Real Live Preacher - Church

Olives, Wineskins, White Bread, & Jesus

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:55:12 -0600

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."

Jonah's Seder

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:47:12 -0600

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

Community Candles

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:31:56 -0500

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

I Wonder Where This Is Going

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:51:07 -0500

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

Oh The Humanity

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:19:58 -0500

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

Soft True Strong & You

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:22:32 -0600

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

Chairs and Prayers

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:27:58 -0600

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

White Elephant Nightmare

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:32:19 -0600

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.

Update 12-14- Unbelievable. The ebay thing is actually happened. Reggie made good on his threat. AND, believe it or not, some people have bid on it! Reggie is going to give whatever money is received to our church building fund. What a strange turn of events.

We do the classic “white elephant” gift exchange at our church Christmas party every year. For those of you who have never heard of this, I’ll not bore you with too many details. The white elephant game is common to Christmas parties here in the United States. People bring presents; some are serious, some are silly, and some are a little tasteless. There is a game you play, and you see who gets stuck with the bad gifts.

I know you probably think that’s pretty lame, but you have to play this game over time with the same group of people before you can understand its appeal. Over the years, stories accumulate and traditions develop. We’ve been doing this at our church since 1989.

People still talk about the year that Lyle got a huge pair of boxer shorts with hearts on them. He went into the bathroom and came out wearing them. Then there was the nose hair clippers that reappeared for three or four years in a row. There was also a legendary, gaudily-painted toilet seat that came back so many times it became sacred. It was understood that whoever got the toilet seat had to bring it to the next year’s party, wrapped creatively enough to fool someone into choosing it.

Now my own talent – at least I see it as a talent – is to bring extremely bizarre gifts that are on the edge of being frightening. I often include notes of explanation that I spend a fair amount of time crafting, so that they will be as funny as possible.

One year I gathered spent, red and green shotgun shells and put one shell over each bulb in a strand of white lights. It made a spooky string of redneck Christmas lights that was also kind of pretty, in its own weird way.

Another year I baked 20 foil-wrapped potatoes, put them in a box, and gently laid a copy of The Book of Mormon on top of them. If you are a Mormon, I hope you’re not offended. I make no statement about your theology or your scriptures; it was the sound of it that I liked. Listen: “A box of baked potatoes and a book of Mormon.” See what I mean? That sounds better than a box of baked potatoes and a Bible.

A box of baked potatoes and a Bhagavad-Gita sounds even better, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up my only copy of the Gita for some Christmas party. You can get a Book of Mormon anywhere. There are usually people walking around the neighborhood handing them out for free.

But this year I came up with a white elephant gift so strange and unusual, so weird and unexpected, that it tops anything I’ve ever done before. I might have to leave the church now, because I’ll never top this one.

I spent the entire year 2006 collecting the lint that gathered in my navel – sometimes called “belly-button lint” - and storing it in a tiny glass bottle. Yes, an entire year.

Oh yeah, I’m just that twisted and determined.

Let me tell you that I learned a lot about the lint that gathers in men’s navels this past year. New cotton t-shirts produce the best lint. You need to have a little hair on your chest for this phenomenon to take place, but let’s not go into the physics of it. What kept me interested were the pretty colors.

I’ll tell you, this thing changed the way I bought clothing. I would stand at a rack of t-shirts thinking about what kind of lint they would produce for my collection. I know I bought at least one shirt because I thought that particular shade of green would help balance the colors in the bottle.

Surprisingly, the highlight of this year’s lint crop is a foreign object. After a boisterous fiesta party last Spring, I woke up in the morning to find that a piece of confetti had miraculously made a journey down the front of my shirt and ended up in my belly button. I was absolutely delighted with this and felt that after such an amazing journey, the confetti ought to be included in the collection. I’m nothing if not very inclusive.

I’d like to take this moment to thank my wife, who put up with my madness this past year. I guess she stays with me because I’m a nice enough guy, if you can get past my bad hair, freakish sense of humor, and tendency to offend major world religions at Christmas parties.

Can you possibly imagine my excitement as I wrapped my little bottle this past Saturday, after a solid year of collecting?

Here is a picture of the bottle and the text of the note I included with it:

What you hold in your hands is a 2006 crop of high-quality belly-button lint, grown and harvested over the last year by Gordon Atkinson.

The colors of the collection reflect the variety of new shirts I wore over the past year, including a very rare bit of lime-colored lint from a Habitat For Humanity t-shirt.

Also included in the collection is a single piece of confetti from a Fiesta party. This miraculous bit of confetti, working with all the vigor and optimism of a salmon going upstream, managed to find its way down the front of my shirt and ended up in my belly-button, where I found it the morning after.

I, Gordon Atkinson, certify on my honor that every piece of lint in the collection is genuine and was gathered by myself from a period beginning at Christmas of 2005 and ending in December of 2006.

Note: This collection contains no lint gathered from the dryer or any other source.

It was the perfect white elephant gift, or so I thought. Unfortunately there was one thing I had not counted on.

Reggie.

Reggie freakin Regan. The only man in the church with a sense of humor more twisted and diabolical than my own.

Reggie Regan: husband; father; nurse; bat house builder; and corrupter of ministers. It was Reggie who introduced me to the pleasures of a real Cuban cigar. And once you’ve had an authentic Cohiba, there is no recapturing your innocence.

Reggie managed to attain my little bottle of lint in the white elephant game, not that there was anyone trying to take it away from him. He vowed publicly, before all present at the party, to put it up for auction at ebay.com. Apparently, he is actually going to do this.

Heaven only knows what horrors will come of this, once such a private and intimate part of me has been made public. The shame of it is almost more than I can bear. I beg anyone with a few spare dollars to purchase this abomination and cast it, like the great ring of power, into the nearest fiery mountain you can find.

Failing that, just drop it in the trash, please.

I don’t like the idea of it being out there, somewhere, hidden from me, mocking me with its very existence.

Help.

Real Live Preacher

Advent Comedy of Errors

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:03:35 -0600

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

Communion Taste Taste

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 08:02:09 -0500

Leaving Church:

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 00:25:13 -0500

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...

A Religion of Denial

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 23:14:40 -0500

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?

Jacob's Well: Portrait of an Emergent Church

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:17:55 -0500

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

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 20:08:05 -0500

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

Suffering Foolishness

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:31:57 -0500

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