the personal touch

I spend a small amount of time considering the question of “legacy.” Not in the presidential sense but rather in the sense that everything I do contains a little bit of me, my thoughts and habits and so simply by breathing in the air in a particular place (church) I tend to have an effect on the culture by a) being in a leadership role and b) by portraying to the world my own worldview.

Each end every day I am modeling something, concern, care, selfishness (hey, not every day is a good one) without any intention of doing so as all of us do and so there is the conundrum of being a role model and creating a culture in subtle ways while all the while trying to be intentional about actions and behaviors. There are limits to how much self-analysis I can manage in a given day and so, so much of this behavior is unconscious and unevaluated that is weirds me out to think what it is that might come about because of this fact of life; that we create reality by living in it.

The thing that brought this to mind is that I am feeling a bit nostalgic these days and have struck on the idea of casting back into memory and resurrecting habits and traditions of past years to make Christmas into a moment that we can inhabit not just for the season but also for the whole year. What would it be like to have that kind of child-like anticipation of graces and joys to come? Could we recapture that without turning it into something else, the typical impatience that we all suffer through with the help of the media constantly telling us that we deserve a break today, not tomorrow today!

It could be that since I was raised in a presents-on-Christmas-morning household, that I have simply learned to be patient about those kinds of things. There was no rush, the morning would come when it came and that was all there was to it. The morning could be bleary eyed for my parents, yet joyful exuberance for my brother and me.  Having never owned a cell-phone I was actually happy with new sweaters. Knowing that we were not wealthy (as much as we think that we didn’t know, we all did, we had wealthy classmates and they got different, better stuff) we knew that we got the things that we needed and we looked for that morning to dawn with eagerness.

simple  childlike  free

Did that just disappear with childhood?

Gracious Lord, giver of life and of love and of freedom in Christ have mercy on us. Show us the way to be at peace with our world instead of at war with it, constantly having to seek advantage. Let us know the sweetness of just family and just love and just hope, time spent in community, after all, “it is not good for people to be alone” and we’ve lost that a little bit. Show us the way.

Absolute suffering

The bagpipe played “Amazing Grace” and a family walked out of the church with the knowledge that their Son, husband, father, brother, friend, mentor had passed and the only thing visible to those of us gathered was the absolute suffering that was etched on their faces.

I for one am not a fan of Amazing Grace played on anything but a bagpipe. Something stirs the blood in such a case and there is nothing you can think about but the fragility of man and the eternal, patient grace of God.

We bid farewell to one good man today, but we got a glimpse at the redeeming power of faith in the eyes of those who wept, for their own losses to be sure, but in love for the family and friends of the departed, for the love of them who remain and must now try and make a life without . . . well, just without.

Why do we try and fill such times with happy thoughts? With too many words? Job’s friends had it just right when they showed up and simply sat with him, in company and sympathy. When they opened their mouths, nothing good came out. Sometimes all that is required of us is “Man, that sucks!” because that is the only truth sometimes, the pain here and now, blotting out even the promise for a moment, blotting out even the eternity the cusp of which we are riding every day.

The pain will ease. With or without us the pain will recede because life is a persistent force. Then the Word is a true comfort because we will no longer be screaming out our pain.

There is a time to just sit and cry. But that time will pass.

Probably not today.

Arrogance and swagger

I wonder how a pastor can assert his authority these days. Tenuous ground to be sure in days when church shopping has made any one church a disposable commodity in people’s minds. Sometimes you must preach the law and instead of finding conviction, you see that backs of their heads as they leave the church, sometimes not to return.

I’m not one to mince words, conviction is conviction and most people need more of it rather than less of it in their lives myself included, and I don’t think anyone could accuse me of being too quick to pardon myself so I guess I just wish that we had a culture that respected honest debate and honesty in the service of the truth a little more. We’re too conditioned to be suspicious of each other’s motives to listen with an open mind. In equal measure, we’re too acculturated to seeking rhetorical advantage to just speak the truth in order to have it spoken.

Isn’t that what we are called to do, please comment, since I can only speak from the position of the one in the puplit, aren’t we supposed to call Bull%$#t when it truly is bull%$#t? And not necessarily just to point and blame, but to accept equal measure of culpability, mostly in the realm of sins of ommission, since they are pretty much the American way. We must have the most advanced necks in all of human histiry the way we turn away so often and so well.

Feeling a little grumpy, sorry about that. Got to get Caitlyn to Basketball, got to do Bible Study this evening, got to, got to, got to . . .

still want to though, which is a blessing beyond measure

the sounds of silence

maybe the reason that this song resonates so much is that the people who wrote it were New Yorkers.

There is no silence here. Instead of Oxygen bars there should be little places where for $5 you could just have 15 minutes of silence, pure and complete. Because there is no time at which this city even approaches silence, it’s never even quiet here.

How can you hear the Word? How can you listen for the spirit above the honking of horns and the rumbling of buses and those are just the ones that are obvious, the rumbling of the subway is so far to the background that you’d have to eliminate 90% of the other noise to even hear it, but it destroys the very possibility of quiet.

OTOH, there is a lot of cool stuff in this city. Caitlyn wants to see the statue of Liberty so we’re taking the Staten island ferry today, checking out the place where Debbie gets her flute work done and maybe have a reuben in this nice deli across the street, and then szechuan in Queens this evening with friends. All in all not bad, but this place really never sleeps . . .

Last day of school

many pictures of the last day

I am going to miss showing up on Tuesdays and Fridays and watching her class. We’ll try and see as many friends over the summer as possible. Maybe some of the kids from her class can come too . . .

What is it that makes us love? Is it chemistry? Is it Kismet? Is it common cause, the knowledge that we’re all in this together, striving that our children will grow strong and sure. In You, Lord, we have that common cause with all who have heard your word. Make us joyful listeners.

Kids, Kids and the garden (again)

So we had the last day of Sunday School and as we have done in recent years, we brought the good folks from Macdonald Ranch out for the kids to experience, petting zoo fashion. It was a great time and some of the more jaded kids, the ones normally whinging about getting back home to their Wii even seemed to find it a worthwhile experience.

How is it that we end up doing this to kids? By trying to give them everything we can, we end up taking things from them. If we give them a Wii, or a spiffy cell-phone or a computer, and they stay indoors in their safe and sanitized home, haven’t we in truth robbed them of something else? How do we weigh the things that we give and take away and how do we judge which one is more important?

New families and old in an uneasy mix. When can we get to the point where we all just trust in faith that we’re members, one and all, in the family of God. If we have a hard time teaching it to the kids, will we ever be able to get it across to the adults?

Can I portray trust enough to model it to others?

Then there’s the garden which I came home to that evening. I thought I’d give you an updated look.

The Minister’s Discount

I have been entertained on a number of occasions by stories of Debbie’s Grandfather and even her uncle shopping and simply being out in the world and asking for (and receiving) the “minister’s discount.” I imagine that this is one of the reasons that in days past, pastors and the like always went around vested, not only would you garner a bit more respect, but there was in popular culture a sense that you were a person of substance, thought you didn’t earn much money. Maybe times were different then and it was seen as noble to sacrifice material success for the sake of a calling, but wearing the collar certainly cemented you within a certain orbit of thought and behavior and people responded.

Out in California, there is most definitely less deference and respect given to members of the clergy and there is almost no administrative recognition, but it has occurred to me in recent weeks that even among the unchurched, there is an oddly rising tide of recognition of the place of clergy in society that I find very interesting.

Stores in the neighborhood make accommodations for me because they know that I serve a church. For example, a fire bowl was on sale outside one of the local hardware stores and I mentioned in passing that if it came down below 80 or 100 dollars they should call me. When asked what it was for I explained the Easter Vigil to them and told them about kindling the New Flame for the sanctuary. The price moved to $80 in an instant.

Tires get mounted for free, tune-ups happen for the price of the parts, fig trees are delivered to me at work when I mention that I might like to have one.

It feels like the world is turning again and that the casual disdain for clergy that seemed fairly prevalent in places like California specially may be making way for a newfound understanding that faith leaders are not necessarily divisive influences, that we (if we portray ourselves this way) can be islands of calm in a harried world (Steinke’s “non-anxious presence) and there is some value in that.

I feel especially “cared for” here. Some of the terms have changed but I am glad to be here.

Okay, maybe I’m overstating it. It was 80 degrees this morning at 6. If I’d wanted weather like that I’d have stayed in Minneapolis! 100 degrees this afternoon!

We have a new Bishop

It is an odd process, one fraught with questions and yet it seems to nurture a sense of the Holy Spirit working in and through the election and in the end we have a new Bishop Elected in the Sierra Pacific Synod, Mark Holmerud.

I’m not sure that it is a job I’d wish on a dog, let alone a pastor I like and have respect for. Necessarily, like the presidency, there is really no adequate training for the position, nothing is like being bishop and being bishop is like nothing else and so we have what we have and each is different.

And around here they are the victim of what I think of as tragically poor planning in and through the merger way back when which saddled the bishop with 204 congregations spread out over a quite large region, from northern Nevada across northern California and down into the central part, past Monterey. Beyond the geography there is the incredible diversity of the synod, from Humboldt county to Fresno, from San Francisco to Elko, Nevada the disparity in priorities and beliefs is staggering.

And so I find it odd that the thing that makes me feel as if I were truly a part of this synod is the fact that i have a more than nodding relationship with four of the six candidates who were running. It is odd to feel that connected, but I guess that the Lutheran world really isn’t all that big.

Back at home some of the peach Irises have bloomed and so I thought I’d send along a picture:

be well, more about living outside (yourself and your home) later I suppose

Tim

Fear and loathing in Santa Rosa

Why am I afraid of things going well?

Things are going well at church, life at home is busy and complicated yet good in a more profound way than I can explain, and I have Caitlyn as this little bundle of hope and joy running around making me happy. Is it something just with me that I am waiting for another shoe to drop?

The weirdest thing is, I think that it’s theological in nature. I have seen too many ministries which have become stale and comfortable and have therefore become passe and have vanished or at least diminished to the point of vanishing and now that I think about it I have seen marriages and families in the same predicament, I guess that I fear success because it is so-o-o-o-o-o-o seductive to try and never deviate from what got you here and then not realizing that you are going there.

I think this just makes it a great time to gather up my strength, bolstered by good times and happiness, and see what we can do next. What challenges face us in ministry and how can we get there? What can Debbie and I do to make our lives together even better? What can we do to keep Caitlyn growing up the way she is, confident, secure, loving, trusting, capable?

That’s my word for the day, a question this time. What’s next? What can we do better tomorrow than we did today? What can we try tomorrow that we were too afraid to try today? How can we embody Christ tomorrow that is more meaningful than what we have been doing lately?

“the renewing of your senses” sez Paul.

gimme some of THAT!

blessings, Tim

Living Outside

Maybe not outside of yourself, but at least outside of your house. The first of the springs irises have bloomed and it inspired me to get this thing up and running again, to try and make some kind of statement about once or twice a week about living a life within the love of God.

These are a dark, almost black iris that we bought at the annual iris sale. They were out of the completely black ones, which were very beautiful. These bloomed half-heartedly last year but have just exploded this year. They are next to the Shamouti Orange tree which appears ready to produce for the first time this year.

Also a lot of work has been done (and more needs to be) in the back yard for the garden. Since the soil here is largely adobe clay, the beds are above ground since I do not have the time nor inclination to spend hours digging, tilling and mixing in amendments to the soil.

The tented bed is carrots and radishes, since they scorch in the sun until they are big enough. The other beds are largely un-planted, the big charity plant sale if the weekend of the 25th (which I will miss because of Synod Assembly, but I’ve given Debbie a list.

California is truly a blessed place at times like this. I will be less sanguine about it when it is 95 degrees, but for today it is paradise. Ministry is good, the garden is good, the family is good, all the time God is good.

hope your spring is also bringing you joy (Kendi and Erik have already gotten theirs!)

Amen