Vocabulary Words

Ha ha. You thought I'd gone. Any of you who know me and have spent much time speaking with me on the phone, know better. There is always some number of penultimate points to be made before the final sign-off.

In this particular moment, about vocabulary.

As I mentioned in the post below, I have been reading novels. Specifically, most recently, the novels of Michael Chabon. When I mentioned them on facebook, numerous people chimed in to say that the first one I read "Summerland" was eternally boring, but that they loved "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" which I am reading now.

I quite enjoyed "Summerland" which was, as they said, about baseball, but was also about good and evil and fairies and were-foxes and various other imaginative things. There were traces of "Fellowship of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" and all sorts of very popular stories. I did not find it boring. But then, "Field of Dreams" is one of my favorite movies, so maybe I'm just a sucker for baseball stories.

As I started reading the second book, "AA o' K&C", I started to get frustrated with the author's tendency to use big words. Now, normally, I like it when authors use big words, because normally, they're words I know and it makes me feel smart to know them. So maybe it's just that I'm reading beyond my grade level, but I got to the point where I actually had to look some things up. This, despite my mother's frequent cajolery that "the dictionary is my friend", is a pretty major deal, even in the era of dictionaries online. I would so rather ask someone what a word means than do the research myself. But I did.

The words that, in combination, tipped me over the edge were "cenotaph" and "golem". Cenotaph was really the problem, because the context was giving me nothing. A cenotaph, as it turns out is an empty but marked grave, that is, a monument to someone dead that takes the place of a grave when the body is elsewhere (lost at sea, possibly?). Chabon's use of it was a bit of a stretch, but I suppose it worked.

"Golem" was weirder, but less of a problem. You could tell from the context more or less what it was. But I was glad I looked it up, because there was some interesting stuff there. I'm even going to give you the link to its wikipedia page because it's that interesting. But weird. For those of you who won't click, a golem is a being made out of dust and animated somehow by incantation or words written on its forehead. It's from Jewish folklore. You really should click the link, because I can't really make it make sense.

Anyway, so it was nice to learn some new words. But just now, I came across a word that made me think, "Gosh, one way to become a better novelist would be to intentionally build up your vocabulary by reading the dictionary and making lists of interesting, potentially useful words." The word in question has four consonants and eight vowels. Doesn't that seem sort of impossible?

And then it got me to wondering... Are big words a good thing in a novel, or are they pretentious, a way for the author to make more people aware that they're reading beyond their grade level? I'm starting to get the feeling that Chabon gets a kick out of using words most people don't know. But I'm not sure that habit adds to his overall skill as a writer. It's starting to feel self-indulgent. I also can't remember exactly if I noticed this reading "Summerland" so maybe it's just a style that he chose for this book, to set a particular tone. I can sort of see that making sense.

What do you think? Is it fun? Is it annoying? Do you know what "aetataureate" means? I don't. But I might look it up. Will you?



UPDATE: Ha! I did look it up. I'm still not going to tell you what it means, but this I had to share. He made it up! Himself. I still don't know if I'm impressed and pleased or disgusted and annoyed. Book won a Pulizter though, so clearly someone thought it was cool.

Okay, Official Vacation

It appears I've been a little quiet lately. I hate to do that, since I hope there are some of you that check in fairly regularly to see what's new.

I think it's a combination of several things.

1. Been very busy getting ready to leave town and making several large things happen.

2. Have actually been reading novels lately in my spare time, which I love to do but don't do often enough.

3. Have been having numerous "I should blog about that" moments that are almost immediately irretrievably forgotten. Sigh. Isn't there some herb you can eat for memory help?

Anyway, I apologize if I've disappointed. But let this be a warning. I'm about to be out of town with questionable internet access for two weeks. So I don't see things picking up any time soon. I have been trying to maintain a post-a-day average, but that's probably going to get shot these next couple of weeks.

See you on the flip side!

A New Mnemonic

Many of us learned about Mr. Roy G. Biv as children as a way of learning the order of the colors in a rainbow. For whatever reason, I came up with a new guy this morning to help with this, one whose name sounds more plausible in our multi-cultural times. Meet Mr. Roy Gupta...

R ed
O range
Y ellow

G reen
U ltramarine
P urple
T hat's
A ll!


In other news, I'm beginning to think I shouldn't be allowed to use pens. I can't seem to do so lately without getting ink all over my hands.

Finally, if anyone is beginning to think I shouldn't blog before 10 am, just let me know!

In Case You Were Trying to Reach Me...

You should know that that, as a recipient of lots of religiously themed junk mail, there are three kinds of flyers that automatically end up in my recycling box:

1. Anything from anyone who has named their ministry after themselves. Even if you're into Prosperity Gospel stuff and your name is Creflo Dollar, it screams narcissism and lack of creativity, and thus, I will not be interested.

2. Anything with pictures of ministers who look air-brushed. That is creepy. Jesus didn't probably even wash all that often, so why do you have to dye your hair and get a fake tan.

3. Anything with a list of participants that doesn't include any women or only has women with the title "First Lady" or something like that. Or if the woman in question's name is the name of the ministry (see #1).

On a related note, there was an ad in our paper today for the "Money Cometh To You Conference" -- "2 Life-Changing Services!"

Ten on Tuesday -- Sleepy Edition

1. My blogging brain doesn't seem to have been all that awake lately. Even now, I'm not sure I'll get to ten 'cause I feel so sleepy.

2. Is alliteration just an aural thing, or is it also partially visual? I contemplated making the title of this post "10 on Tuesday" but I think something is lost when you write it that way. Odd. I do not think the same is true of assonance (repeated vowel sounds in the middle of words) or consonance (repeated consonant sounds in the middle of words).

3. Today seems to have ushered in an era of good-byes. I found out for sure today that my spiritual director, Sister Gerry, is moving to Philadelphia to re-vamp her order's retreat center there. And my dear, local, non-church friend is about to move to Boston. I leave next Tuesday for 2 weeks and she'll be gone before I get home, so even the good-bye will be anti-climatic. Sigh.

4. I got a lot done today. That is unusual for a Tuesday, as I'm usually trying to get back into the swing of things and I usually get interrupted a lot. Today, as I recall, there were not that many interruptions. And I had a bunch of stuff in my head that got onto paper, to prepare for being gone for two weeks. There's a lot that has to happen before I leave.

5. There is lots of good energy at church right now. Good stuff with children's ministries and our evangelism team. And new visitors. Yay, God!

6. My walking buddy is back in town, and we're walking together, but I went by myself this morning, since she couldn't go today. I think some discipline may have snuck into my life, but I'm not complaining.

7. Space travel and exploration is one of those things that I'm a little embarrassed I don't have stronger feelings about, but I just don't. On the other hand, it would be cool to experience a lower level of gravity. I'd go to the moon for that.

8. The tomatoes should be getting ripe any day now.

9. I get to see my newphew in less than two weeks. And my niece, whom I will get to take to the pool. Yay!

10. My congressman sent me an email today insisting that House Democrats are preparing a "government take-over of health care." My senator sent me a letter yesterday warning that the Democrats are trying to put government between doctors and patients. What they don't seem to get is that most of us would vastly prefer having the government in that slot to having a for-profit insurance company that is not accountable to voters there, the way it is now!

What a Marvelous Word!

There is a lovely little piece in the NYT today about sleep, more precisely, comparing the sleep of humans with that of other (farm) animals.

And it has the most marvelous word in it that I've never heard before. It's not even clear to me if it's a real word or something the author (Verlyn Klinkenborg, which also sounds a little made up) created.

The word is "somnifer" and it refers to the "deep pool of sleep within you." It seems related to the word "aquifer" referring to underground rivers. What a lovely idea, that we have a resevoir of sleep within us like an underground lake.

The author points out that you can tell how strong human culture's control over us is by how hard we work to arrange our sleep. But now if you need a nap, just tell your boss or co-workers, "I have to knock off for a bit to replenish my somnifer." That sounds kind of distinguished, don't you think?

Reflections on Family Retreat

We had a family retreat at church today. It was basically a day for parents and their kids to do some church stuff together and apart. We haven't done VBS for years (such a racket - don't get me started!), but this was a first attempt at doing something that meets the need with more integrity than a packaged, over-commercialized, too-complicated-for-our-small-church-needs program.

I love kids. I don't want to be a mama, and I'm not one, to answer a question one of the the three-year-olds asked me today. But I love kids. I think they are magical and mysterious and great gifts to all of us. One of the strongest, most over-looked gifts of small churches is how inter-generational we can be, if we just take advantage of it.

So here's a haiku in honor of the kids of First Church (and their marvelous parents!):


So much energy
Smiles, tears, hugs, learning to share
Little gifts from God

Another Wrinkle

Okay, so maybe health care reform isn't quite as simple as I implied below. There's one other thing that's messed up.

In the Peter Singer article I referenced below, he starts out by using an example of a kidney cancer drug that costs %54,000 for six months.

You guessed it! The other thing that's messed up is the insane cost of prescription drugs. It's another thing that people in the rest of the developed world have much better access to than Americans. Their drug costs are regulated by their governments and are much cheaper. (Smuggled meds from Canada, anyone?)

The only legitimate-sounding argument I've ever heard about why Americans' drugs cost so much more than everyone else's is that we are paying for the cost of the companies' research and development of new drugs. Now, first of all, I'm not sure I believe that. But it could be true, simply because our government has clearly had no problem allowing companies to get what they want at the expense of the American consumer. (No doubt in their obsession to avoid anything that looks like socialism!)

(There are also those who blame it on higher American safety standards, saying that our meds are better regulated and those cheap drugs are unsafe. I don't get why stronger standards add that much expense. Not buying it.)

But here's the main thing. American drug companies (which are presumably all multi-national at this point anyway) are supposedly doing all this R&D to bring us the cures of the future. But what I've also heard is that they mostly, at this point in history, are focusing on the drugs that will make them money. They put their energy and resources into finding new uses for drugs they've already developed. They develop drugs for things like erectile dysfunction, but spend almost nothing on more important problems like tuberculosis, which is still killing thousands of people around the world these days.

So clearly, the "free market" is not a particularly good way of regulating drug research just like it's not a good way of providing health care.

So what if we put our resources into developing an international drug research funding organization? Take the costs of R&D out of the hands of the drug manufacturing companies, and put it in the hands of people who are accountable to the voting public, people who can responsibly decide what the priorities should be, without the bias of what will make the most money.

(I'm guessing we already have things like this at the national and international level and have just been way under-funding them for years. Probably there's currently a revolving door between them and the for-profit drug companies too.)

And don't tell me that people will stop manufacturing drugs if they can no longer make a killing doing it. Someone will do it. The drug companies have already adjusted what they do to adapt to the more civilized prescription med policies of other countries. They can do it here too, if we just give them something sensible to adapt to.

How Complicated Is It Really?

So apparently, there are some in Congress who are feeling hesitant about passing health care reform bills because they are not, as currently designed, bringing costs down enough.

Here's a news flash --

Medical stuff + trained medical people = some amount of cost

Medical stuff + trained medical people + insurance companies making a profit = way more cost!

What is the obvious thing to remove from the current equation?

And yet, a single-payer system, that would reduce paperwork and costs for everyone and ensure that those in charge of who gets what kind of care would be accountable to voters, never even made it onto the table in this debate.

President Obama warned Congress that they're going to have a lot more sleepless nights so they can finish this. Maybe if they end up with as many sleepless nights as the Americans all over the country struggling not to go bankrupt because of medical bills they'll start to get it.


Update: Here's some good news on the single-payer front from The Nation.

Plus, if you want to read a long article that makes some excellent points about the current realities and how they could be different, Peter Singer wrote about rationing health care consciously and unconsciously in the NYT a few days ago.

Major Setback

They've taken card check out of the card check bill.

Unions have been trying to level the organizing playing field for some time. You would think with a new worker-friendly administration, this would not have been so hard. But the truth is that we really only have corporate-friendly administrations and slightly less corporate-friendly administrations.

The rhetoric you will hear about "card check", formally known as the Employee Free Choice Act, is that it reduces democracy by eliminating the secret ballot in a work-place vote on whether to get a union or not. The truth is that those votes are about as democratic as an election in someplace like Sudan. The employers spend an inordinate amount of time pressuring and intimidating their workers into voting against the union. Card check allows a union to be formed once a certain number of workers sign cards saying they want one. The bill doesn't ban secret ballot vote; it just add another option. As far as I'm concerned, more options means more democracy.

This is disappointing and a major indication that a "Democratic" majority doesn't mean a whole lot if a significant number of those "Democrats" aren't going to support workers.

Apologies and Change

Psalm 51:10, 15-17 – Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. … O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (NRSV)

If you want to have a bit of scripture memorized, Psalm 51:10 is a good place to start. Whom among us doesn’t have a dozen situations each day when we need to make that request? Why is it that we’re so slow to learn from our mistakes? Why are bad habits so hard to break? Why do we keep doing the same careless or selfish or judgmental things over and over again? The words of this psalm seem to get at the root of the problem.

So often, when we’ve done something bad, we want to make up for it. We buy someone a gift as an apology. We are extra nice the next day. But as this psalm points out, true repentance isn’t about changing just what we do; it’s about changing how we are. God made us human beings, not human doings.

God does not want our peace offerings unless they are accompanied by a commitment to changing our hearts that misled us in the first place. When Jesus encountered the woman caught in adultery, he didn’t tell her what she’d done was okay. He told her she was forgiven – no fines to pay, just become the kind of person who won’t do that sort of thing.

Going through the motions of acting out an apology is so much easier than actually changing. But that is not what God wants from us. A “broken spirit” may sound extreme to our modern ears, but for many of us, it’s an accurate description of what has to happen before God can begin to mold our hearts into the shape of the cross.

Collect for the Week: Loving God, who took on the imperfection of flesh to show us that perfection is not ours to achieve, break open our hearts, cleanse us of sin and transform us, that your love, your mercy and your grace might flow freely through us and change your world. Through Jesus Christ our Savior and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Between Sheep and Sheep

Ezekiel 34: 17-22 – As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet and drink what you have fouled with your feet? Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. (NRSV)

This passage from the prophet Ezekiel takes on a new significance as we listen to the news about the climate change conference going on in Italy last week. As the media report on those conversations, they make careful distinctions between the bigger, developed nations and the less powerful, under-developed countries. Climate change is exacerbated by conveniences we take for granted as part of our “civilized” modern lifestyles. And the folks in those less-developed nations would like to have everything we have. But they are already paying the price for our excessive use of fossil fuels. If everyone on earth consumed like Americans, we’d need about 6 more planets!

So who are the fat sheep and the lean sheep in that picture? So often when we confess our sins, we make it very personal. We’re sorry for saying something hurtful to our spouse, or being impatient with our kids, or harboring jealous thoughts about our neighbor’s home. But what about the people we’ve hurt without even realizing it? Those “lean sheep” who are suffering just because we like to drive everywhere we go and have air conditioned homes?

Corporate, societal sin is a difficult problem to process as an individual person of faith. Each of us has to make our own decisions about our lifestyle and how our decisions about consumption affect God’s people throughout the earth. Wading through all the options can be overwhelming, and we sometimes just get paralyzed, feeling like there’s nothing we can do but feel bad about it. But as my college advisor said, “The poor cannot eat guilt.”

That’s why being part of a community of faith is so important. Together, we can confess our complicity with the global systems that make some sheep fat and some lean. Together, we can try to figure out how to make life more equitable for all God’s people. Together, we can support one another in finding more just ways of living.

Collect for the Week: Loving, Creator God, whose mercy makes life possible, grant that we might see the ways in which our lives make life difficult for others and repent, that we might be beacons of your justice and peace for a broken and unfair world. Through Jesus Christ our Redeemer and the Sustaining Holy Spirit, Amen.

Just for the Record

I hated having that annoyed and angry post right there at the top, so I'm checking in to say I'm feeling much better this morning. Sometimes sleep really does make a difference.

There is a lot to juggle in the life of ministry. Add the rest of anyone's life and it gets downright complicated. I don't know how people with kids do this at all.

When I was contemplating entering ministry as a single person, I wondered if I should get a dog. A dog would have forced me to go home and feed it and take it for walks. (Unlike a cat, which might miss you, but not really.) I didn't, but I can still see the utility of such a thing.

It's important to have things in your life that draw you away from work, especially when you have a job that so easily consumes your entire brain and heart with hesitation.

I'm going to go wear my new black skirt to work now. I finally found something in my closet that will go with it, but it took some doing.

I think I've figured out why I'm feeling so disatisfied with my wardrobe lately. We haven't had a church yard sale in over 2 years now. I used to get a big selection of cheap stuff that way on a regular basis. Maybe I should organize a clothes-swap among the young adults or something...

Things That Annoy Me

So, since I'm wallowing in my crabbiness, I've decided to go ahead and make a list of things that annoy me:

1. People who complain about not knowing what's going on, or about decisions being made without others' (their) input, or about things moving too fast, when they haven't been showing up, reading their mail, or otherwise paying attention!

2. Unfounded and unfair blanket accusations.

3. People deciding how something or someone works and thereafter not paying attention to what's actually happening enough to realize that it doesn't match their assumptions.

4. The fact that my husband and I have such widely different approaches to doing certain things. That is, that he always wants more options and I prefer to narrow things down quickly. He wants perfection; I want completion.

5. The fact that I don't deal with those differences very well when I'm crabby and tired and end up making him feel unappreciated when he's, in reality, done a lot of hard work. (Even if said work created all the options I didn't want, it was still hard work and deserves some appreciation.) Sorry.

Bastille Day Memory

On this day, Bastille Day, the commemoration of the beginning of the French Revolution, 17 years ago, I was in France. I was in Dijon for a month, supposedly learning better French in a summer program at the University of Burgundy.

I was, in general, a very good kid in that summer program. I did not, like most of the other students, take advantage of the lower French drinking age to get trashed and stay out late most nights.

But on Bastille Day, we all went to the lake for the fireworks. We had all missed the Fourth of July fireworks, of course, since we were in France that night. And shockingly, public transportation coming home from the lake was a little backed up.

So a bunch of us were standing around in the City Centre waiting for the bus that would take us back up to the university. A guy in our group laid down on the concrete with his blanket and a bottle, basically acting like a homeless guy. It was, perhaps, not particularly politically correct, but it was kinda funny, just because it was late and we were tired.

Then this French guy came up and lit a firecracker right by his head! I'm not kidding. He lit it and stuck it right by the guy's head as he was lying on the ground! I don't think the guy actually got hurt or I would remember that. I just remember being so completely shocked that someone would think that was funny. He could have gone deaf or had a eye put out or some other horrible thing.

And for a long time, I thought about this incident as an example of a cultural difference. It didn't seem to me like something an American person would do. As a general rule, I feel like Americans are more uptight about things like fire and personal hygiene and food hygiene and various other hygiene and safety rules. And that French people are more relaxed about such things. And mostly, I consider Americans uptight and French people relaxed. This, obviously, was an example of taking "relaxed" way too far.

But today, it occurred to me that an American could easily do such a dumb, dangerous thing. I'd just never see it happen. You might read about it in "News of the Weird". And quite probably, people would assume such a person was a "redneck". And then it struck me how weird it was that a French person and a redneck might have something in common.

I hope you weren't expecting this to have anything to do with Bastille Day. Maybe just: Isn't it grand that we have the freedom, here and in France, to do stupid, dangerous things? Hmmmm...

The Feelings Will Not Be Mollified

So I've had kind of a crappy evening. I had a frustrating meeting at work, and then this artsy project that I'm working on is getting slowed down because things on the computer taking longer one expects, and so after I got the supplies I need for the project, I thought I'd go shopping, since I've been extremely bored and annoyed with my wardrobe lately. I don't know why I ever think shopping will make me feel better. It almost never does. Especially these days when the stores are so full of ugly and skimpy.

I got a cute black skirt and that was it. And I came out with that dehydrated, zombie kind of feeling. I'm exhausted. And when I think back to why I'm feeling so crabby, the frustrating meeting stuff comes back up and I just want to cuss and cry.

As I was thinking about it on the way, I thought about prayer, about handing my burden over to Jesus. One of the methods I've frequently recommended for dealing with bad situations is to write a psalm. Psalms, frequently, follow a pattern of whine, accuse, whine, whine, crab, moan, whine, praise God for God's faithfulness. The point being that no matter how bad things seem, God is still there and still good. It's nice to have a happy ending. And usually, the process of writing the psalm, where you get to do all that whining, is, in fact, therapeutic.

The thing is__I didn't feel like like managing my feelings. I didn't want to do something to make myself feel better. Sometimes the best thing we can do with our feelings is to feel them. Just be angry, or frustrated, or crabby, or whiny.

I used to be self-conscious about how emotional I would get sometimes when I had pms. (Which could, in fact, be a factor today as well.) Then, in seminary, a friend pointed out that it might not be that we over-react when we're pms-y; maybe that's just when we're most in touch with our feelings. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Our psyches can give us important signals through our emotions. Important to pay attention to that.

I'm already making some plans for how to deal with some of the stuff that frustrated me today. But probably I should wait to deal with it till next week! ;)

Another Good Point

There has been much in the media lately (and in the lives of friends of mine locally) about the struggle newspapers are having to survive. I love the newspaper. Obviously, I read the New York Times online, but we also have a marvelous, family-owned local newspaper that I read faithfully every morning. I will miss newspapers if they die out completely.

But something I haven't seen mentioned in the discussion so far: If there's no more newspapers, what will we wrap our dishes in when we move? Who's worrying about that, anyway?

Scarcity versus Abundance

I like summer. I probably like spring better as a season, but there are things I love about summer. And abundant fresh fruit is one of those things. I love sweet cherries and cantelope and grapes and peaches and nectaries and raspberries and blueberries and probably some other ones too.

I used to buy fruit and then be sort of strict with myself about eating it. It's expensive, and I knew I couldn't afford to have as much as I could eat. So I would only let myself have a little at at time. Sometimes that meant that the fruit would cross my probably arbitrary it's-been-here-too-long-to-eat line before I finished it. What a waste!

I have a new philosophy now. These days, if I feel like binging on fruit -- eating mostly dark cherries for dinner, for instance -- I 'm going to. When it's gone, it's gone. I don't have to buy it any more often. I just enjoy it more when I have it, because the sense of scarcity is gone.

I recommend the Summer Fruit Binge. It's good and good for you!

Friday Five: Exercise

Sophia from over at RevGalBlogPals posted this Friday Five.

I just got back from an 8 mile bike ride down the beach boardwalk near our home, and was struck with the number of people out enjoying physical activity. Runners, other cyclists, surfers, swimmers, dogwalkers, little kids on scooters....

It's easy to lose track of my physical self-care in the midst of flurried preparation for a final on-campus interview Monday for a college teaching position in the Midwest (prayers welcome!) and the family move that would accompany it. But each day that I do make time to walk or ride my bike it is such a stress reliever that it is well worth the time invested!

So how about you and your beautiful temple of the Holy Spirit?

1. What was your favorite sport or outdoor activity as a child?

Climbing trees.

2. P.E. class--heaven or the other place?

Definitely not heaven. It really depended on what we were doing. I was pretty coordinated, but had (have!) crappy aim and I've never been very strong.

3. What is your favorite form of exercise now?

Special occasions: Salsa dancing by a million. Regular basis: I'm not sure I'd say it's my favorite, but since walking is the only exercise I do, I guess it must be. I would love to play badminton regularly, but I don't. Heck, I'd love to salsa dance (or cha cha or meregue) regularly too, but I don't do that either.

4. Do you like to work out solo or with a partner?

I would never have gotten as faithful to walking as I have without my walking buddy. But she's been out of town for 2 weeks now and I'm still going, almost every day, on my own. I like both. And clearly, those other exercises I couldn't do on my own!

5. Inside or outside?

Um, depends on what I'm doing and how hot it is. I would prefer to be outside on a pretty, mild, sunny, perfect day, but how many of those do we have in the Heart of Dixie?

Bonus: Post a poem, scripture passage, quotation, song, etc. regarding the body or exercise.

I've always loved the part in Ephesians 4 where Paul talks about the body "joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped." Maybe it's just the awkwardness of the translation, but it always makes me laugh. But since it's been a while, I shall also write a limerick...

There once was a girl who went walking,
For this she could do while still talking.
You can't go much faster
when strolling as pastor,
lest parishioners think we are stalking!

A Different Perspective

Sometimes, when I'm in a situation where I have to eat food that is too spicy for me, I just try to shift my perspective. "Some people enjoy this sensation of pain," I tell myself. "Some people think this is tasty. Let's try to imagine we understand that."

In this piece from the New York Times, a woman who is a yoga instructor, uses her yoga experience to interpret her mother's early-onset Alzheimer's. We talk about the virtues of living in the moment, but when forced to do so by a disease, we tend to reveal that "living in the moment" is not all it's cracked up to be.

It's odd to see someone willing to not assume that the consequences of a disease are Bad, but to look beyond the inconveniences to see what the disease provides that might be interesting or worth experiencing. "I shall set aside my first reaction and see what else there is here to learn."

I've often hoped that if I ever have to experience chronic pain, I might be able to get past the first reactions and "make friends with the pain," as I've heard some people describe it. Quite frankly, I'm guessing I'm better at it in the abstract than I would be in reality.

But what an interesting exercise for any bad thing we go through in life: To set aside the assumption that it's Bad and look around for what might be interesting or instructional or even a spiritual lesson.

Miracles Needed

Today as I began walking, I realized that I was going to be able to pray while I walked, despite it being morning time. But I was tired of my normal prayer content. I get so wrapped up in praying for my church folks and praying for direction for our ministry and praying for the various needs of my family. Sometimes it makes all that feel heavier instead of lighter to be so earnest about it.

So I decided I didn't want to pray for anything at all related to myself. The song "Dona Nobis Pacem" was going through my head, so I decided to pray for peace, for the whole 3 miles.

My 3 mile walk is made up of 45 laps around an indoor track. So I decided to give each 5-lap set to a different country. I prayed for Israel/Palestine, Sudan/Darfur/Chad, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, China, the U.S., and Honduras.

I tried to give each lap over to a different person or population with the country. I prayed for leaders, for children, for women, for men. I prayed for soldiers and police a lot. I prayed for diplomats and other people of influence. I prayed for settlers and refugees and people who have seen and experienced horrible things and people who have inflicted horrible things.

I realized as I prayed these things that what I was praying for was rather audacious. When I prayed for President Bashir of Sudan - a man who has shown very little humanity in dealing with the strife in Darfur - I used a visualization technique I came up with as the war in Iraq was starting. I imagined his heart, having an out-of-body experience, if you will. It doesn't look like the glowing Sacred Heart of Jesus, but comes out kind of like that. It looks like an anatomical heart, but I know that it's made of a substance that is totally fragile. It's tissue, but it's so spongy and delicate that touching it too hard would cause it to crumble. The closest substance I can think to compare it to is florist's clay formed in very thin layers. Anyway, I visualize Bashir's heart in this terribly fragile state, and then imagine good, strong blood flowing through it and healing it, strengthening it, making it right again.

It's an odd visualization for someone who hates blood as much as I do, but it works for me. It gives me a way to pray for people that I would otherwise consider beyond sympathy. Clearly there is something broken within these men that send so many people to violent, horrible deaths. But we can't just leave them that way.

At one point, I was praying, I think for women in Iraq, that they would be softened, rather than hardened, by their experiences of war. I was thinking about how we all develop defenses in order to get through difficult situations, but how those defenses end up causing us problems later. I was praying that they could be filled with grace and strength to the point that they could remain sympathetic and hopeful. And I suddenly felt like that was a really arrogant, demanding thing to pray. Why should they have to be saints, to react to war in super-human ways that I myself probably wouldn't be capable of?

And yet, that is the only way cycles of violence are ever stopped -- when people full of grace are able to take in the trauma and transform it in their hearts into passion for peace and life and reconciliation.

I was picturing the hearts of Israeli settlers being changed, the heart of Netanyahu being turned around on the settlement issue, people realizing that they don't have to exact revenge for history. I was praying for outrageous reconciliation.

And that's what's so great about prayer. God is so big. We don't have to pray for things that seem possible. In fact, what would the point of that be? It's these big, huge problems that seem intractable that really deserve prayer.

As I was picturing all these various people throughout the earth, people with power and people with very little power, I kept thinking about movies. Some of my favorite movies are the ones in which an unexpected hero makes a difference by slowly by surely causing a change in the heart of the "bad guy". Evil is not overcome by violence, but by love, love that refuses to see anyone as irredeemable.

We've all seen these movies. And we love to believe in them. As I prayed for these seemingly impossible transformations to happen in the hearts of people around the world, I made it make sense by giving each of those people, leaders, soldiers, settlers, refugees, a story of redemption, someone or something to touch their core and help them see a new way of being.

What would such a thing mean for a North Korean nuclear scientist? For a young boy living in a refugee camp in Chad? For President Bashir? For Ahmadinajad of Iran, or a policeman on the streets of Iran?

As I prayed, I thought about my faith and how it relates to these people of other faiths and no faith. Is that blood I pictured coursing through the vessels of Bashir's fragile heart the blood of Jesus? Maybe. I am a Christian, and the power of the gospel story is the strongest thing I know for transforming fear and ignorance and hatred into peace and reconciliation and love. I believe that Jesus Christ can work in people's lives without them having to "believe in him." So that is how I prayed for them. It was my prayer. It was for their welfare and salvation, in the most real senses of the word.

I guess you could say that I was praying for miracles this morning. It's hard to imagine how peace can be established without a thousand million tiny and not-so-tiny miracles, like the kind in those movies I like. Those kinds of miracles, I believe, are the sort that are helped along by prayer.

It was such a relief to get out of my own life for a little while and take part in the reconciling work that God is doing on this planet even now. Did it make a difference? I believe it did, though I know I'll never know how.

Bedtime Snacks

I'm pretty sure I promised you all that I would blog about food. And I haven't really done that a whole lot. So here you go:

My Favorite Things to Eat Late at Night

1. Cheerios with milk

2. Lima beans with olive oil

3. Chocolate milk

4. Fruit, preferably grapes

5. Prunes

6. Brownies

What do you like to eat before bed?

Widowhood

I'm not sure I really have anything to say about widowhood, except that I've been thinking a lot lately about how we hardly ever hear anything about it. Which, on the one hand, doesn't seem unusual. But on the other hand, it is such a common thing, you would think it would be more widely discussed.

Think about it. Most of you are either going to be a widow at some point, or are going to be related to a widow. Men die earlier than women. Churches are full of widows. Some are long-term widows; some are more recently widowed. But do you see church trend magazines promoting small groups for widows? No. You do not.

The Bible talks about the need to take care of widows. They were historically a very vulnerable population. The church has reached a point where it would be vulnerable without widows, since they probably do half the work that gets done.

Is it because widowhood is sad? Is it because we don't want to define people by what they've lost? Most of the widows I know don't seem defined by having lost their husbands. And yet, to ignore that loss is to make invisible a huge part of their lives and their hearts. It deprives them of the joy of talking about their memories and sharing how they've learned to adapt to the new shape of their life.

When I was young, I had the strange habit of envisioning my future life as a retiree. I usually skipped the whole career and family thing and thought about what I would do in my 60s and 70s. These "plans" always assumed I would be widowed by then. Perhaps that was just because I didn't know or want to assume what would happen to me relationshiply, but I think it was probably because, even as a child, it was clear that women out-live men.

Is there something we can do to raise the profile of what it means to create a new kind of life, after the relationship(s) of your life are over? And what about the widows who find love again? Or the ones who just sleep around? (Surely there are some.) Why haven't we had this conversation? Or maybe they're having it, and the rest of us just aren't invited?

Then, of course, there's the complicated comparison of widows to "old maids". Women who never marry eventually reach an age where people don't assume they weren't married. And widows presumably have many of the same challenges as women who were never married. How do these two categories of women relate to each other? Do those distinctions blur with age?

Ten on Tuesday - Make Up Edition

1. I was reminded this weekend that I REALLY, REALLY love fireworks. We saw them in Nashville, and even though we got drenched, twice, it was totally worth it. I don't so much love crowds, so I don't usually go to fireworks, but I should really try harder. Actually I think it's more the hassle of getting in and out of the crowd that I don't like, not the being in it. But I love fireworks.

2. I also love singing really loud within crowds of people, whether in church or not. I like it when the rest of the music is loud enough that you have to try harder to hear yourself.

3. I walked today for the first time since last Wednesday. Wasn't so lovely. I couldn't make myself go this morning, so it was an afternoon walk, with some prayer. But I only did 2 miles, not three.

4. I am going to go again in the morning. And I'm going to do 3.

5. I finished a novel last night ("The Girl with No Shadow" by Joanne Harris, the sequel to "Chocolat"), and it made me realize I need to get back to the library. It was pretty good, but a little disturbing. First of all, the book version of "Chocolat" is very different from the movie. (I read it first.) And then the sequel goes in a totally different direction. It was pretty weird.

6. I think when I go to the library, I will look for something by Michael Chabon, of whom I was reminded when in a book store on the way home from vacation yesterday. I've read his "Yiddish Policeman's Union" and liked it very much. He appears to have a bunch of other books. But I'm open to other suggestions. Does anyone know if Tom Robbins has written anything new lately?

7. Retreat season is arriving. I have to create a half-day Family Retreat for July 18th. Then it will be time to start planning the congregational retreat for early September. Then, bizarrely, I am key-noting the region's senior adult retreat (you know, because I know so much about being a senior citizen!) in November. I love planning retreats. But it feels kind of like giving birth; there is a lot of forced creative energy involved.

8. Speaking of giving birth, my newphew was born on Sunday! That's a new word I made up for a nephew who's new. Clever, eh? He is, no joking, an actual cute baby, and that's coming from someone who thinks most newborns look like ancient aliens. I hear he's good and doesn't cry too much either. I will get to visit and confirm these lovely rumors in early August.

9. I would like to give a shout-out to teachers. I always feel like yelling something about teachers at Fourth of July celebrations when everyone's insisting we thank the military for our freedom. We owe teachers at least as much of that same gratitude, as far as I can tell.

10. I am so glad I got tricked into discovering that I like blue cheese by eating gorgonzola without knowing what it was. (This was not a recent event; I'm just still glad.)

Very Nice Piece on Dignity

I know; I know: It's pathetic to go on a week's hiatus and then come back with just a link to the New York Times. But this piece from David Brooks about dignity is really great. You really should read it. It's basically a brief history of dignity in America, citing three recent public phenomena, but ending on a bright spot. Wonder if anyone will think to measure again in four years?

Welcome, July!

I struggle with patriotism. There are a lot of things I love about country. There are a lot of things I am ashamed of about my country. And I don't really love much of anything blindly, which makes superficial patriotism unlikely. I guess you could say I have a critical nature. (In the sense of critique, not picking on people.) I like to think I have a deep patriotism instead, more like the kind of friendship that could include an intervention if necessary.

But it is the season to appreciate one's country, so I offer you this timely piece by Maira Kalman, from the New York Times. I love her work, the colors, the tone, all of it. This one is about a trip to Monticello. Thomas Jefferson is one of my favorite founding fathers. The Jefferson Memorial in DC is my favorite monument. I've never been to Monticello, but this makes me want to go.

Also, some song lyrics... (I should really find out who wrote this song!)

"I am a patriot. And I love my country. Because my country is all that I know. I want to be with my family. People who understand me. And I find them almost everywhere I go."


(Bonus to those in the know: White Rabbit!)