why can't it always be like that?

So, Matt and I were in the Bay Area for a wedding this past weekend. On Sunday, I did something (I confess) I don't always do on a Sunday off of preaching: I went to church.

Going to worship at Glide in San Francisco doesn't take so much self-discipline, though. It's not like penance. It's good vacation activity.

Afterwards, we were talking about what we liked. Matt said, "I think that's what church should always be like."

One of the things I liked was that they gave word to what felt true there: they were clear about naming that everyone is welcome. Poor, rich, gay, lesbian, straight, transgendered, Bible-knowing, Bible-ignorant, confused, clear, clean, addicted, of any race, old, young... And, they made it fun to be together. We remembered that it was a special place--that the whole world isn't like that. Which made it sweeter, more precious, and wonderful.

I didn't have to worry that MY experience was isolated: that other people were judging folks who entered. Or that what SEEMED like an embrace of all humanity was just a sort of an odd accident. They said it plain and clear: we're all celebrated.

I sat next to a man who was there for the first time. We didn't talk much, but it was clear he both new the words and the ASL signs for many of the songs we sang. Especially the ones that you might hear on Christian radio. It was also clear that he was experiencing, for the first time, that he was welcome AS HE WAS there--that he didn't have to hide anything. It was pretty beautiful.

On his other side was a friend who kept pulling out his phone. Which really annoyed me 'til I realized he was using it to take notes on the sermon. For real. That made me happy.

And, in a little way, reminded me about what's cool about church (at least, about church as it's supposed to be): it makes you confront little assumptions and judgments within yourself, and connect to something better. Richer. More beautiful.

So there we were, having our little post-worship discussion in the car, and Matt asked a hard question: so what's stopping you from making church like that?

Now, I don't want to complain: I'm pretty in love with a lot of the worship I get to lead. I treasure the community. I thrive on the sense of creative play I get to use. But somehow we come short of the kind of wild, all-inclusive joy that animates Glide. And usually, I let me fear of offending some people get in the way of saying things as clearly as the worship leaders at Glide did.

So, now I've gotta figure some things out...

gardening & revolution

I pass this house on my way to the freeway--just a few blocks away from our house. I'm a fan of the gardening revolution.

Turns out, there's a whole guerrilla gardening movement; rebellious, hopeful souls who dare to plant growing things in the abandoned places of empire.

Gardening is so good. It's relaxing. It connects me to this place. It reminds me of my place in cycles beyond my control. It recommits me to tending and cultivating things of beauty. It means I don't have drive to get my groceries, and no one has to use oil to drive them to the store. It means my food tastes really good. And, I love watching my neighbors stop to look at what's growing. My favorite is watching parents show their kids what vegetables look like in the natural state.

It definitely makes switching out "yard" for "garden" worthwhile. Of course, this place didn't even have "yard" when we moved in. It just had "pavement..."

Today, our first fruits of the season. (I'm being technical about this, and going for "fruit." This is a juicy and sweet switch-up from the lettuce, chinese cabbage, broccoli and chard that have been growing...)
They were the tastiest strawberries I've had in a long while. And no one had to work in miserable conditions for too little pay which being exposed to toxic pesticides to grow 'em.

Hooray for these five strawberries.

What a glorious alternative to concrete.

numbers

Praying in memory of those killed at Virginia Tech today, at the long litany of names of those whose lives ended too early, I got overwhelmed.

Not just by those 32 names, but by the 183 killed in Iraq today.

Learning details of the precious lives lost in Virginia, celebrating their particularities, I felt pangs of guilt: I know nothing of the lives of the 183.

I remember the number, because I was looking at numbers: the 153 fish miraculously caught when Jesus told his disciples to cast their net on the other side of the boat, when he visited them at the seashore after his resurrection.

I was typing "153" into the Google search bar, which I noticed a similar number in the yahoo headlines. But instead of being a reminder of God's good abundance, or of the rich ways God provides for us, it was a reminder of the ugliness of human violence. And, 183 is even more than 153.

Turns out that 153 has all sort of mathematical significance. In sequences, it's remarkable: the sum of the first 17 integers. Also, the sum of 1 through 5 factorial. According to Wikipedia, it's the biggest commonly-known number.

And so I pray for the lives of a even greater number of people. I pray in thanksgiving for their rich particularities, which I know nothing of. I pray for my own ignorance.

I pray for peace, and for sensibility for our national leadership. I pray for an end to violence, everywhere.

atonality

I just got back from the Opera. It was Wozzeck, a modern opera--a wild 90 minutes in an atonal universe. I studied composers like Alban Berg in college, in heady course on non-objective painters like Mondrian and Kandinsky and the atonal music of Schoenberg and Webern (with a few shout-outs to Berg...) Technically, atonal music is known as such because it lacks a tonal center. It's not in any key. It doesn't land or come back to anything familiar, regular, or melodic. Sometimes it feels like speak-singing. Other times, it feels like the music was generated in a truly random way--as if Berg rolled a 12-sided die to figure out which note would go next.

Oddly destabilizing. Exhausting, when I think about how nice it would be for a rousing melody to hum along to. And yet, evocative. Raw. Even, perhaps, honest and pure.

And, afterwards, I felt strangely optimistic. Which strikes me as unlikely, given that the story thrives on brokenness and, ultimately, jealousy that leads to murder.

In the line at Starbucks, where I waited for the mocha that would bring validation for free parking, the man in front of me smiled and seemed friendly. Then he asked me, in Russian, if I spoke Russian. Then he spoke in fluent, slang-filled English to his friends. The cashier engaged in me in a long story about her day, and taxes. And, as I parked in front of our house, a man who I've seen in the neighborhood wanted to start a conversation (and get bus fare). We ended up talking a lot longer than I'd imagined, and made me uncomfortable in bits and pieces.

Conversation felt refreshingly easy, after emerging from the atonal universe. And yet, all of it feels like it lacks a center (tonal or otherwise). Nothing seemed to quite be what I expected or knew how to respond to.

So, I'm pondering what it might be like to move through a world that was centered in a particular key. Would everyone have to hear it or just me? And what would it mean missing?

Maybe I just need more sleep.

joys and concerns

It's been a while since I posted.

Some things have been good since I last wrote. I got the Resurrection playlist together, and the Easter Vigil it was set in was way cool. I think my favorite part was watching people really engage the activities we'd designed on this easter "pilgrimage"--and watching those who'd designed the event shine with healthy pride and share the power of easter stories. Our campus felt steeped in "holy." That a photo from it ended up on the front page of our San Diego paper was bonus cool.

Since Easter, I've been attempting pastoral de-compression. It seems like it shouldn't be this hard: it's the same story every year, after all. It should be less shocking to us than it was to Mary on that morning when she took spices for a dead body. I need to remember that the BIG work of Easter is taken care of by that wily Holy Spirit...

Somehow, though, making it relevant and hip and making sure we don't screw things up in worship takes a lot of energy.

So, after intense church-things-obsession, I got to enjoy a week focused on home.

Unfortunately, so did the person who broke into our house Thursday night.

They didn't take so much. I guess it helps that I own jewelry with little cash value. I mean, I think it's cool, but it's not gonna sell quick on the street. (In a perverse way, it feels a little insulting--that my things weren't worth stealing... I guess I can find solace that they chose MY laptop to steal. Apparently, they have some good taste. Mac, not PC.) But they did break a window. And run out the back door.

Mostly, I'm sleeping well since then. I still feel funny when I come home at night, alone. I don't want to discover that it's happened again.

So I decided to prove to my house that I haven't waned in my affection for her or our choice of neighborhood by working in the garden again. Things are blooming and sprouting. The sprinkler system is fixed, and the stepping stones are in place. Even the japanese maple, which maintained its "dead stick" look longer than anything else in the yard has beautiful young leaves. One of my joys is watching neighbors walking past our yard stop, to point and look at things growing in our garden. One neighbor brought cuttings from her own yard; she's given up on trying to grow new things, but was more than happy to run home and return, so she could share from the ones that are well-rooted there.

And, a week or two late by liturgical standards, my Passionflower vine has opened its first blooms. I'm told it was named for that distinctive bloom, which 15th Century Spanish missionaries though held reminders of the crucifixion.

Then, today, there's news of this horrific shooting at Virginia Tech, and I'm back to contemplating how to celebrate the Easter season in the midst of death.

I pray that the world will stop, turn, and find ways to cherish life.

resurrection playlist

Ok...so one of my fun puzzles of the week is building a playlist for the "resurrection" stations in our Easter Vigil Prayer Pilgrimage at church. What tracks would you add?

So far, I just have Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising."

stalled

I realize it's been a long while since I last wrote.

My tomato seedlings stalled, too. They happily, quickly put out their first 2 leaves. Then, just as signs of the first real leaves began to emerge...they stalled. Nothing. Same for the peppers next to them.

I started more seeds, weeks after the first. They quickly bypassed the first, so-hopeful seeds. They're in the ground outside now, on their way to bearing real tomatoes.

So I've been wondering what did in those first sprouts. I hope it wasn't their recycled packaging. I'm excited about seed staring in old newspaper pots. I don't know what did it. I'm puzzled.

Two weeks ago, I took them out of their little pots, and put them in new (reused) plastic containers. (They have none of the charm...) The peppers have shown real signs of recovery--their little leaves move with the day's sun, and are reaching ever upward. The tomatoes, though...we'll I haven't totally given up on them, but they're still not doing much.

(Neither have they keeled over, though, which I take as hopeful.)

Problem is, failure really discourages me. I don't like to be wrong, and I don't like to fail. If I'd done something I KNEW was wrong--say, forgotten to water for a week because I was too busy tending to the world's needs--that'd be fine. I'd deal. But now I'm left in uncertainty.

I suppose that's a good spiritual discipline for this week.

continuing the tomato dreams

The dear little seeds of my tomatoes-to-be have all sprouted, and are enjoying the light of our dining room window.

And, just when I thought I was spending too much time dreaming of tomatoes, I ended up next to someone at a dinner party who graced me with inspiring tomato talk. After his home burned in the Cedar Fire, and his garden was destroyed, he spread some of the old garden soil on his new plot. Volunteer tomatoes sprouted, and have been growing for the past year-and-a-half. He'd just picked some of the fruits that day.

Which is making me both delight in the resilience of seeds, and wonder why I worry so much about taking care of these little seedlings.

In other delightful news, our irises are beginning to unfurl their purple splendor. A bit bold for Lent--but at least they're in liturgically correct colors.

savoring possibility

Today, I'm enjoying the particular dreams I've been harboring about my garden. Four of my six little recycled newspaper starting pots have sprouted, and I can almost taste the tomatoes.

Matt and I have been falling in love with recipes that can been almost entirely made of things that will (hopefully) grow in my garden this summer. I just have to wait...

I'm liking having plants into which I can channel hope and a bit of work. They make me rest on God's grace, 'cause I can't make tomatoes on my own.

sleeping, well...

i wish i could replicate Thursday's nights sleep
because last night,
under the same blankets,
in the same trailer on the same worksite,
with the same person i love,
under the same (slightly enlarged) moonlight,
the wind kept me in wake and worry,
as imagined all sorts of things being lifted and displaced.

everything is more easily borne on wind in my
(not quite) sleeping imagination.

sleeping well

I slept last night
under a pile of blankets:

A quilt of old t-shirt memories,
printed, stenciled, and drawn mementos
stretching back through my life,
stitched together with borders
of Grandma's old chenille
bedspreads, which were torn into pieces
of padding
when we packed her china
that cold Thanksgiving morning
after she died

The down comforter I sent to Iraq,
wrapped in its patchwork
which we trusted would enfold him
in the love of the whole family
(bearing Dad's trail map,
drawings of rebar for the house we've come up here to build,
and Grandpa's handprints)
We'd never gotten to share it before

And a plain green blanket I ended up with,
from who knows where.

When we'd arrived
we were startled to find a much larger
blanket of snow on so much of the ground,
which made us more grateful for our nighttime coverings.

How well we slept:
blanketed by nearly-full moonlight,
under covers of our lives,
up high in the mountains,
where we look forward
to memories to come
and countless full moons together
in this home that we're building.

i'd never make it as an ascetic

I have been hungry for the last 3 days. Not want-to-rip-someone's-head-off hungry, but could-eat-more hungry.

I blame it on this retreat I took: themed around "feasting during the fast," it directed my attention toward all the ways food embodies hospitality, and breaking break knits community together.

The retreat center food was fine--and delightful in that way that it's nice to have full plates of food that someone else cooked, but nothing special in the sense of culinary delight. Our retreat sessions, though, were full of little tastes of truly exquisite things: a variety of rich butters, vine-ripened tomatoes, good cheese, fresh bread. These things made it quite worth wanting to always eat a little bit more.

Matt says it's because we're vegetarians for Lent that we're always hungry.

Whatever the reason, I'm trying to like it: I'm always ready to break bread with anyone who might be willing, and always ready for another exquisite morsel of God's good (edible) creation.

few words

i am
tired,
but that beautiful kind of tired
that makes me glad
for this
whole
day

(especially
the moments it
felt
eternal)

writing with pictures

still paying attention to the little details.

i'm thankful for the delightful things blooming in my yard today.

blooming

I noticed my first iris bloom of the season today. It's stunning, if I do say so myself. Plus, our California poppies are starting to bloom, so that orange makes the iris's purple even more beautiful.

We starting putting our old chunks of concrete back in the ground, as stepping stones, this afternoon. Our garden is starting to look more, well, garden-y. (The gnome helps.) I love the things that are growing.

I keep trying to look at my yard with an outsider's eyes, but never really succeed. I have the same problem with our house.

Probably, to someone passing by, both still look pretty ragged. But I see all this progress that we've made. Even some of the bits that seem to look messier than when we started--like our lack of trim on windows and doorways, or the bits of missing siding where we re-plumbed the kitchen sink--are signs to me of progress we're making. Making this house our home is a long, messy process. And I'm proud of our ragged attempts at progress. (My messy garden is SO much better than the concrete that was there!)

Which seems like an apt image for lent; certainly, for Ash Wednesday. To get to Easter, first we cover ourselves with messy ashes. This probably makes us look a lot worse off than we seemed on Mardi Gras, but the ashes mark a pretty important and big step.

I only participated in morning-time Ash Wednesday worship once or twice, so I'm not sure how I feel about wearing my ashes around town all day, announcing to the world that I need repentance.

But I'm definitely going to try to get more details from anyone who looks ragged or messy. They might just need congratulations for making it a good, long way toward being whole.

More little things

I'm not generally good at mornings, so it wasn't altogether surprising that I had to drag myself out of bed and rally to get to the the weekly Bible study I lead in a shelter program downtown this morning. Lately, it seems like changes in the community of residents there has meant difficult and disjointed conversation about whatever passages we're reading.

Which makes the conversations I got to be a part of today seem even more wonderful.

In the midst of talk about a bunch of other things, one woman told about her childhood--about words a neighbor shared with her on the porch of her house. In faithful detail, she recalled the message that had been shared with her: an invitation to a better life in God. A God who has dreams for our lives.

She said she'd never thought about there being anything other than the world she knew--anything beyond drinking all day. As a child, this neighbor's words opened new possibilities. And even though it would be years before she really chose to follow God's dreams, she remembers beginning to know of their possibilities on that afternoon on the porch.

I wonder how many kids this neighbor might have said such things to. And I wonder if she has any idea what powerful memory she was creating in this then-young girl.

I suspect we all have more effect on one another that we're aware of.

Lenten practices

So, it's Ash Wednesday, and I get to bask in the memory of worship on my favorite church holiday.

This year, I decided, I like that it's repentance we do together.

Too often, we waste too much time pointing out personal sins. (Our own, and others...) On Ash Wednesday, though, we all take on ashes.

It's making me feel better--even a little bit hopeful--in the midst of too much that's going wrong. (According to Matt, the world's going to hell in a handbasket.) If we're all willing to take on ashes together, in church, maybe we can begin to think about what it would look like to repent of the things we do together, sometimes without even really meaning to: starting wars and continuing them, denying the worth and humanity of children of God, persisting in systems that perpetuate sexism. And racism.

Maybe reconciliation can be possible.

It always feels really weird, putting ashes on other people's foreheads. First off, there's the worry about getting the right amount on your finger, so it makes a mark that's sufficiently visible to seem truly repentant, without showering their nose with little bits of ash.

Then, there's the awkward way the ashes make us confront our mortality. "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The same words to everyone.

In my mind, they're words of comfort: we are all of the same "stuff," and, ultimately, it's not even what makes "us" "us." Dust.

And, remembering that we're all dust somehow makes all the little stuff more meaningful--the dust of the earth matters, since it's what we are.

All of which Ellen Ott Marshall said so beautifully in her talk at church tonight, as she invited us to practice hope this Lent. Hope in attentiveness to the little stuff, even as it sits in tension with so much that's wrong and difficult and hard.

SO, I'm resolving to accept the Lenten challenge Karen gave me: to write. And I'm gonna try to be attentive to the dust and other little stuff that gives me hope.

in the kitchen

We've been home from our spectacular vacation for just over a week now. Since we got back, I don't think Matt has taken a break. In fact, he's re-routing some plumbing to the kitchen sink as I type.

Neither of us really understood how much work this house would be. The excitement of little triumphs, however, is keeping us going. Here, I am going to inflict some of the adventure on you.



With our base cabinets ready to install, it was finally time to tear out all the last bits of the kitchen: the walls and the sink. So, last Sunday, Matt and his friend, Andrew, got out their pry bars and went at it. (I took my obligatory Sunday nap. Believe me--it's better for us all.)



We figured that now's a good time to switch out the nasty old window (not old enough to be really cool--just cheap and old) for a new one. When the crappy old window was installed, some creative and not very effective plumbing was done--making the vent pipe an imaginary vent pipe through the window. Someone just severed it, installed a new window, and called it good.



We also discovered, in removing the wallboard, that the wall was mostly gone, thanks to old termite damage and what appears to have been several floods under the kitchen sink. So, a bit of re-framing was in order. Here's Matt with the wall really gone, and a new view of the street.



Building the new wall took us well past dark. By dark, we called in for reinforcements. But doesn't the new wall look, well...stable?



That was on Monday. On Tuesday, wallboard went up. Then Matt's dad came over to install the beautiful cabinets he built (out of reclaimed lumber!). Electricity and some paint and a new dishwasher and temporary countertops...and, finally, a sink!

Here's the kitchen as it's currently assembled. We're looking forward to being able to enjoy. And Matt's started building the forms for the new concrete countertop.

Someday, before too long, we hope we'll be able to be better dinner hosts. And have more time to spend with our friends (doing something other than construction work).

letting the aloha live

We're just back from a splendid, luxurious TWO WEEK vacation in Hawaii. The length, the ocean, the pineapples and the company were all splendid.

Growing up in Nebraska, my sense of Hawaii lacked nuance. It just enchanted me with dreamy pictures of swaying palm trees and tropical ocean scenery.

Now, I can distinguish the difference between Waikiki's urbanized and developed strip of hotels and the rural coffee fields of the big island.

In disbelief at the number of ABC convenience stores in Waikiki, Matt and I decided to count them on our walk back from dinner one night. It was a pleasant stroll--less than a mile. And, we passed 11 ABC stores (plus, one that was about to open in a new shopping mall). More incredible to us, though, was that we passed 3 Coach stores. (And knew that if we walked further, we'd find another one a block later.) We picked Coach to count, but there were other choices for fine handbag purchasing... It occurred to me, in one unfolding walk, that many people must vacation with purposes other than seeing swaying palm trees. But I'm still incredulous that THAT many people buy expensive handbags on vacation.

As for me, I'm especially grateful for some sea turtles, 2 whales off the big island coast, spectacular waves on the North Shore, and one exquisite sunset (which we enjoyed from an indulgent Waikiki hotel beach cafe). And for my dear husband, and his family, who we got to hang with during our time away from Oahu.

the exquisite sunset

the turtles

our family portrait at volcanoes national park

I bought no Coach handbags.

I did, however, feel a growing sense of connection between my Nebraska roots and the Hawaiian soil. My favorite local big island station played songs that, while also borrowing from reggae and using more ukelele, felt distinctively like country music. Turns out, there've been cowboys on Hawaii for years. And folks who go "big pig hunting," and sing songs about it.

Who knew?

sort-of like walking on water

When Matt and I were back in Nebraska this week, celebrating Christmas, we went canoeing on Mom and Dad's lake. (Dad steered and egged on.) We thought it was less frozen than it really was. (Thin layers of melted water on top of ice can be deceiving.) There's a lesson in this somewhere, but I'm on vacation and I haven't figured it out yet.

















It sure was pretty, though, watching the sunset colors reflect off the narrow channel the canoe cut through the ice...


In other news, Grand Island, Nebraska now, apparently, has a Starbucks. (We didn't visit.) And Wal-Mart's litter can be found even in out-of-town cornfields. There's a commentary in this somewhere, and I think you can figure it out yourself.












Now, we're leaving the ice and canoes behind for some pineapples and tropical breezes...