on their website. Click here for more info...

 

Back in the early 90s, a man named John was a member of our church. He was a professional man, with a wife and two sons. Sam was in high school, and Teddy was in middle school. Both boys played football. His wife Allison was beautiful and very involved with a number of local civic organizations. This was the life they had imagined. Things were working out just as they had planned.

And then a doctor told John that he had a large, inoperable tumor in his abdomen. Chemotherapy and radiation were options, but the doctor was not overly optimistic.

We who were his church were shocked and saddened. We prayed with John and Allison, hoping that the treatments would work and that God would grant them some kind of miracle. But as time went by, it became clear that the treatments were not working. The tumor did not decrease in size.

The people of our church are committed to prayer. Prayer is a sacred part of our spiritual tradition, and it is an important part of our covenant with each other. Even when do not understand what is happening, we give ourselves to the discipline of prayer. We put the best we have into it.

We are also aware that most of the time God allows things to take their natural course. When last I checked, the death rate was holding steady at 100%. So no matter how many miracles you name and claim, at some point your prayers for healing will be answered with a no.

John continued his treatments. We prayed and waited with them. At the suggestion of a friend, he and his family visited another church in a nearby city. This church, they were told, believed very strongly in healing. In fact, they believed in healing so much that they would claim their miracles ahead of time. Their idea was that God promises health and healing in the Bible. So if your faith is strong enough, you can claim your miracle before you even receive it. This claiming was thought by the people of that church to be evidence of strong faith. Doubt, on the other hand, was evidence of a lack of faith.

I will admit that there are places in the Bible that say that having faith is an important part of praying. I will also tell you that these few passages ought to be read along with the rest of the Bible's witness on prayer and not read in isolation and improperly emphasized.

John and Allison were fairly desperate, as you can imagine, so they left our church and joined the church that emphasized claiming miracles and healing. They weren’t angry with us. But this other church was saying things that were giving them hope. And I’m sure that after all the bad news, any kind of hope felt good to them.

A few weeks after they joined the other church, John announced that a miracle had happened. He had been healed of his cancer. Their church celebrated, and there was even an article about it in the local newspaper. The title of the article was, “I Am Healed!” The only catch was, their doctor was still feeling the tumor when he palpated John’s abdomen. He tried to tell John that the tumor was still there, but John would hear nothing of it. At the encouragement of his church, neither John or Allison would even talk about the tumor. Nor were their boys allowed to speak of it. Even admitting the presence of the tumor might be seen by God as a lack of faith. If they wanted to receive a miracle from God, it was critical that they have no doubts whatsoever.

As far as I know, John boldly claimed that he had been healed right up until the day the tumor killed him.

I attended the funeral, which was held at their new church. Everyone seemed very upbeat. They celebrated John’s life, as of course they should have. Then the pastor rose to speak. He looked down from his pulpit at John’s family, and he had this to say:

“Allison, Sam, and Teddy, don’t cry for John. You have no reason to cry because he’s not dead. I know the doctors say he is dead. I know that everyone thinks he is dead, but he’s not.”

This got everyone’s attention. I know I sat up a little straighter when I heard it. Then the pastor continued:

“John is alive right now in heaven with Jesus. And because he is in heaven, he's happier now than ever before. You have no reason to cry. Smile and be happy. You’ll see John again one day in heaven.”

Oh, alive in heaven. You could feel the people settling back into their seats. Well, yeah, he’s alive with Jesus, but he's still dead here on earth. That’s why they put him in that fancy box at the front of the church.

Being with Jesus in heaven is also a part of our theology, and it has a proper place in a Christian funeral, certainly. But heaven should never be used to talk people out of their grief.

I thought to myself, “My God, these boys were not allowed to talk about their father’s cancer. They were not allowed even to admit the reality of it. They were allowed no preparation for his death. And now that their father is dead, they aren't allowed to cry. Even crying is seen as a lack of faith."

Before the service ended, Allison, Sam, and Teddy rose and walked down the aisle to the back of the church. When Sam went by me, I saw that his teeth were clinched and his face was rigid. His eyes were moist, but his chin was held high, and his face was so hard. You can tell a lot about the state of a person’s soul if you look at the way his jaw is set in his face.

I’m not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but some wisdom is given me. I think I can tell you what happened to Sam in the months and years that followed. Sam swallowed his own grief. He squeezed it down his gullet and into his abdomen, which is the place where men often store their sorrows. He swallowed his pain because men do that and because he was told that denying his grief was a Godly thing to do. And there, in the pit of his stomach, his grief became an emotional bezoar, knotted and tortured and matted with undigested sorrow.

Religion that denies the body becomes sick and cancerous. Sam will have hard grief work to do because his church would not help him with it. Grief will not be denied. Sam's sorrow will not go away but will remain in his belly, a tumor that no doctor can feel.

And someday he will have to cough that fucker up.

rlp

What the heck is a bezoar and how do you pronounce it?

Jason Byassee has an article in the current issue of Christian Century that interests me. He gives his impression and analysis of Jacob's Well, an emergent church in Kansas City.

The emergent and postmodern movement within Christianity is nothing new for ministers, but if you are not a part of the Church, you might not know about it. I think a revolution is happening. I don't think the current forms of the emergent movement are any more sacred than any that came before, but clearly many within the church are shrugging off a lot of excess baggage.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on Jacob's Well.

Here are some thoughts/questions I have about the emergent Christian movement:

First, I think if you are trying to be postmodern, you aren't postmodern. Be yourself. Do what you think is right and leave the results up to God, or whatever you want to call the intelligence behind the Cosmos. Emergent Christian churches have this feel to me. I like that. I notice that many people who attend Jacob's Well have never heard of Brian McLaren. That's a good thing.

Second, I like the emphasis on practice along with theology. This is an approach to spirituality that makes sense to people. And anyone who thinks practice and devotion are less important than doctrine has not been reading the gospels.

Finally, I like the idea that at Jacob's Well, you don't begin with doctrines and eventually find your way into the community. Instead, you can become a part of the community and see where it takes you. My friend George became a Christian in just such a way.

a Christian Magazine 
Christian Writing

rlp

 

Six minutes on the back porch with Real Live Preacher.
Because my memory card only holds six minutes of video.
And because six minutes is plenty long enough for anyone.

rlp

Perils of the Open Door

Let's face it. Christianity is a spectacular means to an end. We have a power structure that is open and accessible to people who have not earned or been granted much power from our culture. In local churches, there is money to be made, power to be had and opportunities to be seized. A man or woman who may not be successful in the business world can be chairman of the deacons, head of the parish committee or a member of the board of directors.

For some, Christianity is only the means to an end, and whenever that happens, things turn ugly...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

a Christian Magazine 
Christian Writing

rlp

Tom is back. With a vengeance. Long time RLP readers may remember Tom. He's my minister friend whose wife left him. Then his church fired him because they were too holy and righteous to have a divorced minister in their church. And you know what? I have no quarrel with their right to their own theology and practice. Their theology is their business, and they must do church in a way that seems right to them. But they fired Tom immediately and with no sensitivity to what that would do to his life and his ability to make a living. Boom. You're fired. You're out. Their actions were punitive and angry. They could have let him resign, but they didn't. And a Baptist minister who is fired might as well find a new way to make a living. Tom sells insurance now, which is a good living and honorable, but it's not his vocation. It's not where his heart lies. In his heart he is a pastor, a shepherd.

Tom limped into our church after his life fell apart. We all fell in love with him and his three kids. And he fell in love with us. Now it's hard to remember what church was like before he came. For a long time he was angry, and he didn't think he would ever be interested in being a minister again.

But now Tom is back. He does almost all the weddings at our church. He preaches sometimes, helps lead a contemplative ministry we are developing, and teaches Bible classes now and then.

Click for larger image

That's him in the back, the guy in the robe flashing peace signs. Maybe in the first photo he did rabbit ears behind the people in front of him and then raised his hands for the second photo. I wasn't there, so I can't be sure. Knowing Tom, anything could be true.

The thing is, Tom doesn't put up with church shit anymore. He's taken the worst a church can dish out, but he still believes there is the potential for grace and beauty in a spiritual community. He doesn't play church games these days, though he will take a silly picture after he does your wedding, if you want him to. If Tom does your wedding, you have to be ready for a man who will never again take religious stuff too seriously. He may have taken church too seriously once, but never again.

But I don't really care about any of that. I look at this picture and my heart feels like it is going to burst in my chest. Because Tom is back, and I love him.

rlp

p.s. - Tom is cool with me posting this.

I’ve read the Da Vinci Code. I plan on seeing the movie, which I hear is better than the book. I liked the book. It was a fun read.

I have no interest in discussing Dan Brown’s scholarship or lack thereof. Anyone who paid attention in seminary has heard of these extra-biblical sources and knows that Mr. Brown’s book is an adventure story and not a biblical or historical treatise. The Da Vinci Code has roughly the same relationship to biblical and church history that James Bond has to the world of secret agents. And hey, what’s wrong with that? It’s a good read. Like a Clancy novel.

If you would like a more careful analysis of the claims that Dan Brown makes in The Da Vinci Code, you should drop by The Christian Century. Their last issue dealt with this subject very thoroughly. Take a look here, here, here, and here.

I’m interested in two larger issues that this whole Da Vinci Code debacle has brought to my mind. The first is interesting, but the second is more important.

First, when will religious groups finally figure out that publicly denouncing a book or a movie is the surest way to guarantee its success? Religious people never seem to understand that the world is filled with people who do the exact opposite of whatever they suggest. Hell, I'm one of those people myself. If I hear that church people hate a movie, I'm in line for tickets on opening day. Has the Church forgotten Salman Rushdie? Would any of us know that name if he hadn’t been condemned by the Muslims? Has the Church forgotten Martin Scorcese’s movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ?” In that case, the Church in America single-handedly turned a mediocre movie into a blockbuster hit.

Nice move Church. Perhaps you should have added some basic chess lessons to your seminary curriculum.

But whatever. If the Church wants to make a lot of money for Dan Brown and Ron Howard, what do I care? Both the book and the movie will be off the radar in a few months. Nothing will have changed.

The second thing I’d like to mention is more important for the Church to consider. Christianity is a major, world-wide religion. It is 2000 years old and is the largest common expression of spirituality in the history of humanity. Does the Christian Church really need to worry about a book and a movie? These things are here today and gone tomorrow, almost literally. The Christian Church has withstood the Roman Empire, medieval Christianity, and the Age of Enlightenment. Somehow the Church even manages to survive its most dangerous challenge - scandal, decadence, and corruption within its ranks. Will Dan Brown now topple us?

I understand a carefully worded response to scholarly inaccuracies, but I don't understand the anger, the outrage, and the hoopla. Anything more than a gentle, factual correction is as silly as if George Bush were to show up at Patooka Elementary School with the secret service because a 4th grader said something mean about him. It's as silly as if Ron Howard and Tom Hanks were to show up at my door, screaming at me for lifting a Da Vinci Code graphic from their website. Why would they bother? What threat am I to them?

The best and only appropriate response for the Church is to be about the business of the Church. Don't we have, I don't know, CHURCH things to be doing? Or even better, human things to be doing? If our love of humanity was as radical as Jesus called it to be, then we would never have to say a word.

In my mind, every time the Church responds to something like this with angry words, it is a bold indictment of our lack of active love, and therefore lack of relevance in this world.

rlp

Salman Rushdie
The Last Temptation of Christ 

Being a rambling account of nausea, preaching, mother's day, evil, and a few other subjects. It's too long, covers too many subjects, would be rejected if I submitted it to any decent publication, and is probably very self-indulgent, blah blah blah.

I was strangely ill last week. I say strangely because any illness seems strange to me. I'm one of those people who rarely get sick. I will admit I've been pretty smug about that over the years, though I don't know why. It's not like I have anything to do with being sick or not being sick. I just sit here in my skin and take whatever comes to me. I guess we all do that.

So anyway Tuesday, out of the blue, I got severely nauseous. I don't have a lot of experience with nausea. I haven't thrown up since I was a small child. They tell me I threw up on my teddy bear when I was three. Apparently, it was so disgusting that teddy had to be thrown away. I'm sure it was traumatic as hell, though I don't remember anything about it. Maybe after that I just decided to opt out of the whole throwing up thing. However it happened, I don't throw up. I can't. I don't even know how to get started with it. It looks to me like some sort of heaving of the chest precedes the event itself, but I couldn't tell you for sure. I will tell you this - by Tuesday afternoon, I wanted to throw up badly. I wanted to, but I never did. Instead I just rolled around in bed for about 7 hours, trying to find a comfortable position.

Did you know that there is no position that is comfortable when you are nauseous? None. I tried them all.

I was plagued by this strange, unexpected nausea all week long. Wednesday wasn't so bad. Thursday was another rolling around in bed day. Having lost two complete days, I was nowhere near ready for the sermon on Sunday morning. I got to church early with a page of scribbled notes and a general idea of where I was going. I had to throw the entire sermon together in a couple of hours. You can get away with that kind of thing if it's an emergency and if you normally do your work. But if you try it too often, you will not survive. Preaching every week is something you can't fake your way through. Fakers have a few years of sermons, and then they move on to another church. That's how you spot fake preachers, in case you were wondering. Lot's of shuckin, jivin, and movin on.

I got the sermon together, I guess, but I was anxious and uptight all morning. Somewhere in the middle of the delivery I sort of lost the sense of what I was doing. I can follow my notes and plod through a sermon, but I like to be emotionally connected to what I'm talking about. That emotional connection is critical to preaching. And it's another thing you can't fake unless you just give up and become completely evil. And I'm trying to adopt Google's motto for my preaching - "Don't be evil."

I figure it's the least I can do.

Anyway, while I was speaking and looking at my friends out there in the chairs, the sermon began to feel heavy and disconnected. The paragraphs, transitions, and various sections became isolated and alone in my mind. They felt like slabs of heavy beef coming down a conveyor belt. I unloaded each one in turn, but the whole thing never came together for me. I assume I made reasonable sense. I hope so. But if not, I've probably earned an off Sunday.

Look, if one of my sermons is good or if it meant something to you, then I'm happy about that. If my sermon was bad or boring, just consider it penance. We all probably need penance now and then. So you can endure my sermon or crawl up some stairs on your knees like they do in Rome. Your choice.

Oh, Sunday was also Mother's Day. I was over at Spidey's blog and read about what happened at her church. That got me thinking about Mother's Day and churches. I have mixed feelings about recognizing this holiday during worship. I've been to churches that go way overboard with this. All the mothers get corsages, and sometimes they all stand up in the worship service. Then the preacher says, "If you've been a mother less than 10 years, sit down." A bunch of young women sit down. Then he says, "Okay, less than 20 years sit down." They keep doing this until only one woman is standing, the woman who has been a mother longer than anyone else. She gets some flowers or maybe just everyone claps for her and looks real happy. I don't know, that kind of thing seems surreal to me. And it can lead to the awkward situation where you have some woman praying that another woman will finally die so that SHE can be the oldest mother in the church next year.

You laugh, but that kind of thing happens.

In the short history of our church, there have been two women among us who were unable to have children and were deeply grieved about it. Maybe in larger churches you can get busy and caught up in the day and forget about that kind of thing. But in a small spiritual community, it's rather hard to miss. So I've always been aware that Mother's Day is a very sad day for many women. Some never had children and that grief has dominated their adult lives. Others have lost children or perhaps never married and have no reasonable hope for having a child. I don't know, to me it has always seemed like a day when the mothers get yet another blessing, while the heart-broken woman on the back row of the church dies inside one more time. The whole thing reminds me of the kind of person who goes on and on and on about how great her children are and how they have straight A's and are perfect and all that stuff. Of course, she's talking to her friend whose children are making horrible grades and have all sorts of problems, but she just prattles on, either unaware or unconcerned about how this is making her friend feel.

Have you ever known someone like that? I have. And I'm sad to say it, but churches are often like that. All the shiny happy people are handing out awards and celebrating this or that. You can make the broken people feel even more broken if you're not careful. That would be bad enough, but it's even worse if you consider that the basic message of Christianity is that we're ALL broken and need help.

Mother's Day isn't a Christian holiday anyway, so in my mind it deserves at most a quick mention and perhaps a prayer. And the prayer had better be the most inclusive prayer you can come up with. A prayer for mothers, and for the women who have been like mothers to children in need, and also some kind of careful and solemn recognition that every joy, even the joy of being a mother, has its dark side. For every joyous heart, there is someone crying and alone.

So I did my Mother's Day prayer on Sunday like I do every year. I tried to say everything that needed to be said, but you can never pull that off. You can never get that prayer worded right. There really aren't words that can speak for the joy and the sorrow of mothers. And I wasn't at my best anyway, coming off a week spent mostly in a nauseous haze. I kind of stumbled through the whole service, if you want to know the truth. I can't remember what I said during the Mother's Day prayer. It was probably okay.

When the service was over I retreated quickly to my office and didn't come out until everyone was gone. Wow, it's been a long time since I did that. In the old days, sometimes I would close the door to my office after church and pray that no one would come knocking. It's okay. I needed to retreat, so I did. I doubt anyone noticed. And hey, I'll be back next Sunday. I'm in this for the long haul, not for the quick fix.

Well, Sunday is over and gone. And I can now look at it with a new perspective, almost as if Sunday was preserved in a jar. Looking closely at it, I can see that last Sunday is a clear reminder to me that the Church must be a place of both joy and sorrow. It has to be a place where friends celebrate but never forget each other's pain. It has to be a place where you can shake hands and laugh, or retreat to a back room and cry. Joy and sorrow. They are never very far apart.

You know you are a part of an authentic, spiritual community when you can hide and you can't hide. You can run to a back room or sob on the back row, and people will give you the space and privacy you need. But at the same time you hear the Word of the Lord. Amazingly, you hear this Word in the voice of your very imperfect and even comical minister. And in his or her shaky voice, you are reminded that nothing is forgotten, neither your joy or your sorrow. Neither are forgotten because they are both somehow packed into a single hour of worship.

rlp

A quick survey of local church signs reveals the usual:

“People Who Care”
“Where God’s People Gather”
“A Light that Shines for God”

Ever wonder if the lives of people who are these churches bear any resemblance to their roadway signs? Because, let’s be honest; church committees meeting to design signs aren’t soul-searching—they’re marketing.

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The High Calling.

rlp

Just a quick note. I found a link in the comments to my essay below that led me to a church that sounds a lot like the one I described. I wish I was in Seattle so that I could drop by for one of their meetings.

In the Spring of 1999 I was sitting at my favorite table upstairs at Viva Books here in San Antonio. I started out working on a sermon but began to doodle and daydream after a time. I was thinking about church a lot in those days, specifically about the ways we do church in our culture. As I recall, I was staring at a McHarp Celtic Cross, admiring the beauty and mystery of the Celtic knots when a crazy thought came to me.

“What if we could do church any way that we wanted?”

I’m serious about this. What if a few friends sat down at a kitchen table and decided that they were going be a church? There certainly are no laws preventing this, at least not in my country. The witness of the New Testament does not speak against such a thing. On the contrary, much of the New Testament is made up of the stories of small groups of people who gathered in such a manner.

I let this thought roll around in my head for a few moments.

“What if these people decided to cast off any preconceived, cultural ideas about what church ought to be and instead tried to whittle Christianity down to its essentials? Instead of allowing church to become ever more complex, what if they sought to make church ever more simple, simple enough to be written on a thumbnail or even on a heart?”

Suddenly excited, I ran into the upstairs office and found a discarded piece of 11 by 17 computer ledger paper. I closed my eyes, tried to forget everything I ever knew about church, and wrote down my ideas about what such a church might be like.

First of all, we probably wouldn’t call ourselves a church. That English word is rather tired, I think. It really doesn’t communicate very well, and it’s not a biblical word in any case. We might call ourselves “A Gathering of Friends,” or perhaps, “A Community Living in the Way of Christ.” I don’t know what we would call ourselves; maybe we wouldn’t have a name at all.

I don’t think we would concern ourselves very much with what individuals in the community say about Jesus or even believe about Jesus. It’s not that what we say about Jesus doesn’t matter, but this community would begin with real living. There will be time enough for pretty Jesus words later on.

We would begin with between five and fifteen people who are committed to following in the way of Christ, confessing their weaknesses and turning their lives over to God as they understand him or her. We would make certain commitments to God and to each other:

• We would meet once or twice a week to worship together. This meeting would be a very high priority in our lives.
• We would make these friendships intentional ones and make it a point to spend time together.
• We would agree to pray and study the scriptures together and on our own.
• We would nurture each other and care for one another, especially if one of us was hurting or in need.
• We would simplify our lives to the point where we could give 10% of our income to the community. Some who have been on the journey longer might give more.
• Each of us would find a personal and fulfilling way to serve God by serving the world. Finding your joyful place of service would be a central part of being in this community, for we would agree that Christianity is a way of living more than a set of doctrines.

We would never pay anyone to be a professional Christian. There would be no staff, no paid ministers, no salaries, and no overhead. If there were even ten wage earners among us, our collected offerings might be between twenty and fifty thousand dollars. With no salaries, buildings, or other administrative costs, almost all of this money would be used to do good things in the name of Christ.

Maybe once a year we would sit around a kitchen table and say, “What do you want to do for God this year?”

There would be a little money left over to buy coffee or even a guitar if someone wanted to play it during worship. Maybe twice a year we would all go on an extended retreat together. Those with limited funds would never have to worry about being able to afford that sort of thing.

If there were children among us, they would sit on our laps and worship with us. We would not have children’s classes. We wouldn’t need them. We would teach the children ourselves and let them be a part of everything we do.

We would never purchase or rent a place to worship. Homes would suffice. If and when the gathering became too large to meet comfortably in a living room, we would divide into two groups. Perhaps the two living room churches would meet together once a month at a park or in some borrowed space. We wouldn't worry about what will happen someday. These things will work themselves out. I’m of the opinion that there is far too much planning in churches nowadays.

We would never advertise our faith community. Advertising tends to cheapen things, and I think we wouldn't want to start going down that road. We would bring friends with us as we felt led. I’m sure some would find us in very mysterious ways. We would trust that those who are ready to find us would find us. Anyone would be welcome to meet with us in the living room, of course. Some might join the community when they felt ready to embrace our commitments.

If there is preaching, it would be done by everyone. All who feel ready to share would take their turn. You would have weeks or even months to read your passage of scripture prayerfully. Then you would simply share the wisdom you found in the scriptures with your good friends.

The best news of all is that we would lay down the terrible burden of planning and strategizing for the business of church. Large budgets, buildings, and programs require business plans and outreach strategies. But you see, the big picture would not be our concern. The future would be left in the hands of God. We would content ourselves with our simple lives of service and devotion. What happens beyond that would be God’s business and not ours.

It sounds refreshing, does it not? And vaguely familiar. Even if you’ve never been a part of something like that, your heart knows that it would feel like going home.

When I finished writing I looked at the paper for a few minutes. On the front is a dot matrix printout of Viva’s inventory, along with the date - March 29th, 1999. On the back is the outline of a faith community that I would love to be a part of someday. I put the paper in a safe place and never forgot it.

Every so often I find the paper, look at it, and wonder what I would have to let go of to make this vision a reality.

rlp

In the latter years of the 19th century, an ashe juniper sprouted in a thicket near the Camino Real, the King's Highway, just north of San Antonio, Texas.

Ashe juniper, juniperus ashei, normally grows with multiple trunks in a short, squatty fashion, making it look more like a bush than a tree. In this case, the little juniper sprouted in the middle of a dense grove of live oak and mountain laurel. Desperate for sunlight, the tree grew straight upwards, reaching always for the abundant light above. Within five years, its slender trunk burst through the canopy, and it began to spread its greenery above the oaks in the nursery where it had been born....

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Click to visit the Old Man Cedar Picture Gallery

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

a Christian Magazine 
Christian Writing

rlp

Note: If you don't know anything about church history and the reformer, Martin Luther, you should read "A Short History of Martin Luther" by my 16-year-old daughter before you read this essay. Come to think of it, you should read the thing by my daughter even if you have a PhD in church history. Trust me!

---

Jung felt that daydreams, like night dreams, contain great personal significance for us. Your subconscious mind speaks to you both at night and during the day. The exact nature of the subconscious and the meaning of these dreams remain a mystery. But that’s where the fun comes in.

I have a recurring daydream that comes to me quite often. I do not understand the significance of it, and if you think you do, I would prefer you keep your thoughts to yourself. I don’t really want to know.

This daydream comes mostly when I should be working on a sermon or when I’m in an elevator. In the dream I am showing the 16th century reformer, Martin Luther, the modern world. How he arrived in our century is not a part of my daydream. Nor is there any explanation for why he speaks modern English.

Martin Luther is absolutely astounded by Diet Coke, elevators, and canned soup. And he says that our world smells funny.

I wince as I look at his monk’s robe, which certainly has not been washed in this or perhaps any other century. “You’re a bit ripe yourself, Marty. But what’s an odor or two among brothers in Christ, eh?”

“Well put,” he says with a polite nod.

He is startled by the fizzy pop when I open an ice cold Diet Coke. He lifts the can to his ancient lips, and his eyes open wide. Then he bends forward at the waist, spraying foamy suds all over the floor.

“What in the unholy name of Zwingli is this? It burns like a brew straight from the devil’s arse!”

“Oh, sorry. That’s called carbonation. They have this way of putting bubbles in some of the things we drink. I don’t know why we like it, but we do. I guess it’s a bit of a shock if you’re not used to it.”

He squints at the can, sounding out the letters. “'Diet of Coke.' I am not familiar with this particular council. Is there to be a disputation? Will I be asked to defend myself? You understand I’m a bit nervous after the incident at Worms.”

“Oh yeah, the Diet of Worms. That’s that council meeting where you were excommunicated, right?”

His eyes broke away from mine, and he looked around the room, then back at me. He nodded hesitantly.

“Don’t worry man, Diet Coke is a whole other thing.”

He looked relieved. Then I had a great idea.

“Hey man, SAY it!”

“Say what?”

“You knoooow” I say, dragging it out enticingly.

“Oh very well. I suppose you'll pester me until I do.”

Martin Luther clears his throat and lifts an arm, affecting the posture of an old fashioned orator.

“Here I stand. I can do no other!”

“YES!” I shout, pumping my fist like Tiger Woods does when he sinks a long putt. “Larry is not going to freakin believe this.”

“Larry?”

“Oh yeah, he’s a friend of mine, a pastor up in Dallas…uh, this city north of here.”

“He’s not a Calvinist, is he? Or an Anabaptist? If he is, by God I shall lay my hands on a stout quarterstaff and beat his head until the mule shite that fills it pours out of his ears.”

“Whoa Marty, calm down. Take it easy. He’s a Baptist, and that’s a group that didn’t get started until you were pretty much already dead. And Baptists…well, you don’t wanna know. Anyway, we don’t really do head pounding as such anymore. Things have calmed down a lot since your time.”

To get his mind off quarterstaffs and heresy, I take him on his first elevator ride. He is beside himself with glee and pushes all the buttons. Every time the door opens he thinks we are in a different place and laughs like a madman. A woman in a business suit enters on the 8th floor, frowns when she sees that all the buttons have been pushed, then pushes the lobby button. She glances at Martin Luther, who is trying hard to suppress his giggles, and pushes the lobby button two more times. Then she puts a handkerchief to her nose and gets off on the 7th floor.

For lunch I pull out two cans of Campbell’s Beef and Vegetable soup. I toss one to him, enjoying his puzzled look.

“It’s soup, Martin. Watch.”

I put a can opener along the top and squeeze the handle until it locks. Then I twist it and the can rotates until the top pops off. Martin Luther leans over and watches everything. I pour the soup into a couple of bowls and pop them into a microwave. He puts his forefinger against the glass and fiddles with the buttons a bit while the soup is heating. He is startled by the “ding,” and then we have hot soup together.

“It’s a bit salty,” says he, “but extraordinary, considering it came from those strange cylinders. What did you call them again.”

“Cans.”

“And you may simply open one of these CANS whenever you’re hungry?”

“Yep.”

“Remarkable.”

After the soup we both get quiet and things are a little uncomfortable. Martin Luther picks at his robe, while I make two or three attempts at small talk. After the way he laughed on the elevator, I’m a little worried about showing him anything else.

“So…how much longer will you be here?”

“Not much longer. Just a few more minutes and I have to go back.”

“Oh,” I say, sadly. “Okay, how about this? We each get to ask the other two questions about life in his time. I go first.”

Martin Luther nods in agreement.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I don’t want to blow it. But suddenly I can’t think of anything to say. And time is running out. I open my mouth and say the first thing that comes to mind.

“What was the longest time you ever went without brushing your teeth?”

“Brushing my teeth? What does that mean?”

“Never mind, that pretty much tells me more than I need to know. Okay, how about this: Why were people in your time so uptight about theology? You killed each other, for God’s sake. I mean literally, FOR THE SAKE OF GOD, you tortured and killed each other. Why?”

Martin Luther answers quickly and with a straight face. “That’s easy. We really believed.”

“Whaddya mean? In God? WE believe in God.”

He smiles. “No you don’t. Not really. You have so many options. There are so many different things that people in your time can believe. Your belief is a whispy, smoky, light-weighted sort of thing. I can see right through it. People in your world really don’t know WHAT they believe. For us, God is as real as rocks and wind and rain and summertime. And because we believe, we are passionate. Too passionate at times, I will admit. I see things much clearer now.”

“How do you know that much about us? All you’ve seen are Diet Cokes, elevators, and canned soup. I mean, we have a whole lot more than that.”

Martin Luther smiles. “I’ve seen enough. And now it’s my turn. I have only one question for you.”

“Shoot,” I say.

He looks puzzled.

“Oh, uh, go ahead and ask.”

“Our lives are filled with much hardship. Winters are hard; Summers too. Only wealthy people may hear music, and most people cannot read. Just securing food and water takes hours out of our days. In my entire lifetime, I only managed to write a set of commentaries and an assortment of other works and treatises. With your many labor saving devices, your elevators and your canned soup, I imagine that people can accomplish so much more with their lives. I imagine your days are filled with prayer and creation and loveliness. It is a marvelous time in which you live, is it not? Are people fully educated and busily engaged with writing and art and music and philosophy and theology?”

I can’t think of a way to answer him, and Martin Luther is fading away. I have to speak quickly.

“No, most of us produce very little. We tend to consume a lot, though. We spend most of our time consuming and using things. And we work an awful lot so that we can pay for all the things we want to consume. A lot of us consume more than we can pay for, so we buy on credit. And then of course, we have work doubly hard to pay our creditors. That’s just the way it is.”

Martin Luther looks puzzled, and just before he fades away he says, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

He’s gone before I can reply, but I speak anyway.

“Yeah, we don’t really understand it either, Martin.”

rlp

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

                                                 Matthew 25:34-40

As we all know from watching endless hours of CNN, the disaster along the Gulf of Mexico is bigger than anyone imagined. Many hard questions are being asked of our government. It is hard for us to understand how we can be so efficient at war, but take days to respond in force when people are in desperate need in one of our own cities. That's a good question to ask, and it WILL be asked in days to come.

But let's set that question aside for now.

Right now we need to know what we can do to help. Large agencies will handle the relief efforts in large ways. The Salvation Army, The Red Cross, and others will be tackling the many large problems that are coming and are here now. Thank God for them. They need our help and our generous donations.

As each displaced family begins to try to build anew, what will be needed are smaller groups of people who can help one or two families. In the weeks, months, perhaps years to come, each family will have their own set of needs and challenges. That's where you and I come in.

Tomorrow morning our worship service will center largely around how our small church is being called to help. I don't know what we will decide to do, but I'm of a mind to take care of that business before we take care of the business of praying, singing, and preaching.

I am not the president of our church. I am not in charge of decisions like this. I am but one of the servants of Christ. So I can't tell you exactly what we are going to do. I can tell you that my wife went to her hospital today and worked for 8 hours. (She is a chaplain) She and the other employees of Southeast Baptist Hospital met individuals, not statistics. One older man arrived with nothing but the clothes on his back. He has no idea where his wife and family are. Jeanene opened the plastic bag where his clothes were stored and was stunned by the awful smell. He hadn't changed his clothes since the hurricane hit. They got the sizes off the tags and took a quick survey. One nurse said, "That's my husband's size." She left immediately, went home, and came back with an armful of clothing.

This is the kind of thing that needs to happen. And it will happen. We are a generous people at heart. I believe that.

Our church has a building with showers. We could house people there. Since we live in San Antonio, we are already getting refugees. Houston has the more immediate and dire needs, but we'll do our part. I've gotten emails from Real Live Preacher readers, wondering how they can help. Certainly you can give money to the large relief organizations. You'll have no trouble finding them. God bless you for that.

Tomorrow I will tell you what Covenant Baptist Church can and will do. If you desire to help some individuals, there will be a way for you to do that through us.

I'll write again Sunday evening and tell you more.

rlp

Church marketing fascinates me, both the marketing churches do to sell themselves to a target demographic and the marketing that businesses do to sell themselves to churches.

Perhaps I'm overly cynical, but I believe a significant amount of the theology spoken and practiced by churches in the United States is not determined by a search for truth or an honest journey of devotion. A lot of our theology is driven by marketing, though no one wants admit that. If you want to attract a certain group of people, you design your theology to fit their cultural niche. TV preachers know exactly what kind of person will donate to their causes. Most of the insanely outrageous right-wing statements you hear from people like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell do not hurt them. Their “clients” eat that stuff up.

By and large I have no connections to the mainstream, corporate church experience. One of the benefits of being a pastor with a “real job,” as they say, is that my church isn’t driven by an intense need for constant growth just to keep up with the ever-growing staff that is needed to keep up with the constant growth. See how that runs in circles? Sound familiar? It should. That kind of circular logic drives much of our marketplace today.

"I need new hardware to keep up with my new software that is designed to take full advantage of my new hardware."

At Covenant, we are free to be who we want to be, even if there are only a handful of people in our area who want to join us. And to tell you the truth, a handful of people has always been descriptive of us. It seems like there is always a handful of weary pilgrims who want to step out of the ecclesiastical rat race. Somehow they find their way to us. A lot of people attend for a time and then move on. That’s okay. There’s a zillion generic, mega-churches around, but there is only one Covenant Baptist.

Now at the same time that churches are trying so hard to be “relevant” (whatever the hell that means) to our culture, businesses are trying to be relevant to churches. Church is big business. REALLY big business. There's a lot of money to be made in the god game.

Every week we receive a variety of phone calls from church telemarketers. The salespersons use sacred language and try to sound like they just stepped out of a Sunday School class, all in hopes of selling something to us.

Recently I got a phone call from a church telemarketer that was so outrageous I sat down immediately afterward and wrote it down so that I wouldn’t forget it. (The names have been changed)

Hello pastor, this is Jerry Don Carlton with Grace Outreach Ministries. We provide addresses and mailing materials for your outreach ministry. We can provide you with the addresses of all the new families who have moved into your area. We have a couple of programs, quarterly and monthly. Which would you prefer?

"Which would you prefer!" Like I’m going to fall for a cheap, Jedi Mind trick like that.

I’ll tell you what, you send me your stuff, and I’ll look at it.

Well, we have a special promotion going, but it’s only available if I sign you up on the phone. This is a real dynamite package. I mean, you’ll see immediate growth. You know, new families are often looking for a church. One of the best ways to reach those new families is to mail them a "welcome to the neighborhood" package.

Yeah, I've heard that. Send me your stuff, and I’ll bring it to our leadership meeting.

What, you aren’t allowed to make decisions by yourself?

I was stunned by how crass this guy was. Did he really think that I was going to be shamed into buying his stuff just because some guy on the phone wasn't impressed with the amount of power I have? At this point I decided to keep the guy on the line so I could see what else he might say.

Listen, JERRY DON, it’s not a question of what is or isn’t allowed. It’s a question of how we DO things. We’re a church, a body of believers. We have our own way of making decisions. Send me your stuff, and we’ll take a look at it.

You know, most of the pastors I deal with have some kind of discretionary funds or something. I mean, they can make some decisions without running to the deacons or whatever.

This guy was unbelievable.

Jerry Don, LISTEN TO ME. Send me your stuff and perhaps we’ll take a look at it.

Are you aware that if you use our product, you’ll get more families in your church? More families mean more money. This program will pay for itself in one quarter. A lot of pastors I deal with just order it and give it a try. Let me tell you, when they bring these results to the deacons, or board, or…well, everyone’s happy.

Nice move. Now it’s me and Jerry Don standing together against the miserly budget committee. Hopefully, with Jerry Don’s generous help and deep, spiritual vision, I can encourage these spendthrifts to open up and let the good Lord enlarge our fields or ministries, or whatever you call it.

It was fun playing along, but I grew tired of Jerry Don and had to hang up the phone.

---

You know, marketing and selling and making money and being successful and all of that has so polluted every aspect of our society that it’s become difficult to find anything simple and authentic anymore. When I was young, I thought of the church as something pure and uncomplicated. I thought that the sacred journey of devotion and spirituality I would find in church would stand apart from my culture and bear witness to what was pure and good and decent.

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child," said the apostle Paul. Yeah, me too.

And yet, even now I still have hopes and dreams. I continue to go to church every Sunday with some hope in my heart. I delight in our simple church with its quirky problems and silly ways. At our church you might be asked to pray on Sunday or fill in for someone who is out of town. The music and most of the service and everything all the way down to cleaning the toilets is done by volunteers from the congregation.

We don't always get things done quickly, but we eventually get around to the things that really need getting around to, if you know what I mean.

It’s messy, but since when is messy such a bad thing? I think messy, silly church is a lovely and precious thing in this world.

Peace,

rlp

Area Pastor's Silly Menagerie of Toy Animals
Stolen A Second Time

Yes, the little collection of toy animals that was outside our church is now gone, apparently for good. A family that occasionally attends our church had a family reunion at our facility on Saturday. We like to make our building available for people in the community. Sunday morning when I arrived before dawn, the headlights of my car shone upon an empty rock.

The last time this collection disappeared, I found them in the building. This time they were nowhere to be found. Perhaps some child attending the family reunion took them home to love them and play with them. That's what children often do when they find toys laying around outside.

And after all, isn't that what toys are for?

I found that I wasn't the least bit sad about it. They appeared mysteriously, and I still have no idea how they got there. And now they have disappeared just as mysteriously. Really, wouldn't life be dreary if you didn't have a little mystery now and again?

And what kind of a church would we be if we didn't notice and love the little mysteries of life along with the big ones?

Laity Lodge

I'm heading to the "hill country," as the area north of San Antonio is called, for a retreat at Laity Lodge. Laity Lodge is a wonderful place, and the big news is that the featured speaker is none other than one of my personal heros, Frederick Dale Bruner. Bruner wrote a two-volume commentary on the gospel of Matthew that I adore. It is the only commentary that has brought me to tears. Yes, it's that good. I'm thrilled that Eerdmans has brought it back into print.

Dale Bruner is one of three or four people that I am trying to meet and thank sometime in my life. His writing has meant so much to me that I want to thank him in person. Next on my list, Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott. I'm less confident that I will meet either of them, but a guy can wish, right?

Anyway, I'll be gone until the weekend. No email, no real live preacher, no mobile phone. Just me, pen and paper, prayer, reading, and conversations with new friends.

See you when I return.

rlp

view comments on Salon's Server

A few days ago I told you the story of a mysterious little menagerie of toy animals that appeared and then disappeared from a large rock by the sidewalk that leads to the front door of our church. I speculated that someone from a wedding party might have removed them.

The Original Menagerie that Disappeared 

A few days later I was picking up around the church when I found something interesting in the nursery.

At first glance I thought I had found my lost collection of toy animals. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the turtle and the giraffe and the rabbit were missing. The hippopotamus was blue instead of purple, and a baby elephant had been added to the collection.

I wondered what else I might find if I wandered around the church. I found the rabbit under a table in Judy's Sunday School room.

Despite my best efforts, the turtle, the giraffe, and the original hippo were nowhere to be found. I did, however, find a lion in the corner of the nursery.

So I reconstructed the collection as best I could. It wasn't exactly the same, but certainly in the same spirit as the original.

My Reconstruction

Yesterday I found that some mysterious person has added a turtle and two birds eating from a bushel of apples to our little shrine.

Our New Menagerie

I wonder where this is going. Will it become famous? Will animals mysteriously appear and disappear from time to time? Will people make pilgrimages to see this shrine, like they do to see the image of Jesus on a tortilla?

Occasionally someone will ask me what ministers do all day when they're not preaching or visiting someone in a hospital. I'm never quite sure how to answer that question. Next time I think I'll say that we are here to make sure that sacred places are cared for and important things are not lost in the fast-paced shuffle of everyday life.

rlp

I got the news that Red Davis died this week in his hometown of Marshall, Texas. I cried when I heard it, though I only met him a couple of times.

“Who is Red Davis?” I can hear you saying.

Well, I'll tell you.

Red Davis was nobody special in this world, or he was a great saint. I guess it all depends on how you look at things, but I'll tell you something true and wonderful. "Nobody special” and “great saint” go together a lot more often than some people think.

Twenty-five years ago Red Davis was the CEO of a big company in East Texas between Longview and Marshall. This company provides so many jobs for local people that it is somewhat famous in those parts.

Some would say the crowning achievement of Red's life was attaining a high position in such an important company. I wouldn't know anything about that. I don't know much about the company, and I don't know anything about how Red managed to become CEO.

I only know what Red did after he retired. And I know about that because my dad was the pastor of his church.

Red retired in the late 70s, before my dad became the pastor of First Baptist Church of Marshall, Texas. After he got his gold watch and had his retirement party, he went to the man who was the pastor at that time and told him he was going to have some extra time on his hands, and he would like to find a way to serve the Lord. The pastor assumed that Red would chair a critical financial committee for the church, or be involved in some other important and public way. He was quite surprised when Red said that he heard the three and four-year-old Sunday school class needed a teacher and that he would like the job.

And so it came to pass that the man who once ran the most important company in the county showed up the next Sunday morning to sit on the floor and tell bible stories to little children. Red didn't know much about teaching children in the beginning, but he was warm, kind, and willing. And he knew that patience and hugs are the keys to a child's heart.

My dad tells me that Red used to call all the kids in his class every Saturday night just to ask how their week had gone. He always ended the conversation by telling them he looked forward to seeing them on Sunday morning. Having a kid in Red's class became something of a rite-of-passage for young families at First Baptist. If you had a child in his class, you knew you had to be there every Sunday, because none of Red's kids ever wanted to miss church.

It wasn't long before groups of little children were seen following Red around the church wherever he went. He never minded the attention or the trouble. Some of them were in his class. Others were in classes from years back. People started referring to them as “Red's army.”

Five years became ten, and ten became twenty-five. Red grew older and slowed down a bit, but he was there every Sunday, teaching three and four-year old children their Sunday school lessons. He was faithful to his simple calling for a quarter of a century. After all that time, just about everyone in the church had a child or a grandchild who had been in Red's class. Some of the younger adults had been in Red's class themselves.

I hear that if Red ever stood up to speak in a church business meeting, a respectful and reverent hush would fall over the congregation. People respected Red not because he was Red Davis the successful businessman, but because he was Red Davis the gentle Sunday school teacher and passionate lover of children.

On Wednesday, August 11th, 2004, Red Davis died quietly in the Marshall hospital. As I said, Red wasn't a famous man in this world. I don't suppose the ripples of grief will travel much farther than Longview and Marshall. Of course, that wouldn't matter to Red. He was a man who was pleased to wait upon the table of his own humble calling until the day when the Lord called him to take his place at the Big Banquet in the sky.

My father is doing the funeral this Saturday. I hope the church will have enough room for everyone. At some point in the service he plans to ask everyone who was ever in Red's Sunday school class or ever had a child or relative in his class to stand.

Very few people will remain in their seats.

I have a feeling that my dad will also tell a story that has become well-known among Red's friends. One day a woman was in the local grocery store with her small child. The little boy said, “Mama, I just saw God.” The woman looked up and the child was pointing at Red Davis.

He was a small boy, and he was in Red's class. When he tried to wrap his little mind around the very big idea of God, the best he could do was think of Red.

What else do you need to know about Red Davis? What other eulogy do you need to hear?

Who was Red Davis?

Red Davis taught Sunday school to preschool children in an East Texas Baptist church for twenty-five years right up until he died. He was a man who loved God with all of his heart. His cup overflowed and that love spilled all over the children of Marshall. The fruit of his life and work are rooted in the red soil of East Texas and even now are producing a bounty in the lives of the people of his community. He was a good and faithful servant.

That's who Red Davis was.

 

rlp

Before reading this story you should read "The Advent of Elliot". The names have been changed for obvious reasons.

*****************

I don’t know how the Kramers found our church. We’re off the beaten path and we don’t advertise. Maybe it was God, I don’t know.

Jennifer was only 19 and David was 20, but they already looked beaten, worn, and creased. They were rough in speech and manner. He worked construction and she worked off and on at the 7-11. David Jr. was three and little Stacy was 7 weeks old.

It was like meeting the people you see on “COPS”. One night Jennifer punched her mother in the nose. David was outraged because she was holding the baby at the time. He felt that any decent mother would have put the child down first.

David was having his own troubles as he maintained a shaky sobriety. The last time Jim Beam got the best of him, he fought the police officer who responded to the neighbor's call. They had to pry David Jr. off his leg when they took him away.

About a month after the Kramers started coming to church we were gathered together for our Wednesday night meal. Everyone was sitting around the tables chatting after supper when we heard a terrible scream down the hall.

The first thing I saw was Stan and Carol running toward Joan, one of our deacons, who was carrying Elliot into the kitchen. He was screaming at top of his lungs, and there was something in the scream that made every parent stop talking. You knew it was something serious.

There was a rush of adults toward the kitchen. Joan put Elliot on the counter, and people crowded around talking all at the same time. Carol pulled up Elliot’s shirt and everyone fell silent. On his back were eight vicious bites, two rows of four oval wounds. The skin was broken and oozing blood. Angry, red welts were rising around the teeth marks.

Do you know the horror that borders on disbelief? Do you know that sad, squinting face people make when they mouth words, but do not say them? That’s how we were. The ugliness made us squint. Helpless, we formed words with our mouths, but did not speak.

It was Joan who had found them in the Sunday school room. David Jr. had dragged Elliot to the ground and was growling as he bit him over and over. Innocent little Elliot, only 2-years-old, didn't even know how to struggle. He was bitten 14 times, each one drawing blood. He had bites on his back, arms, and head.

As everyone fussed over Elliot, David Jr. walked into the kitchen and watched with an innocent and unconcerned expression. I stared at him in wonder. How can a 3-year-old have such rage? How can his anger come and go so quickly? Where did he learn to bite like that?

My mind flashed to the scenes of violence in the Kramer's home, secret scenes they had shared only with me.

David and Jennifer came rushing around the corner and immediately saw what had happened. Jennifer cried out, "Oh my God, not again. David!" Then she ran out of the church, crying hysterically.

Later I would discover this was not the first time David Jr. had bitten someone at church. The Kramer family had developed a tragic pattern. They would find a church they liked, and then David Jr. would bite a child. They would leave in shame and find another church.

They should have warned us, but they were young and foolish. Their denial about their son was only one of the ways they were out of touch with reality.

David picked up his son and pleaded his apologies. As he edged toward the door he kept saying the same thing over and over. “I’m sorry. He knows better. I’m sorry. He knows better.”

Tossing one final “I’m sorry” over his shoulder, David ran out the door. I followed him and found Jennifer in the parking lot talking with one of our deacons. I don’t know what he was saying to her, but she had a crazy look and was edging toward their old pickup.

I could tell they wanted to leave. Who could blame them?  To be honest, I was hoping they WOULD leave. I was in such shock. I was trying to be nice, but I was so angry and so sad all at once.

Then the front door of the church banged open and Carol burst out. She ran toward Jennifer who froze and whispered, "Oh my God".  As Carol approached, Jennifer lowered her eyes and began to weep and apologize. “I’m so sorry. My God, I’m so sorry.”

Carol didn't say anything at first. Then she put her left hand on Jennifer’s shoulder and her right hand under her chin. She lifted Jennifer’s face and spoke in a very soft, but firm voice. “Stop.”

"Listen to me", she said. "Elliot is going to be fine. He will heal, and he will get over this. I’m not worried about Elliot. Do you know what does worry me?"

Jennifer shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I'm worried that you and David will be so embarrassed about this that you will never come back to our church. That’s the only thing that worries me. We've come to love your family, and you need to be here with us. You need church, and I want you to promise me that you'll come back THIS Sunday."

Jennifer didn’t answer her. I don’t think she could, really. She did what felt right. She melted into Carol’s arms, sobbing. There was something different about the way she was crying, too. It was sad crying, but not as crazy and not as lonely as before.

They stayed like that for a long time, two mothers holding each other in the parking lot. Two mothers crying for their sons.

I watched and had the strangest impulse to take off my shoes.

It’s one thing to read about Christ in bibles and books. It’s quite another thing to meet him in person. Quite another thing.

I'll never forget the sight of those horrible wounds on Elliot's little back. They are a stark reminder of the reality of evil and the high price of redemption.

The Preacher

Postscript

The Kramers still attend our church, but not as regularly. We've pushed them to get counseling for their son and their family. We are gentle, but insistent.

When David Jr. is at church, we have an adult who monitors him closely. He seems to be less afraid and has not tried to bite another child.

We are hopeful that in time, they will find healing.

Sunday Night, 12-8-02

 

Sundays can be a bitch.

 

I get up way before daylight and head for church. I open up the joint. I putter around and straighten hymnals. I make ready. I preach the sermon 3 or 4 times. I talk to myself. I talk to God out loud. I light candles and pray. Sometimes I throw a nerf football around the sanctuary while I get my mind straight. You should try that sometime if you can find a church that will let you get away with it.

 

None of this is what makes Sunday hard.

 

What's hard about Sunday is that I don't matter on this day. Sunday is for the folks who come to church. It's their day and not mine. I must be “up” when everyone arrives. I must be emotionally ready.

 

Anyone who has children understands what I'm talking about. If you are a daddy, you always make the left turn and take your paycheck and yourself home to your kids. One day you may feel like turning right and leaving town, but you don't. You love your children because you are committed to them. How you feel on one given day is not really the issue.

 

I believe love is primarily a choice and only sometimes a feeling. If you want to feel love, choose to love and be patient.

 

Okay, so when I made a commitment to shepherd these people, I made a conscious decision to love them. That commitment is more important than how I feel come Sunday morning. I will be there early. I will set things up. I will do the early morning candle/praying/nerf thing. I will be ready.

 

I do this every single Sunday. I do this when I am sad. I do this when I am depressed. I do this when I am hurting inside.

 

I do this many Sundays when I don't believe in God.

 

On those days I stare at the door to the church in the dark. The silence of the building is reminiscent of the silence of God. I say, “fuck it” and go on in. I do the candle/praying/nerf thing. I make ready. I will be glad to see them. I will love the children. I will stop for a moment and talk to the woman who needs too much. I will preach, one more time.

 

I'm tempted to talk about what shatters my faith, but I think I'll leave that alone for now.

 

Fidelity to commitment in the face of doubts and fears is a very spiritual thing. I don't suggest it for the weak of heart or if you are in a hurry. An old, African American preacher once told Martin Luther King Jr., “Until you've stood at the door for years and knocked until your hands bled, hearing nothing but silence, you don't know what prayer is.” (Not an exact quote)

 

I'd like to have met that preacher.

 

I wonder how much longer I'll do this? I have no idea. I live week to week.

 

On Sunday after church I feel numb all over. I mean that literally. I AM NUMB. I got nothin left for nobody.

 

The preacher lives for Sunday night. Sunday night is when I matter. On Sunday night I Sing the Song of Myself. I pop in the latest thing from Netflix, drink too much diet coke, and eat more than I should. I settle into the couch and take care of myself.

 

I do this every Sunday night except I didn't tonight. Tonight I wrote this. And the preacher feels better. And the preacher is going to bed.