It all began with a confession of sorts. Now I’ve witnessed some confessions before. The really heartfelt ones bring all witnesses to their knees. I saw one last night on (of all places) Law & Order – Criminal Intent. In this particular episode a nun confessed her part in a vicious hate crime that had taken place seventeen years earlier. She had spent the intervening years working out her penance in the convent; getting and keeping girls off the mean streets of NYC. But she had willingly and with malice helped to beat a black teen senseless and it had left him in a near vegetative state for years. He was about to die as a result of his wounds. I doubt I will ever be enough of a writer to describe for you the heart that went into her confession. I’ve seen it several times now and it brings me to tears each time.

It was a confession. A verbal description of the wrong done. It was complete with details and full disclosure of the depravity of the moment. It also included an understanding of wrong and growth in grace. The last thing that it included was a full comprehension that no matter how much grace, mercy or forgiveness God may give, there are still lasting consequences for ill behavior in the kingdom of men. The nun understood that giving her confession in the presence of police officers and a district attorney meant that it was “on the record.” The district attorney told her that it would be sealed and in the event of the victim’s death, homicide charges would be filed against her and the men who had committed the hate crime. She squared her shoulders, a weight seemed to lift from her and she looked him in the eye, “I’ll be there this time. But now I must tend to my girls.”

There has been a discussion carrying on in other realms of the blogosphere about another confession by Gary Smalley that occurred in the near past. Apparently, he did a lot of his writing while his heart wasn’t in it. But … he’s all better now. Okay. So I’m not really certain what’s so sinful about that. Writing was his job. A lot of people do their job when their heart isn’t in it. Perhaps what he really needs is a new job. But that’s not the point of this post. I’m going to summarize by quoting from Brother Maynard, because it gets me where I want to go most quickly and it gives the links most succinctly and then I can get on with my point without boring you, my dear reader, to tears:

Brant Hansen opines on the recovery of Gary Smalley, noting how Gary went from all-good to was-bad-but-now-all-good without any real mention of what came between … the “bad” part. The IMonk takes note and adds on about the cult of Christian celebrity, somewhat tongue-in-cheek at points: “If you believe the entire Christian celebrity culture is a dangerous and polluted waste of mind, heart and money, you must just want to be difficult.” Put me down for just wanting to be difficult.

Just tuned in? At issue is the way in which the Christian culture makes celebrities of people, and the way that they ignore stories of people who struggle, waiting for them to “get better” and come back with a great recovery story. Everyone loves a good recovery story … but nobody wants to hear about sin before it’s become a thing of the past.

Quick primer:

I struggled.

good.

I’m struggling.

not good.

Basically, sin isn’t an acceptable subject unless you’ve gotten over it. We want to hear about current victories over past sin, not current struggles with present sin. If you’re still sinning, go away and come back when you’ve gotten over it and have your life back together.

That’s from Bro. M’s “Come Back When You Have An “After” Story, Okay?” At some point that is a must read as well as the comment thread (in which you will see me confess to using colorful language … but shhhh … it’s a secret 😉 )

I’ve been mulling this over. This idea of forgiveness and grace and mercy and judgement. Confession and sin. How does it all work together? How do we mete it out here in the corporal world? Which is vastly different from how God metes it all out and can the two be the same? Are we humans indeed at all capable of being forgiving on that level? What kind of vulnerability does it require on the part of the confessee and the confessor?

I’m wondering about the issues that we consider “sin” … what are they? Most often they are the things that hurt one another. There are the various lists in the Bible … the big 10, and the issues laid out by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Interestingly, Jesus focuses on ideas and words, and I harken back to that childhood nursery rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” This called out to dull the effect of name-calling and bullying in the schoolyard. We all grow up and begin to understand that words can hurt … they cut deeper than any knife and the pain can last a lifetime. I think this is what Jesus is speaking to in his instructions to the adulterer and murder in the Sermon on the Mount … just thinking about a woman in lust is leaving your wife and simply thinking about a person less than you is committing murder. Think deeply about those two concepts for a moment. Stop right here and do that. If you keep reading, I’ll walk you through it. If you are so certain that another person is alien enough to be called a fool, then they are “other” enough to be killed and you may as well have committed the act itself. Once you have degraded another person to the level of fool in your mind, you have become capable of killing them. That is the logic of Jesus. Now think about how we hear the likes of Hitler, Stalin and other military leaders speak of the “enemy” … the logic of Jesus makes eminent sense.

So, why do we have such a problem with the in-between times? Why don’t we want to walk with the hurting? We all love a great freedom story, but we don’t like the underground railroad. We don’t want to walk the thousand miles with the slaves to freedom, we just want to get there … as if beamed up by Scotty on the USS Enterprise. No mis-steps in between, no muddy swamps, no hard cold forest floors slept in, no musty moldy hay ricks, no cramped attic spaces, no fear, no sweat, no losing our way because the night sky is lost in clouds, no getting caught by slave catchers … nope none of that for us … just nice and clean, “Beam me up Scotty, I’m done with that sin now, … God gave me a miracle.”

I have a theory about that … beam me up is easy. It’s immediate gratification. Our culture is famous for that. We get to eat dessert first. Our family visits to Vermont every summer from Virginia. Every summer I wish for a transporter room. But I think I wouldn’t appreciate camp nearly as much without the ten hour drive to get there … as painful as it is. Beyond the immediate gratification though lies another deeper issue. And that is that if we acknowledge to another that they struggle with an issue, we must acknowledge to ourselves that we struggle. Then we must acknowledge to others that we struggle. We must let down the facade that all is not right in our perfect world.

To step a bit further down this spiral staircase we must then acknowledge that we cannot understand another’s pain. Nor can we comprehend the grace and mercy they have extended to us. Allow me to explain. In any relationship there comes a time when the two (or more) parties come to harm. Whether it is through malice or obtuseness it matters not. There may or may not be apologies or confessions and extensions of grace and forgiveness. Over time the hurt builds on both sides. In a Jesus-following relationship there may be accusations made that include something along the lines of, “Don’t worry about the mote in my eye, worry about the log in yours.” Oh. Well. Both (or more) parties begin to feel quite put upon. Someone might say, “Can’t you extend any grace?” And it is in this instance we can see that both (or more) parties have extended quite a bit of grace and forgiveness, but none can see the totality of it. They can see the grace and mercy they have each extended, but not what has been given to them. Nor can can any of the parties understand the pain that they have all inflicted on one another, they can only comprehend their own pain.

That long dark walk on the underground railroad from slavery to freedom must be done in community. There are stops on the way. There are conductors who point out the safe havens for rest and the places which must be avoided because the hounds had been loosed. There are rare instances when Scotty (God) might beam us up, but I think S/He means for us to walk the road together, learning to live in the messy existence when it’s the journey that counts. That we learn, slowly and surely who to trust on our walk to freedom. Who can be the conductors and who are the slave catchers. Who is watching for that everpresent North Star calling out to us for freedom.

That was how an amateur photographer described the scene at the collapse of the bridge over the Mississipi River yesterday.

It took me almost 24 hours to be able to read the coverage of the event.  I have not been able to look at photos.  It is my worst, most horrible nightmare come true.  I have been afraid of bridges since I was a little girl and had a nightmare of a bridge collapsing under our car as we crossed it.  I have to talk myself over bridges using my out loud voice when I’m driving if they are large and of consequence.  I cannot imagine the devastation and fear and terror that people must have encountered on that bridge yesterday.  I can only pray that the Holy Spirit enveloped them with peace.

This morning, Michael Spencer, of iMonk, has a beautiful post about the bridge collapse and the proper response of Jesus followers.  His comments are closed but I wanted to thank him for his wonderful direction and thoughts on the matter.

I remember when this came out. It was one of R.E.M.’s biggest hits. I wasn’t listening to very much R.E.M. at the time, but I’d really liked them at an earlier time in my life. When this song came out, I was firmly entrenched in conservative evangelicalism, and R.E.M. was definitely on the “do not listen to” list. I know I heard the song because I still secretly liked them and couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong with them. I understood the ban on groups like Red Hot Chili Peppers (even though I still liked them too), but R.E.M.? I didn’t get why adults were getting their panties in a wad over this. I got it in terms of that verse about only contemplating things that are holy, good, pure, true, etc. But … still … wtf? I didnt get it.

So I heard the song and loved it … but it scared me. Losing my religion. What would happen to me if I ever lost my religion? Where would my underpinings go? What would it look like to not have religion? It was a frightening thought. I was comfortable with my religion at the time … comfortable enough, that is. Comfortable, if I didn’t think to carefully or deeply.

In 1998, LightHusband had a back injury that threw him into a downward spiral of pain and suffering that would not end. It was a seemingly intractable injury that had no cause and for all intents and purposes, no cure. He ended up leaving the Army because of the injury after three years of doctor’s visits, two years on narcotics to control the pain, and several experimental courses of treatment that further aggravated his injury. At the very end of the journey we finally got a diagnosis … he is hypermobile and his ligaments had not held his sacro-iliac joint stable. The injury he had sustained is normally only seen in pregnant women and people who have been in front-end automobile collisions. In his case, it had been a repetitive use injury from wearing his drum for 18 years.

To say that I prayed during those three years would be an understatement. And yet, it would also be a lie. I prayed at first. I prayed as though my life depended on it … because in some ways it did. But my prayers did no good. They did nothing. They did not change our situation. They did not change me. They did not change God. They did nothing. Except create a very bitter knot in my heart. I finally gave up praying. I told my friends that they could pray if they wanted, but I was done. I left off the last part of that sentence, because it’s heresy in the conservative evangelical church. But I was done. I was too angry to pray. I just wanted to leave town.

I wanted to leave town. Leave the church. Leave this stupid God who does stupid horrid things like this. Or if he doesn’t do them, He allows them and doesn’t give us any answers. He allows huge tsunamis to rise up and kill thousands on a holiday. He allows hurricanes like Katrina. He allows babies to snatch our hearts and then they die without warning in the midst of the night.

John Smulo wrote a post several days ago asking about how do we defend God to our well-meaning friends and relatives who ask about this. Who ask how we can still have faith in a God who either does such things or allows such things and does nothing to repair them? As I tried to answer that question, I found I have none. There is no explaining why I still have faith.

I believe that I have lost my religion. But I still have my faith. Somewhere in the midst of it all … between then and now … I lost my religion. It’s in tatters. That has been a frightening thing. It’s also been sad. But I still have my faith in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.

Truthfully, what little I know of God does not give me the evidence to defend Him in the face of all the evil in the world. I have no “blessed assurance” that I’m going to some pearly gates when I die. I have none of that anymore. What I do have is this … the knowledge that there is a God and that S/He loves me and desires some sort of communion with me; indeed with all of us. I’m not certain what that communion looks like, but I’m damn sure it’s more than a cracker crumb and a dribble of grape juice. I do know that whatever S/He is, S/He is much, much, much larger than anything anyone of us can imagine. And Her vision of how justice will be played out is likely to be much, much different from mine … which is probably a good thing too.

I don’t defend God anymore. The way I figure it, if God really did create the universe She can defend herself. There’s not much I can say in his defense. Most people have made up their minds and legal arguments aren’t going to change them … hell … legal arguments rarely sway people in a court room, why should they work in a space as delicate as our beliefs about our origins. The thought is sort of silly.

Losing my religion … I’m slowly but surely turning my back on church as I know it. The church as described by Jesus in the Gospels is a beautiful place … a place I’d like to be part of. So is the church that Paul describes in his epistles. But once Constantine got his grubby hands on religion and the state took hold of things … well … I want to say, I never knew you. It’s not a place that has any room left for God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. It’s a place that tears people apart, chews them up, leaders use their followers and followers use their leaders — all to their own ends.

I read the gut-wrenching article by William Lobdell from the LATimes and thought, “I get it. I understand what he thinks.” I’m not where he is, I don’t think I’d make the decisions he made. But I understand them. I understand that eventually you cannot maintain that level of cognitive dissonance between what Jesus teaches and what the church teaches and call yourself a Christ follower.

I have no idea where my journey will take me next. I am in the waiting place. I am waiting to hear from God about what to do and where to go next.

Last Thursday night was sort of our last hurrah in Vermont.  LightHusband met up with his sister, her children, their parents and LightBoy at a baseball game.  LightGirl and I went to dinner and a movie.  LightGirl has no patience for baseball games at the best of times, and this was not the best of times.  Just thinking about it made her miss hockey and her team and skating and made her a little bit weepy and scared about her knee injury.

We were running late, so we dove into Pizza Hut for dinner.  We made an impassioned plea to our waitress that we needed to catch a movie … could our dinner be hurried at all.  Certainly, she smiled at us.   But the pace of the restaurant changed not a whit.  LightGirl’s pasta and marinara sauce seemed to have been made from homegrown tomatoes … on the vine … grown while we waited as time elastic stretched to eternity.  We tried to enjoy conversation and did at first, but the movie time loomed larger and larger on our horizon.  Dinner came and LightGirl bargained with me that the movie had already started, we shouldn’t bother those already there by walking in late.  My version was someone always comes in late … it would just be us this time.  We hadn’t missed that much … maybe just the previews.  Off we went to the theatre.

We walked into a mysteriously empty lobby and I said, “Two for Evan Almighty, please.”  The girl looked at me and then looked over her shoulder to the boy behind her and said, “I don’t know … can we still do that?”  Which took me aback for a moment.  The young man looked at me (I was looking very puzzled at the exchange) and said (into his walkie-talkie), “Is it too late to start Evan Almighty in 5?”  and I realized … we were the only people there for that movie!!!  We had the theater to ourselves.  Yes, we were late, but we were the only ones.  What a treat.  They ran it for us anyway.  Just us two in the whole theater … all by ourselves.  What fun.

Evan Almighty is a real treat itself.  I was a little askance about it after it’s predecessor, Bruce Almighty.  But this movie is gentle and fun and for those of us who believe in living our lives a bit differently so that we can express the love of the Creator to all of creation, it has a wonderful message.  Morgan Freeman is once again outstanding as God.  LightGirl remarked that if God is really like “that guy in the movie.  I could talk to him.  I haven’t had much to say to God for a while now.  But I could talk to that guy.  Do you think God is like that guy?”  I told her that I thought God certainly had a lot of those characteristics … that if she wanted to imagine that God was like that guy, there wasn’t anything wrong with it.  I think I liked the movie so much because the theme that ran all throughout it was that God loves His people and invites them to participate in His mission with Him.  What a great way to spend an afternoon or evening … being reminded of that wonderous truth.

I’ve read quite a bit over the last week about Pope Benedictine’s latest pronouncement from Vatican City. Mostly I’ve been wondering why everyone seems to need to make a fuss over his pronouncement. PopeB is just doin’ his thing. He’s pretty strict from what I understand and this latest bit seems to be right in line with that. Then I read this article by Roland Martin and everything clicked into place. Here’s a little teaser, but read the whole thing for yourself, it’s worth the effort:

It doesn’t matter what Pope Benedict XVI has to say, or for that matter, any other religious leader. A Christian believes in Jesus Christ and what He had to say, not what a man of God has to say. This is not an attempt to completely dismiss religious leaders, but is further evidence of what happens when ego is more important than the work of Christ.

The past couple of days have been hectic. Saturday saw the return of the GrandPea to camp and an unanticipated visit to an Urgent Care clinic for LightGirl. It seems that she may have torn her meniscus while at hockey camp last week. She’s on crutches now and we’re wending our way through the medical system to see how we should best proceed. Sunday began with a family breakfast then packing, sorting laundry and good-byes. Good-bye to GreatPea (my aunt), LightMom and GrandPea, as LightChildren were off to a week with their other grandparents. LightHusband and I are back at camp. And peace. And quiet. And phone calls to doctors. And just a little bit of worry.

LightMom and I went to a quilt exhibit together.  She loves to look at quilts almost as much as I do.  The difference being that I like to also make them.  We saw these quilts at the Shelburne Museum.  The exhibit was called:  Something Pertaining to God:  The Patchwork Art of Rosie Lee Tompkins.  Rosie Lee (not her real name, she took a pseudonym so she wouldn’t become too proud) said she would think of something important when she pieced, you know something pertaining to God … I really liked that.  I think about those things when I’m piecing and quilting too.  If I’m making a quilt for someone specifically, I pray for that person or their family.  Or I weave thoughts and dreams for them into the quilt.  This is likely not unique to me and/or Rosie.  I think that many quilters weave hopes and dreams into their quilts.  I liked the way that Rosie put it “… something pertaining to God.”

Rosie’s voice is tied up in her quilts (and quilted book pouches … she made some to match the quilts).  She died a couple of years ago.  I wish her voice was verbal instead of fabric.  I have no doubt she has some wonderful earthy wisdom to pass on.  I’ll bet it’s colorful and interesting too … told with a twist.  Born and raised in Arkansas, then she raised a family of five in California.  I’m certain she had stories to tell.  What a treat it would have been to sit quietly, stitching and listening as she sewed and talked … just to hear her voice and learn her technique.

I have sat and stitched with other quilters; learned their techniques, talked with them, cried with them, shared secrets with them.  I’ve learned over the years which voices to listen to.  Which have knowledge that I can profit from and which are fun to chat with, and which will give me support.  Who to call for help with applique or help with quilting or help with tricky set-in seams.  I’ve learned how to sort out the voices … who will tell me what is tried and true.

I’ve been thinking about that today.  I’ve been thinking about voices and who I listen to.  And who I don’t.  And why.  I’ve come to love the internet.  It’s a great place.  You can find anything there that you want.  For instance, I scared myself skinny (well … almost) about LightGirl’s meniscus tear this morning.  You have to be selective about which voices you’re going to listen to out on the big wide internet.  There are voices out there which will scare you and cause you pain.  I’ve found over time that when I keep going back to those voices (getting scared and/or hurt), that the authors are not the inflictors of the fear and/or pain … I am.  The site is static.  I am going to it.  If I keep going to it and getting scared, then I need to stop.  So I do.  As in this morning, I stopped looking for information when it was causing me too much worry about LightGirl’s condition.  I’ll wait til we get a definitive diagnosis from a real doctor, instead of the dr. dolittle on the internet.  I love the fact that I have control over who I listen to and when and why.  So that if I’m in pain or fear I can stop listening to that voice.   And listen instead to the voices of quilts or quilters … or even, the Holy Spirit.

Then there’s this.  I/We are walking with some friends who are preparing to move to another state.  There are some potential pitfalls and ups and downs involved with this move.  They hit a snag, a snafu (that’s Army for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up) as it were, this past week.  Up to now they were very happy with the house they’d found, gleeful in fact.  They felt that it was “in God’s plan,” for them.  This snag, this snafu, caused them to begin to doubt the rightness of the house for them.  Just for a moment.  They have continued ahead with the move because the house really is a good place for them.  It really is a good decision.  But the conversations and prayers have gotten me thinking.  I’ve been thinking about how we perceive and communicate God’s plan in our lives.

It’s quite common in the evangelical/institutional church to discuss “God’s plan” for one’s life as if it’s a blue print that may be discerned by a variety of means.  Some of those means are almost magical and require spiritual gifts and talents that merge with those of a nature that I liken to tarot card reading, looking into a crystal ball, or prophesying/divining (and I don’t mean in God’s name).  People wonder if they’re going to the “right” college (i.e. the one that is in “God’s” plan for their lives), or if they’re marrying the “right” person, or taking the “right” job, or purchasing the “right” house or the “right” car and so they look around for signs and symbols that they are making the “right” decision.  That is, the decision that puts them on the path that is in “God’s Plan” for their lives.

Increasingly, I am having a hard time with that line of thinking.  I used to think like that.  I used to think that there was a “right” decision to make and a “wrong” one about things like jobs and colleges and cars and such.  (I still think there might be a right and wrong mate, but that has nothing to do with God’s plan and everything to do with personalities and character and traits and things).   I’m not sure that God really cares about which college I go to.  Okay, well, I’m not going to college.  I don’t think S/He cares about which car I drive, other than the fact that cars degrade creation.  So in my decision to purchase a car, I ought to take that into account.  I need to take my income into account when I’m purchasing a home so that I can continue to be obedient to God’s call in my life after purchasing a home … but I’m pretty certain that God doesn’t particularly care which house I choose.  It’s just a house.  And any cover over our head is a blessing.

I think that something very uncomfortable has happened in Western evangelicalism.  We’ve taken a verse out of context and made it mean something completely adverse to its original purpose.  Big surprise there.  In these times of decision people often quote Jeremiah 29:11.  Some people have even co-opted it as their “life” verse.  So I went to the chapter and re-read the whole thing this morning.  Here’s the verse all by itself.  Actually, I’m just going to quote the part that people usually say all alone:  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, … “  Then they put that with a bit about the sparrows and the lillies in the field (parables in Matthew) and come up with an idea that God has put together an individualized blue print for each of our lives.  If we could just divine that blueprint and live accordingly, we’d have a perfect happy life.

I have a lot of problems with the picture that paints of God.  What kind of God is it that has a perfect plan for Her children, but keeps it secret?  Which of us, as parents, has plans for our children, but dangles only enough details for them to get in trouble and then holds them accountable?  Even we humans are not that evil.  That paints a picture of a mean, stingy God who is waiting for His children to get into trouble.  The God I read about in scripture loves us.  Loves us enough to give us free will.  But having a closely held blueprint and a free will I think are somewhat oxymoronish.  If my path to sanctification lies through that blueprint, but I cannot know the details.  And I have a free will to do what I choose.  Then do I have a free will at all?  If my path is already chosen, do I actually have free will?  I know that some would say that free will lies in my choice to be obedient to the path, the blueprint, or not.  But I don’t quite believe that.  Here’s why.

I went to Jeremiah chapter 29 and read the whole thing.  The first verse stunned me.  Chapter 29 of Jeremiah is a letter!  It is a letter from God to the exiled Hebrews in Babylon.  The first four verses are the bona fides.  But verse five gets into the meat of what God wants the Israelites to hear from him.  So read with me now:

5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 8 Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD.

10 This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. ^[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

15 You may say, “The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,” 16 but this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your countrymen who did not go with you into exile- 17 yes, this is what the LORD Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like poor figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 18 I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. 19 For they have not listened to my words,” declares the LORD, “words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either,” declares the LORD.

20 Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. 21 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you in my name: “I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your very eyes. 22 Because of them, all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘The LORD treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire.’ 23 For they have done outrageous things in Israel; they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and in my name have spoken lies, which I did not tell them to do. I know it and am a witness to it,” declares the LORD.

When I read this letter, I hear the words of a parent speaking peace and calm to a troubled child.  I hear myself saying to my children things such as, “Yes, you really screwed up this time.  Here are the consequences of your bad behavior.  But you’re going to live.  You’ll survive and thrive.  I still love you and want what is best for you.  When you calm down, you can join us again at the dinner table.”  Okay … I know that’s the human version and God has much more stringent standards of behavior than I do.  But I think you get the picture.  What this verse does NOT say is that God has a plan for our lives that involves which college to choose, which car, which house, which mate … that’s why S/He gave us free will and good brains.

I believe that generally S/He wishes to bless us, to bring good into our lives (whether or not we can recognize it).  Generally, we ought to (because of our love response) desire to spread that love around to others using our gifts and talents.  In that way, we are living within Her plan for our lives.  But I’m beginning to think that where and how and when we do it, is kind of up to us.  We’re grown ups, after all.  Praying about those decisions, I’m increasingly thinking, is like praying for a good parking space.  It just might be a little trivial.  What do you think?

I challenged John Smulo to a meme, and he did me one better. He started one of his own. It’s way cool. It’s the Five Things I Dig About Jesus. He tagged Grace and Grace tagged me … so. Here are my five … at the end I’ll tag five more people. You know the drill, leave your link in the comments (so we can keep track of who says what and where) and tag five more from your blog.

**I dig that he’s Jewish and Mary is the original Jewish mother. But that didn’t get Jesus down at all. He still listened to His Father.

**I dig that so many of his metaphors about his relationship with us concern a bridegroom and a bride … then his first miracle was at a wedding. Is that the coolest foreshadowing or what?

**I dig that he was unafraid of the taboos of his day and let us know that we don’t have to be afraid of the taboos of our day. He came to do away with taboos; to replace exclusion with inclusion.

**I dig that he made his ideas easy to remember … so when I get confused I just have to remember a couple of things. When I think I might be off course, I measure myself this way … am I trying to set captives free? restoring sight to the blind? am I trying to love my neighbor as myself? Those aren’t always easy questions to answer, but they are easy to remember and it’s only a few.

**My favorite thing about Jesus is that we’re all the same to him. No one is better, and no one is worse. He’s the original Democrat, the original utopian, the original socialist. I love that. We’re all equal and we can’t change it … not one bit. There’s no money, no glitz, no buying our way in. There’s no merit, nor work, nor talent. We just are … and that’s enough.

I tag …

Julie
Erin
David
Brother Maynard
Doug

I don’t remember how old this ad campaign is. They all start to run together after awhile. Some of you may remember the Dr. Pepper ads … I think they ran in the late 1970’s judging from the look.

It’s very seductive. If you drink Dr. Pepper, you’ll have lots of friends; be part of the “in-crowd.” According to this ad, everyone wants “to be a Pepper.” Look at all the shiney, happy people being “Peppers.” I don’t like Dr. Pepper, but I want to be one after watching that ad. I’d even drink one now and again if I could have that life.

Ads like that are deceptive (of course). They strum the chords of our desire to belong. They dig around deep in the hurts that we all have and ask, “Do you have what you want?” Then they tell us, “You can belong. Just get this one thing and you’ll be part of the in-crowd.”

Why do we have this deep down desire to belong? And why does it keep us purchasing more and more stuff? I think there are a couple of reasons for that. First, I think that we’re all born with a desire to be in groups. We were made to bond with others in families and in communities (how we were made that way is not the focus of this post … so I’m not going there). Second, I think that at some level and at some time in our lives we have each been branded as “untouchable” by a group and been excluded from that group for reasons which were beyond our control. This caused a wound and a desire to overcome that exclusion … to become part of the in-crowd far beyond the wound that was created.

In the first century, Jesus is recorded as having healed many people. It is told that he healed several lepers, blind people, cured a woman with an unstoppable menses, cripples, etc. At the time these people were considered (especially the lepers) as untouchables. In the first century, people with physical and mental problems of this nature were believed to have brought it upon themselves by some sin or have had it brought upon them by sin in their family’s past. In other words, it was the choices made by them or their families that caused the problems they were now facing. It was, to be succinct, their own fault they were lepers, or blind, or deaf, or bleeding, or … etc.

Those of us who read the New Testament shrink from that understanding in dismay. We are much more enlightened now. And we know some of what Jesus knew. That those people were suffering from physical maladies over which they had no control at all.

Ah, yes. We are much more enlightened now. We no longer have leper communities. We no longer have beggars in our streets. We no longer treat our mentally ill as if they were possessed of demons and keep them locked away. Or … do we?

Every human group has a defined set of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. Some are universal. Thou shalt not kill other humans seems to be universal (for good reason). Doing bodily harm to other humans also seems to be universal. After that it gets kind of dicey. In the institutional, fundamentalist Protestant church sexual deviance (that is anything that deviates from one man-one woman-missionary position) is considered unacceptable behavior … for life. There is no repenting or forgiveness once one has crossed that line. How about if one considers being a Democrat? The emerging church/conversation has its own set of unacceptable behaviors as well. What if one chooses to live a solitary life? Or continues to shop at Wal-Mart? Flagrantly? The secular community has unacceptable behaviors too … alcoholism, sexual offenses, being overweight.

My point is, we continue to shun people for things that they may have little or no control over. Weight, substance abuse, and sexual orientation are all issues which have deep, deep roots in people’s psyche’s. I am daily more convinced that sexual orientation something that a person is born with and is immutable. Weight and substance abuse issues have life long causes, consequences and cures. We cannot decide for others what they have a “choice” in. Because we do not live in their heads. We only live in our own heads. Here in our own heads we are all broken, each and every one of us. If every group has its own untouchables, its own lepers, then we all must be lepers of one sort of another.

Every time we create an “us” and a “they”, we have created modern day lepers, untouchables. We have created a set of people with whom we will not associate. If we are to begin to learn how to love as Jesus loved (that would be to love our neighbors as ourselves) we must begin to see others not as we want them to be (perfect), but as they are … fellow creations of God. We must begin to see them as “us.” Fellow lepers in the colony of earth. Wouldn’t ya like to be a leper too?

Here are the rest of my fellow syncrobloggers thoughts … and they are probably more well thought out than mine!

Mike Bursell muses about Untouchables

David Fisher on Touching the Pharisees – My Untouchable People Group

Michael Bennet writes Nothing more than the crust life

Jeremiah at Models of church leadership and decision-making as they apply to outreach

John Smulo talks about Christian Untouchables

Sally Coleman shares on The Untouchables

Sam Norton talks about Untouchables

Steve Hayes on Dalits and Hindutva

Josh Rivera does his stuff with the Untouchables

Fernando A. Gros speaks up on Untouchability And Glocalisation

Phil Wyman throws out the Loose Lips – A “SinkroBlog”

My daughter, known here as LightGirl, is amazingly perceptive about other people.  She is especially perceptive about me.  She picks up on my cues when I think I have them deeply hidden.  And they are hidden … from most people.  But she can see them.  She’ll look me straight in the eye and ask a quiet question that cuts straight to the bone.  It never hurts, but it’s clean.

Yesterday, she walked in and asked, apropos of nothing, “Mom, are we ever going to start going to church again?”  She looked a bit wistful.  I asked if she had a particular church in mind.  No.  I asked if she missed church.  Not really.  “But,” she said, “I really think you miss it a lot.”

We got interrupted at that point.  But I started thinking.  Do I miss church?  What do I miss?  We haven’t attended a Sunday worship service since early March.  What is church?

I think the thing I long for the most is communion or Eucharist.  I know that there’s an Episcopal church right up the street that I could attend tomorrow and take Eucharist there.  But that’s not the same.  That’s akin to prostitution.  I want to serve and be served the body and bread amongst a circle of community.  Where the liturgy calls down Spirit among us and we wait upon It.  I’m inherently greedy … and I want communion of heart and soul with God and with my friends.  I want it all.  That’s what I long for.