What Pastors Do on Summer Vacations, Part 1

Nothing. I did nothing, and a whole lot of it.  I lost track of what day it was.  I played Canasta into the late night (for me) hours with my family. I read novels because they sounded good and I thought I would enjoy reading them. I read the Book of Romans for the same reason. I attended a funeral on the beach (see Part 2). I stood my ground (see Part 3). We ate out a bunch, and we made easy meals when we ate in, and we ate a lot of shrimp and key lime pie both in and out.

The water was icky due to habitat-destroying releases of water from Lake Okechobee and full of jellyfish, stingrays, sawfish, and something that created yesterday’s headline:  “Sea creature bites teen fishing on Sanibel shore.”  (The television news described flesh hanging off of both legs and feet, but the newspaper interviewed the sheriff who observed laconically, “It couldn’t have been too big because of the size of the bites.”  I consider the whole affair to be Nature’s revenge for the Okechobee releases.) Yet, even my well-founded concern about habitat destruction and less-well-founded concerns about hungry apocalyptic sea creatures roaming the shore didn’t dampen my utter enjoyment of agenda-less days on a tropical island.  Snakes and lizards slithered by me while I read, and a 5-foot alligator lurked along the bike path as I pedaled by, and I loved every minute of it.

As hard as it was to pack up and leave paradise this morning, it feels great to be home!  My to-do list contains both mundane things and significant challenges. Settling back into the regular routine feels comfortable and right, and I’ve got the energy to deal with some of the more “interesting” things ahead. 

On one of the morning news shows a few days ago (I actually had time to watch the morning news shows!), there was a story on “Hail Mary-Cations.” In essence, married couples whose marriages are in danger go on a vacation as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. Some couples report finding renewed love while experiencing an African safari together. The news story told also of couples who went straight from the airport to separate apartments, with the vacation not having fixed the problem. While listening to that story, I realized how blessed I am to have time away each year with my husband and children, to renew these most important relationships.  No need for a Hail Mary when the game is going well all along.

Life is good, and I am blessed, and I am blessed to have had some time away to remember how very, very blessed I am.

On Being Tacky

Today, the Supreme Court issued an important ruling about the Voting Rights Act. This Act was hugely important in the days of the civil rights era, insuring equal access to the polls for a population that had been denied it for too long.  With the Supreme Court’s action, we are left to hope that things have changed enough that those protections are no longer necessary.  Surely, we think, we as a nation have moved beyond those days.

And yet . . . in another courthouse in another state, a racially-charged criminal case is going on as I type.  Was Trayvon Martin shot purely because he was a young black man in the wrong neighborhood, or was he shot by someone acting in self-defense? 

And yet . . . shooting targets that bleed and look suspiciously like our President were being displayed at a convention just last month.  Are the strong feelings that many bear towards Obama born out of racial hatred, or are they simply the dislike that any president bears?

And yet . . . a popular food celebrity who makes food the way that I think it ought to taste acknowledges having spoken disrespectfully of people of other races.  Paula Deen’s recent publicity demonstrates one version of growing up Southern.  She grew up in a climate in which it was somehow normal to use vulgar words for persons of a different race, or to tell jokes where the punchline lay in the ethnicity of a character.  When she acknowledged these things in open court, she lost a job and at least one sponsor. Her defenders have said, among other things, “Well, she can’t help it, it was where she was raised.”

I was raised in Georgia, too.  Although I may have been raised in the same state as Deen, I was raised in a different universe. I was taught at an early age that it was “tacky” to use the n-word, along with the d-word and the s-word. (Of course, I didn’t even know the f-word existed.) For a Southerner of my universe, there was nothing worse than being tacky. Ethnic jokes, although a little fuzzier, also fit along the spectrum of tackiness. I often forget to thank my parents for their wisdom in raising me they way that they did, and I am grateful for an upbringing that didn’t really seem that momentous at the time.

“Tacky,” of course, contains its own level of judgmentalism, even without racial connotations. Face it, none of us have perfected the art of looking at the world without filters of familiarity.  Those who are different from us are going to be judged by us differently, more harshly.

Have we evolved beyond the need for the Voting Rights Act?  I’d like to hope that the Supreme Court’s optimism about human nature is well placed.  However, if they are wrong, well then, their decision would just be . . . tacky.

Groundhogs and Grace

Yes, groundhogs can be pests.  On our 25+ acres at church, groundhog burrows have tripped up the tractor.  A few years ago, one persistent groundhog kept breaking into the church office and setting off the alarm.  Once, I stepped onto the back porch behind the office, inadvertently getting between a groundhog and its nest.  We both scared each other, and we each dashed to safety.

This morning, a baby groundhog was alone by the church.  One of our members grabbed a shovel and hoe, ready to dispatch it to the great groundhog burrow up above.  And then I came along.  There was something about that little groundhog, quivering in the shade of the church building that touched my heart.  “Not today,” I thought to myself.  I pretty much threw myself between the groundhog and the well-intentioned person as I started singing “All God’s critters got a place in the choir.” The baby groundhog skittered off to safety (probably driven by my singing voice), and I imagine that he's right now learning from his parents how to make more holes in our field and dig into our basement.

I’m not this sentimental about nuisance creatures all the time. If it had been a cockroach or a rat, my response would have been different. And there are some sparrows that are terrorizing our martin house at home that need to wing their way to heaven by whatever means possible.  Today, though, the sun was shining, and the little groundhog looked so scared as it cowered against the church building. And so a little groundhog grace was extended.

After all, none of us knows when we’ll find grace from an unexpected place.

Wolf Blitzer, Theologian

It’s the interview that has gone viral. Wolf Blitzer was interviewing a young woman holding her baby in the rubble of the Oklahoma tornado. “I guess you got to thank the Lord, right?” No response as the woman cuddled her baby. “Do you thank the Lord? For that split-second decision?” Her response, issued in a friendly voice: “I’m actually an atheist.”  Awkward laughter from both of them, and then Blitzer brings the interview to an even more awkward close. “You are? Oh, all right. But you made the right call.”

The woman is being praised for her graceful response to a question that, rather than a feel-good conclusion to an interview, turned out to be an intrusion into her personal beliefs.  Some pundits are going to so far as to say that no one should be asking for prayers for the people of Oklahoma; not the president, not the governor, and certainly not the reporters. (Follow this link to a Slate article, for instance) Instead of praying, people should be doing their jobs, setting up disaster operations or, in the case of you and me, sending money.  After all, they continue, if God is God, then God could’ve kept the tornado from hitting the elementary school and causing the deaths of seven children.  If God didn’t do that, then why should we pray to that God now?

We are facing yet another disaster, and finger pointing has begun, as always.  There is value in trying to figure out how to prevent future tragedies. This time, the cause cannot be linked to our weak gun laws or flawed mental health system or improper parenting or terrorism.  While it might be possible to link our increasingly severe weather to global climate change caused by human factors, that long-range causation isn’t getting much attention at the moment.  Instead, God is the one on the chopping block.

I can’t answer the “why” of this tornado in a way that would satisfy everyone, including myself. I know that we live in a broken world that has not yet experienced the fullness of God’s kingdom.  The clouds in the sky that bring needed rains and create beautiful, awe-inspiring sunsets are also the same clouds that drop storms that batter the earth. I can’t account for the vagaries of a tornado that would strike one school and spare another.  Just as there is no love on earth like the love of a parent for a child, there is no pain on earth like the pain of a grieving parent. Today, seven parents are grieving the loss of their children to a tornado, in addition to the other families who grieve losses of other family members. My list of things to ask God when we are finally face-to-face continues to grow.  

Just because I cannot explain it all does not, however, exempt me from my deep desire and, perhaps, obligation to pray for those affected.  I pray for the people to find healing and solace.  I pray for them to know God’s presence and love, and for them to be able to experience that presence and love through the hands of others. I pray that they will be led to help others as they themselves have been helped.  

Yes, I’ve sent money already. We’ll be receiving an offering at church this weekend, and information on how to give is the main banner on our website www.BlueSpringsUMC.org.  Our trained Disaster Response Team is on standby, prepared to go if asked. We are doing the practical stuff. Should we skip the important work of prayer?  Of course not!  God’s grace and love are more important in these moments than ever, for both the pray-ees and the pray-ers. When human understanding falls short and pain abounds, praying is exactly what we should be doing. So please pray with me, for the people affected by this tornado and for each one of us.

The Doctor's Prediction

At my first postpartum checkup, the doctor asked how the baby was doing. “He’s great,” I replied, “except that he cries whenever he’s not being held.” With great prescience, the doctor replied, “Ahh, well, the day will come when you will cry because you can no longer hold him.”

Almost a quarter of a century later, that day has arrived. On Sunday, my son is getting married to a wonderful, brilliant, sweet, and beautiful young woman who is as madly in love with him as he is with her. The tears will come, but they will be tears of happiness.

Except. When they announced that they were getting married in Hawaii, which is halfway between her family and ours, I blithely offered to perform the wedding rather than hiring a stranger to do the deed.  What was I thinking? When Caroline got married ten months ago, it wasn’t a problem to discreetly wipe the tears way whenever the pastor prayed. I was able to remain mostly composed. As the officiant, there will be few opportunities to wipe my tears away unseen.  Not only that, but once I start crying, I don’t stop, either.  

I always assure couples during pre-marital sessions that no matter what glitches happen the day of the wedding, they will be married at the end of the day, no matter what. I also promise them that, even if they get overwhelmed during the ceremony, they only have to look to me and I will tell them what to say or do next. I can’t guarantee much of anything to Winn and Farani if I’m a sobbing mass of tears. 

I was confiding my fears to Winn the other day. “What if you end up not married, because I couldn’t get through the ceremony?” “Well then, Mom, I’ll be homeless.” “Homeless?”  “The lease on my apartment ends on May 1, and all my stuff will have been moved to Farani’s apartment. If we’re not married, then I’ve got nowhere to live.”

 

Okay. I’ll suck it up and get them married. The words of that doctor will come true that day, but not until I’ve done my job to the best of my abilities.  After the ceremony- and after the pictures, I hope, so that my face won’t be all blotchy- then the joyful tears will flow. 

(Picture of Winn on his baptism day, November 1988.)