A Game of Thrones, or Indecision America 2012

So, we all know I'd never get political, right?

Oh, please.  I breathe politics.  So, of course, presidential election year is a time when I'm hyperventilating, as it were.  It doesn't help that we're faced with the current slate of candidates.  The back history of this blog reveals a lot of harsh criticism of President Obama coming from this disillusioned left libertarian; I still hold that most of it is deserved, even if I'm willing to recant that my electability concerns have been put to rest by the overwhelmingly awful cast of corporate-funded cretins put up by the Republican Party.  That all said, I just hope to be proven wrong that a second Obama term will be marked by less kowtowing to big money and its political agents.

Then, there's Mitt Romney.  Aside from the fact that the man has the raw charisma of limp spaghetti, the thought of him as president is chilling to me, and rightly so.  Let's put aside the obvious areas of incompetency shown by Romney in foreign policy (which are being put on display for all the world now as he takes a tour of Europe and the Middle East), and stay away from speculation.  Let's look at what is verifiable fact.  This is a man who has...

-Reminded us that "corporations are people, too, my friend."  The notion of a business interest being defined as a person is repugnant to me, and all other sentient beings, especially since we all know that this is merely a legal way of allowing corporate entities to donate money in politics without limit or accountability.  It's legalized corporate bribery - and the man who would be king is a big supporter of this.

-Will not release tax returns.  Everybody does this when running for president.  We like to know that our presidential candidates are willing to keep their financial dealings on the up and up...and like to keep their money invested in the nation which they, ostensibly, love like nothing else and would make tremendous sacrifice to serve.  The evidence suggests that Romney's chief loyalties lie with personal profit, not national loyalty.  Why else hide the documents that would shed light on this?  Furthermore, we all know he's in an income bracket that makes even the fairly wealthy Obamas look like the Clampitts before they struck oil.  We even know that the tax exemption on his wife's prize horse is higher than the average household income in the U.S.  I don't suspect he has the interest of the little man in mind; I frankly suspect that he wouldn't even know what price a box of pasta goes for at a grocery store.

-Made his fortune in finance.  The list of the biggest donors to each campaign was released this week; Obama's is a mixed bag, while Romney's big money donations have almost all (9/10) come from finance.  You cannot tell me that Romney will not be Wall Street's stooge in office.  He knows this world from the inside, as he made a fortune in precisely the kind of dodgy financial dealings that most of the rest of us see as the PROBLEM in our national economy, not its solution.

I have no intention of voting for either of them (Green Party!), but if the biggest threat we face as a democracy is the empowering of superwealthy business interests in the political system, then Romney is the last person in the field who is fit to occupy the White House.  Crony capitalism needs to stay a part of our nation's past; please read Twain's The Gilded Age for a look at what things might look like if we keep on this course.  We serve a God who consistently shames the wealthy and powerful and chooses the poor and weak; we've got to follow in that path if we want to see justice in this land, and world.

Pulpit Safety Belt

The good folks at Emanuel in Dayton got me one of the best graduation gifts imaginable - a pulpit safety belt.  You see, Kevin the klutzy pastoral intern made a definite impression on God's faithful people on internship by falling out of the pulpit on my sixth Sunday.  The best part - I had mentioned, in the sermon, my utter lack of any sort of discernible coordination.  If that is not proof that God has a sense of humor, and that it is a sick one, then I don't know what is.

So, as a little nod to one of my more memorable homiletical acrobatic acts, they presented me with a "pulpit safety belt" in a frame.  It's going to hold a place of honor in my office here; it only seems right that everyone coming into my office be made aware that Pastor Kevin can't be relied on for good bodily coordination.

But, as I think about, there's a lot more to the idea of having a pulpit safety belt that thrills me, inspires me.  I WANT to be the kind of preacher where the safety belts need to be fastened, seats and tray tables in their upright and locked positions.  The Gospel isn't safe; why should its public proclamation be any different?  I want to deliver the goods, so to speak; I want the word of Christ crucified and risen for us to resound not just on Sunday morning, but every day.  I long to see it at work, transforming this sad, broken church/neighborhood/city/state/nation/world/cosmos.  I don't want our - my - public proclamation to be just another limp, impassive, unrelatable bit of bad theological pabulum that in no way, shape, or form speaks good news to our brokenness in the interest of being comfortable, safe, or "relevant."  I find it tremendously ironic that in our effort to be comfortable, safe, and "relevant," the Church usually comforts itself into a stupor, undermines its own security, and ceases to say a single meaningful thing to a world that is hungry for the Gospel.

Of course, I'm also reminded of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2, in which he talks about how the success of the Gospel in Corinth had nothing to do with Paul's skillful proclamation, but everything to do with the Spirit acting with power.  Maybe that drive toward stupor-like comfort, false safety, and fake relevance are quelching that Spirit.  Maybe our great failure in the pulpit is in deciding that we know better than God, and that our knowledge tells us to pull our punches rather than confront the world's brokenness that encompasses so much of who and what we are.  Maybe we need to stop playing it so safe to spare folks from the whiplash of the Holy Spirit's moving, active work among us, and instead tell people to buckle up, because God is here, and God isn't driving the speed limit.

Queen of the Sciences, or, the Theologian Strikes Back

This is a hill I'm willing to die on.  I am not going to pull my punches on this one; proceed with caution.

I was sweeping earlier and, despite all my best efforts to be mindful and live in my present experience, I was thinking about the struggles that I've faced as someone who is both an intellectual and trained theologian going on to doctoral work in New Testament, and a person of faith awaiting call as a pastor.  There are two camps that have been particularly a thorn in my flesh - those who aren't "religious" and think that all I've done is waste my brain on "Jesusology" (which isn't a REAL academic discipline), and those who come out of fundamentalist/evangelical traditions and do not understand what academic theology is and assume that I must, of course, agree with them in their ultra-literal butchering of the scriptural witness.

Both camps need to be called out - the former simply for not grasping the fact that theology is, in fact, a rigorous academic discipline and not just "Jesus loves me" fluff, and the latter...oh dear.  The calling out of my sisters and brothers in rather more conservative traditions must be for creating the sense in broader society that Christianity equals stupidity.  The former attitude irks me; the latter infuriates me.  I will try to keep it under control.

So, first - a word to those who do not think that theology is a legitimate academic field of study.  How many ancient languages did you have to learn for your law degree?  I had to learn two for my M.Div.; by the time I have my Ph.D., I'll have had to prove competency in both of those, plus two more languages of academic study.  Neither ancient language uses our alphabet, by the way, and one of them isn't even Indo-European.  Then, with those two languages, I am asked to be able to analyze, with deep knowledge of historical and social contexts contemporary to the writing of each of 66 separate documents (most of them anonymous or by multiple authors and editors), the entirety of the Bible.  I also have to be conscious of how to read them in a way that encourages and inspires people's sense of faith - academic knowledge of them as historical objects or works of literature isn't enough.  

Of course, to be able to do that, I need to be a well-trained writer and public speaker.  I also need to have an incredible depth of grasp of the entire history of Western thought - a good grounding in philosophy, the sciences, history, and literature is essential.  I very specifically have to be an expert in 2,000 years' worth of religious, spiritual, and theological reflection in the Christian tradition.  I also cannot be ignorant of other religious and spiritual traditions, so while becoming an expert in Christian, and especially Lutheran, thought, I also have to be at least conversant in the theology and practice of other major world religions.

Did I mention that, in addition to these things, I also have to be an ethicist?  And a teacher capable of providing instruction to everyone from cradle to grave?  Oh, and I also function as a non-clinical counselor - gotta have a good grasp on psychology, both in terms of theory and counseling practice.  The road to my degree could be paved ten times over the papers that have been written and the pages that have been read and, at the end of it, every person in ministry is a polymath capable of doing everything from discussing the relationship between process theology and the general theory of relativity down to fixing the church's toilets.  You can take your MBA and shove it where the sun don't shine if you'd still like to argue that my degree isn't "really" a degree.  Yes, it is a vocational degree - so is an M.D. or a J.D., and I don't see people lining around the block to discredit them.

That all said, I now have to address the body of folks who are, while a good lot of folks on the whole, are just the same responsible for me having to rant just to prove that, in fact, theology is an academic discipline.  Fundamentalism has so infected the soul of U.S, American Christianity that, unfortunately, the average person outside the Church has no idea that not at all Christians aren't conservative evangelicals.  It breaks my heart that my sisters and brothers in more conservative traditions have been so successful in dumbing our faith, and themselves, down to this point.  Christianity GAVE BIRTH to the university, furthered the expanse of the arts in the West, supported so many different academic developments...and now has become a by-word for ignorance and deliberate denial of logic and reason in the name of supporting a literal reading of the Bible which the Bible itself, at no point, advocates or supports.

Yes, I said it - there is not one verse in the scriptures that says "the Bible is without error and should be taken literally."  You can play the "all scripture is God-breathed" argument from the Pastoral Epistles, but the definition of inspiration used by fundamentalism is NOT one found in the scriptures, nor in Christianity until after the Reformation - the permutation of it most popular in this country didn't emerge until the 19th century.  Check it if you don't believe me.  Perhaps I speak too strongly, but belief that the Bible is 100% without error is heresy because it ascribes perfection, which is only held by God, to a product of human hands - even if they were inspired by God, people were involved.  It cannot be perfect, and viewing it as such creates such an intellectual nightmare for anyone with a modicum of intelligence or sense that it has, and will continue, to destroy the Church's witness to anyone unwilling to check their brain at the church door.

I say all of this as someone who grew up with this.  I grew up with people whose idea of a science curriculum was anti-scientific and rooted in the indoctrination of its students into knee-jerk, lock-step literal biblical creationism.  Guess whose faith is smaller and weaker - the person who worships the Bible rather than God and cannot accept anything other than a literal 6 day creation account, or the person who reads the Bible and grasps the heart of its message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ and is still able to see the value in evolutionary theory?

I've been harsh, probably too much so...and for that I apologize.  But I cannot keep my silence - the deliberate and willful ignorance which fundamentalist Christianity forces upon its adherents is despicable and contrary to the Gospel...and destructive to the ultimate health and well-being of God's faithful people and their call in this world.  I just can't keep quiet in the face of that anymore.

Getting Dirty

So, since moving in here in Logan Square, I've started gardening.  It's been a little bit of a project, since I do not, in fact, have any green space.  This was not necessarily what I'd been hoping for in a living space, but at least there is ample space and sun for the next best thing - a container garden.

It didn't take too long to get set up; Colleen and I made a trip to Home Depot and got five planting pots, a bunch of soil, two tomato plants (Earl Girl and Beefsteak), a red bell pepper plant, a banana pepper plant, and some cucumber plants.  Within a few hours, they were planted, watered, and left to grow in the hot Chicago summer sun.

And...grow they have.  I'm just now starting to get my first fruits of the season, some six weeks or so after planting, but I've got two tomatoes starting up, have already had two banana peppers with some blossoms back on the plant now, some promising bell pepper blossoms, and a cucumber on the vine.  I've even added on an indoor herb garden in my bay window, giving me lots of fresh basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary, and sage...I've had a bumper crop of sage this year.  It's exciting, watching these green, growing things do what God created them to do - grow, thrive, bear fruit.

In the midst of all this, I've been finding myself fall more and more in love with tending to green, growing things.  There's nothing quite like taking care of a garden, no matter how small.  It reaches deep in to who I am, roots me back into the rich soil out of God creates us in Genesis, restores me to the original work to which God called humans in the beginning.  

The sensory appeal of all of it, too - the cool, gritty feel of dirt on my hands, the smell of tomato leaves, the sound of wind rustling through the pepper plants and of water soaking into soil, the vibrant colors of green leaves and yellow blossoms, and (eventually) the incomparable taste of food fresh from the garden.  It's spiritual; I feel as fed as a child of God in my faith from working the soil (even in my pots) as my stomach will feel when those tomatoes ripen on the vine and become the first caprese salad of the season.

In all of this, I re-discovered a song that I'd had stuck in my head while on a tour of coal country in central Illinois back in April (another entry on this is forthcoming).  The protagonist in the song is just a poor farm kid who's always got the red clay of his work on the land all over him.  So, he wonders - "But when I pass through the pearly gates, will my gown be gold instead?  Or just a red clay robe with red clay wings and a red clay halo for my head?"  I sure hope so.  I sure hope eternity is marked with the red clay and black topsoil out of which we have come, and that things will be like in the beginning - all of us, working in God's garden, tending the beautiful land which God made and entrusts to us.

Waiting

So, I've been promising an update on my life, and have been failing to deliver the goods on that front.  I figure since I'm pretty much in a "can't focus on homework" haze right now thanks to the pending regional assignment for first call candidates, now's a good time to, finally, bear down on the sharing life news front.


So, two things merit reporting - one professional, one personal.  In that order...


Professional: Since mid-December, I've been working as the bilingual pastoral assistant at First Lutheran Church of Logan Square, on the Northwest Side.  At a congregation that worships between 50 and 60 on a Sunday, roughly half are native Spanish speakers, and probably 20-25% are homeless.  It is quite probably the most ethnically diverse congregation in the synod, and also probably up there in terms of socioeconomic diversity, too.  In addition to leading the pre-worship Bible study (at which I am probably the only person with stable housing and employment), I help lead worship...since the pastor's been out of town for the last several weeks, I've had the opportunity to preach and preside for basically the entirety of time after Epiphany, which has been GREAT.  It's a wonderful reminder of why I'm doing what I'm doing...which at moments like this, in which I feel like my life is in a weird state of suspended animation and I'm desperately praying that the Church listens to my voice in the assignment process, is really needed and helpful.  It's a wonderful congregation - plenty of challenges, to be sure, but a delightful community that models what it looks like to engage with the reality in which the Church finds herself.


Personal:  So, Colleen and I have been together for closing in on six weeks.  We met through a mutual friend; I was interested from the get-go, and after break, I decided to act on it.  Angie (mutual friend) conveniently arranged a joint hang-out time for the three of us, and...well, things took off rather nicely from there.  I could probably write entirely too much in the way of details about the first few dates; suffice it to say I think she's amazing, and perfect for me.  I love her, and look forward to seeing where we go and what we build together.  


So, yeah...2012 has been pretty great so far, and thank God for that.  2011 was rough as years go; not that I'm alone in this, but it's not a time in my life that I'd go back and repeat.  Plenty of good in the midst of it, too, but these days, I feel like I've woken up from a long, sullen sleep in a dark, dark room, and the morning light is streaming in at long last.  And that's why, ultimately, Wednesday doesn't worry me.  I'll land on my feet...I would like for them to be landing within a day's drive or less of Chicago, but I can always ask to be reassigned at the end of the day, if that's where the Spirit leads me.  For now, I know that I'm called and equipped for ministry, and that I'm blessed to be sharing my life with an uncompromisingly beautiful, smart-as-a-whip woman who loves me for just who I am.  I don't know that I can ask for anything more.

Film at 11

I haven't written much lately, but this is just a short reminder tha I am, in fact, alive, and that life is good. Very good. Really pretty incredible, actually. More later; all I'll say for now is that I love my work at First Lutheran, and that her name's Colleen, and that these two things are unrelated except that they both make me very happy, albeit in different ways.

Green Group

Yes, there are more Advent sonnets, and yes, I will post them soon and very soon.  But first...


The subject of kids and teaching has been a big one for me lately.  Not too surprising, when you consider that I work four afternoons a week with a delightful group of kindergartners at an after-school program.  And...we're trying to do things differently.


You see, the temptation when there are two or three adults and a lot of precocious, if sometimes hyper, little ones is to throw any attempts at substantive after-school programming out the window.  Not enough people to enforce discipline; can't be done.  Let's just go out and play for endless stretches of time...well, as endless as the weather in Chicago will allow any given day.  When that's over, go inside, have a snack, and monitor the organized chaos as the kids move on to free play with Legos, etc.


I don't mean to sound like I'm knocking outdoor play, snack time, and Legos...they all show up in our afternoon, too.  But...what if early child after-school programming focused on forming community in the classroom?  And on talking about peace, and did so concretely through work around sharing and respect?  What if we boldly talked about issues of identity and difference, and did so in a way intended to affirm the humanity of all people?  What if our stories for group time illustrated these things?  What if time outside involved emphasizing ecological consciousness and respect for plants, animals, and the earth?  When we play, what if we tell them "you can't say you can't play" and encourage them to play together and use their shared imaginations to create new games?  What about making snack time into a chance for community meal - eating as a rainbow-tinged family of different people celebrating being human together?  How about using art and opportunities for creativity as ways to help express some of these things?  And, quiet reading - how will the children be formed by being shown that reading for oneself or with a friend should be a part of daily routine?  How will they grow up to be if we teach them how to tell stories with wordless books, and ask them to imagine what might happen next in our story before we turn the page?  What would it look like if, when children break rules, the response is to engage in dialogue around the issues involved rather than simply rush to judgments and punish?  And, when they quarrel with one another, why don't we teach them how to talk through their problems together, express their feelings with considerate honesty, and arrive at mutually beneficial solutions?


These are the things we try to do with the kids in Green Group.  It's hard some days...really hard.  It's not how we're programmed to do things.  But, I genuinely believe that if we're ever, EVER, going to change life in this world for the better, then the process is going to start with a million groups like this teaching people, from day one, how to be the world we all say we want to live in.